Chương 21: The Ruther Institute

"Would you mind telling me why you're sitting over there?" Asked the young man wrapped in a brown cloak, his shoulders resting against the back of his armchair.

"There was plenty of space, and it seemed a shame to make you feel cramped." Replied the other boy, hesitant, in a simple white shirt, dressed with a clean, understated elegance. His trousers looked as though they'd come directly from a drawer decades old, but they gave him a surprisingly mature air. On his knee rested a black shoulder bag, stuffed with unusual metal cubes.

"Would you like me to give you my seat, Lance?" He asked with a smile, pointing the tip of his boot toward the space between Monica and Jeanne, who both looked puzzled at the exchange and at how Lance had managed to retreat to the farthest end of the Diem.

"Unfair." He murmured, not dignifying his interlocutor, Maliard Turner, with a direct reply. After the fight and Lautre's withdrawal from the mission, Lance had been added to the team for Operation Dawn. There had, however, been some complications.

"Would someone care to tell me what you two are talking about?" Monica cut in, looking at Lance in his outfit, which made him look like a perfectly convincing university professor.

"Why not ask Mr Solitude?" Maliard smiled, tilting his head toward the boy, whose expression now wore nervousness and embarrassment in roughly equal measure.

"Fair point. Why did you sit there, Lance?" Monica asked, first looking him in the face, then directing her gaze pointedly at the space between herself and Jeanne.

"Wouldn't we have been too crowded?" He countered, moving his eyes to the ceiling, then to the overhead lockers, his fingers running along the armrests, unable to hold still.

"Don't you think it's rude to avoid me, after you forced me to come with you?" She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. Her gaze cut through Lance and left him flat against his seat.

"Nobody forced you to come, Commander." Maliard murmured, just loud enough for Monica to hear. She turned on him with the same look.

"If Lautre had come, I'd have felt safe! I can't leave him with you!" She exclaimed, pointing at Lance as though he were something fragile.

"I'm not sure I enjoy being treated like a breakable parcel..." He whispered, pulling his gaze away from the argument unfolding in front of him.

"Hey, don't disappear! Come and sit here!" Monica fixed him in her sights instantly, as though she'd had him marked the whole time. Lance tried a gentle objection, but was dragged over regardless, under Maliard's amused look. Jeanne was half asleep and had noticed nothing. She had spent her small waking time enjoying the view of clouds brushed by the Diem's hull until she had settled against the window. The journey went smoothly until a jolt sent Jeanne's head sliding onto Lance's shoulder.

He went almost white, remaining fixed to the backrest, breathing being the only movement his body dared make. Her pale hair slipped along his neck and settled on his shirt. He swallowed with difficulty, attempting to distract himself from the faintly sweet vanilla scent drifting past his nose. Monica took in the scene and smiled, then narrowed her eyes into an expression of calculated mischief, apparently having arrived at the most entertaining idea available.

She pretended to slip, settling her head against his side, delivering the final blow to his poor heart.

"You don't mind if I rest a little?" She smiled, closing her eyes before waiting for an answer.

"Think of it as training." Maliard said, full of malice, scrolling through his watch screen in search of notes and research entries.

"I HATE THIS." The outburst of rage existed only in his mind, given that he had surrendered entirely to the feminine forces leaning against his shoulders. After the long journey and a landing that was turbulent for Lance and only him, the entire team met with Round's group. The butler hurried to greet him, well aware of the condition in which he had spent four months. Winter had reached even Bayork, smothering the normally clear sky with heavy grey clouds.

The sea air had grown heavier, the atmosphere almost saturated with water.

"How are you, young Mr Klint?" Round smiled, taking his hands with worry. The boy's face was pale, though a trace of colour had spread along his cheeks.

"All good, Round. I told you already to drop the formalities." He replied, shaking off that sensation of warmth and fragrance.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Klint."

"Mr. doesn't work either. Just Lance, or Klint." He answered, masking his embarrassment as he slipped from Round's grip. The butler had unconsciously anchored his gloves to Lance's fingers.

"How is it you go by your surname?" Monica asked, collecting a case from one of the masked butlers.

"You're all the ones using a dozen different names for me. At this point, I've got used to it." He replied, looking first at Monica, then at Jeanne, who was absorbed in the dewdrops between the plants.

"Can I still call you Lancy?" She smiled, leaning toward him. Her blond tips swayed in his direction. In answer, Lance crossed his arms without deigning to open his mouth. Monica sighed and drifted away, trailing a dark air behind her.

"Would you give me a brief recap of the plan?" He turned toward Maliard, seated on a pile of rocks nearby, holding between his large fingers a remarkably thin glass screen with a squared shape. He raised his gaze without stopping his work on it.

"You should have come to this morning's meeting." He replied dismissively, returning his attention to the screen.

"I apologise, but someone thought it appropriate to dress me like this." He exclaimed, recalling very precisely how Lautre, Edvard, and Lucas had dragged him to Maverick's workshop to have appropriate mission clothing made. Maverick's room was extraordinarily complex: beyond serving as an armoury, it functioned as a tailor's workshop, an information centre, and even the sleeping quarters of its own inhabitant.

"Right. I believe I told him to prepare you a cover identity." Maliard sighed, jumping down from the rock and heading toward Lance. Maliard Turner was, alongside Lautre and Lucas, one of the Agency's officers: barely looking twenty, but someone who had lived long enough to carry the memory of the Great War's horrors. His greenish jacket moved with his cloak. A thin ray of sun lit the fragments of iron protruding from his forearm.

"You've been chosen to infiltrate the Ruther Institute, approach Grayson Dirac, and neutralise him, avoiding violent methods if at all possible." He answered coolly, with a pointed emphasis toward the end, as though underlining something.

"No need to underline the last part. You know that, don't you?" Lance looked at him for a moment, something beginning to collect in his expression.

"Excluding your little escapades at Arden Ring, your conduct with Lautre and with me hasn't exactly struck me as the most peaceful, has it?" Maliard's tone took on an almost peremptory quality, interrogatory even.

"If you'd behaved civilly, we wouldn't have this kind of dynamic now." The reply came almost immediately. He had no intention of releasing his hold on the subject.

"If you weren't such a damned paladin, we might have had fewer problems!" Maliard exclaimed, pressing down on him, more in a metaphorical sense, since Turner and Klint stood at roughly the same height.

"If you were even slightly more civil, we wouldn't be standing here arguing!" Lance pointed his finger directly at his face, entirely untroubled by the frustration slowly slipping through his own lips.

"You little—""STOP! Could you both please stop arguing? We have work to do here." Monica stepped in, grabbing Maliard by the shoulder and pulling him away from Lance.

"I expect this from him, but Lancy, you should know better." She murmured, pressing her face into the palm of her free hand while keeping hold of another case, vaguely shaped like a fairly substantial musical instrument.

"I thought I asked you not to call me that." He replied, looking at the ground, flat and tired.

"I'm sorry, I have a somewhat fragile memory and giving things nicknames helps me." She smiled, rubbing her free hand against her head. Her face was bright as she moved away.

"Did you already forget my name?!" Monica looked at him without releasing the grip on Maliard's shoulder. She thought for a bit before shaking her head. Lance remained there, mouth gaping open.

"She's a little pitiable, really. Maybe I should let her." He thought this, rejoining the group a little ahead.

"Here, let me take that." He turned to Jeanne, who was carrying an inhuman quantity of luggage on her shoulders with apparent calm.

"There's no need, I'm fine." She smiled, but Lance took the bags from her shoulders regardless, immediately registering the weight pressing down on her body." THIS IS AN ACTUAL BOULDER!" He had to draw on a considerable portion of his body's strength to hold the load he had so generously taken from his companion.

"Are you… all right?" She asked, stepping closer, reaching to take the bags back. He set off at once, turning only to smile at her.

"This girl is a rare case." The thought that Jeanne was quite a singular person had been growing in his mind since he had seen her before his duel with Maliard. But the more time he spent with her, the more he came to understand that she was in the same category as himself.

"Here, Lance, carry this one too, please." Monica tossed her case onto the pile, sending Lance dangerously close to the grass.

"Is this a punishment?" He complained, trying to balance the burden on his shoulders, swaying in every direction like a candle flame.

"I don't know... You argued back at the meeting several times, and then—" Monica drew alongside him, setting another container on the edge of one of the cases.

"YES, I GET IT! CAN WE PLEASE MOVE?" He exploded, setting off at a pace toward Round's cars, under Jeanne's worried gaze and Monica's smile. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. The whole group loaded the bags into the vehicles, and without any announcement, they watched them race off along the road and disappear into the undergrowth.

Lance and Jeanne turned in confusion, only to notice Monica and Maliard lowering themselves into a hatch concealed beneath moss and grass.

"We're taking the long way. A couple of hours on foot." Maliard said and disappeared into the dark of the tunnel, followed shortly by Monica.

"Do you have a torch?" Jeanne asked, leaning over the ladder and turning back to look at Lance, who had somehow produced from his bag a wide assortment of torches and light-sticks. Jeanne lit up and swayed with delight, lowering herself slowly behind him.

"We have Maverick to thank for all this. I don't know why, but he stocked us with every possible tool." He explained, making the old wooden ladder creak. The rungs were covered in mould and soil, and it was a small miracle the ladder hadn't already given way under two people.

"Lance, can you pass me a light? I can't see anything." She murmured, reaching her hand toward him. He rummaged in his bag and found a cylindrical light-stick with a faint violet glow. He was about to raise his gaze and hand it to her, but a wave of embarrassment crossed him, and his arm moved blindly instead. He tried desperately to pass the stick, waving his hand in the faint torchlight he held. Suddenly, he felt the stick strike something soft just above him.

Jeanne jolted, slipping on the moss and losing her grip. Her fall stopped quickly, her legs swinging in the void, held at the wrist by Lance's free hand, anchored to the damp wood with a grip that was quite extraordinary.

"Are you all right?" He asked, tightening his hold, unable to look her in the face. He lifted her and helped her find purchase on the ladder again. He finally turned to signal to her and hand over the light-stick, but a terribly ominous sound accompanied the movement. Crack! The ladder broke, sending Lance and the splintered wood down into the darkness below. He could only watch Jeanne's face, lit by the pale light, growing smaller above him.

"I did the right thing." A smile settled on his face as he fell, awaiting with some anticipation the cold contact with the floor, which arrived unexpectedly quickly. His back hit the earth in front of the exasperated eyes of Maliard and Monica, who were trying to work out why Lance was lying in the dirt with that expression.

"I didn't break anything?" He realised this, jumping to his feet in front of them and brushing the dirt from his clothes.

"Why do you have torches?" Monica asked, pointing first at the battery light in his hand, then at the stick Jeanne was carrying, having just set foot on the gallery floor.

"Maverick gave them to us!" He answered quickly, showing all the tools packed into his bag.

"The NOIRTECH has a powerful integrated light..." She added, demonstrating how a violet beam was emitted from the wrist.

"I'd forgotten that's what they called it." The memory surfaced of him in the Arden Ring square, and of the tremendously awkward way his equipment had been named.

"Are you all right?" Jeanne asked, hurrying to reach him, inspecting his clothes.

"Move. We need to be there by nine. The tunnel route takes us directly to Fifth Boulevard." Maliard said, and set off into the dark.

"But Lance... Can't you see in the dark?" Lance and Jeanne looked at each other for a moment and sighed in unison, then were each taken by the hand by Monica and pulled along.

"What are these tunnels?" He asked, feeling the mud on the walls as they walked. They had already been going for a while, passing dozens of junctions and new caves.

"They're the passages dug during the Great War to shelter the population from the bombardments. The majority have been sealed off because of collapses and the complex cave networks that undermined the structural integrity of the conduits." Maliard explained, cutting the dark open with the beam of light from his watch.

"You should know... Bayork was destroyed during the bombardments. Part of the coast sank into the ocean, giving the current capital its funnel shape." Monica added, turning toward them with a proud and satisfied smile.

"In plain terms, Bayork is built on a crater." Maliard concluded, his tone deeply weary and flat. The team kept marching in the faint glow of the violent light, with only the sound of wet drippings and their own soles on the dusty ground.

"You mentioned caves. What's below these tunnels?" Lance broke the silence, more curious than ever, looking down as he walked.

"The remains of old Bayork, the catacombs, and I would suppose some ancient archaeological sites from an earlier epoch." Maliard said, and he seemed genuinely exhausted by the need to keep dispensing answers.

"Epochs?" He kept producing one question after another, driven by an unreasonable curiosity. Maliard was about to turn and shout at him, but the voice of Jeanne behind his shoulder stopped him.

"Noel told me. The past epochs run from the Beginning, The First Epoch, through to the Age of Men, which is our own." She explained, swaying at his side, looking at him with a smile.

"Many thanks for the answer, but what happened in the gap between the Beginning and our own epoch?" Lance pointed out this important missing detail in Jeanne's explanation.

"I asked Noel the same thing, but he simply said that not even historians have found anything from that period."

"Is it even possible to not find anything? Well, thank you for the answer, Jeanne." Lance smiled, genuinely, causing Jeanne's embarrassment as she slipped behind him. Monica sighed, slowing until she stopped. Something hovered in the air around her before she began to speak.

"What Jeanne said isn't wrong. But it isn't entirely right either." She leaned against the wall as she spoke, drawing even Maliard's attention.

"The information concerning the ' Middle Epoch' is extremely classified. Even I, as Commander, don't have full access to it. The only ones who know anything are the high officers of Termìe, the queen of Northest, and probably—" Her discourse broke off abruptly, leaving a halo of mystery around the pause.

"Does the Hel factor into it?" Lance chose not to dwell on the pause and walked on.

"You're sharp, Mr Amnesia. It was in that epoch that the first events of contact with the Hel appeared. However, only sacred texts held by the Holy Empire and a few undecipherable artefacts remain." This time, Maliard spoke from the heart, moving ahead of him to light the way.

"Some have taken to calling it the ' Age of Gods', though I doubt that's the right framing. People delude themselves and fall into awe at the first sight of something that can't be explained immediately by reason." He smiled, turning his back on the group, thinning out the dark atmosphere in the tunnel.

"Gods?" Jeanne murmured curiously, leaning out from behind Lance and startling him for a moment.

"Just theories and stories. Though the existence of the Hel makes it not impossible that those religions arose from direct contacts or Singularities." Monica concluded, following Maliard.

"Come on, we're almost there." She smiled and vanished into the dark ahead, her faint violet lantern already moving on. Jeanne began to tremble, pulling close behind Lance as the gallery swallowed them further into the dark. He panicked quietly, pulling out another light-stick and tearing off the cap. Jeanne calmed, following the light in Lance's hands. Monica and Lance sped up a bit, talking about dinner, on the suggestion of the commander, leaving Maliard and Jeanne behind.

The girl rubbed her elbow, casting her gaze on the ground.

"Hey Nurse..." She jolted awake as soon as Maliard's voice reached her ears." Did I do something wrong? Is he mad cause I am friends with Lance?" While her mind was racing, the man simply petted her head.

"You did a good job in the last few months, Jeanne." She met his eyes, filled with complete bewilderment.

"Help him out a bit, that moron is a pain in the ass to deal with." He sped up, leaving her slightly behind to think.

"But... W-Why are you talking to me now!" She whispered to herself, suddenly seeing the violent glow growing fainter. After another very long walk, a bright light caught a metal staircase at the far end of the corridor. One by one, they climbed the slippery, rusted surface, which was at least decisively sturdier than the rotten wood of before.

"Welcome to our operational base," Monica announced with an enthusiasm that the rest of the group did not return.

"I have to say, it's rather… Clean." Lance said, looking carefully around the room they had arrived in. It was an old-style sitting room, probably dating from before the war. A brown sofa and a heavy, dark-wood table of a vaguely oval shape occupied most of the space. Ruined, torn paintings decorated the white walls. The first rays of the morning filtered through the window.

"It's an old villa belonging to the Ruther family. Old only on the outside, Round has put the interior back in order!" Monica said.

"Smells of mould, though..." Maliard complained, sitting on the sofa as he pulled from the inner pocket of his cloak a black cube no larger than a die. The small device expanded quickly on the table after it stopped rolling, projecting a hologram with Dirac's face and the floor plan of the Ruther Institute.

"Listen carefully, because I won't repeat myself." His gaze scanned everyone present, landing with particular force on Monica and Lance, sparing Jeanne by a margin. They all sat around, spreading out on the greenish carpet. Maliard looked almost disappointed by a scene that could have belonged to a nursery, but chose to ignore it.

"Lance has been chosen to infiltrate the Institute, approach Grayson Dirac, and neutralise him, ideally without casualties." He began his explanation, fixing his eyes on him.

"Lucas has given us an optimal window of approximately three days. Once that threshold is crossed, it would be preferable to detain Dirac by force, even without evidence."

"That strikes me as a rather unorthodox method." Monica added, thinking through what Maliard had said.

"If the individual in question risks an Awakening of those proportions in a public area with Changeant around, I prefer a result obtained in the roughest way possible to weeping over a more generous failure." His tone grew colder as he moved through the holograms.

"Lance, try to get close to him and gather information. Jeanne and Monica will cover you during the operation. I'll manage the data and movements." No objection appeared to rise from the group of Agents, which lifted Maliard's mood somewhat.

"Tomorrow is day one. I've already prepared the documents and the cover identity. Get some rest." He concluded, rising from the sofa and beginning to climb the stairs.

"I forgot to mention, there are only three rooms..." Monica said with an absentminded smile, leaving Maliard, Lance, and Jeanne in complete stupefaction.

"I've already shared a room with Jeanne, and that was an endeavour. Sharing with Monica sounds considerably worse." Running through every possible configuration that might allow him a decent night's rest, he arrived at only one unpleasant conclusion.

"Maliard and I will share." He said, with a smile that masked his dismay, which was partly caused by Maliard's petrified expression. He began climbing the stairs, arguing under his breath with his new roommate. Monica smiled, watching them go. Jeanne, for her part, looked distinctly concerned about the unusual pairing.