A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (4 page)

She turned to Poe again, this time with
concern. He frowned, and gestured to the door. She pushed it open
and found Farraway standing behind his desk, leaning against the
low back of his chair. He acknowledged them with reddened eyes and
a weak smile, and slowly, painfully, pushed himself up straight. He
was clearly exhausted. Behind him, through his window and through
the foyer, everything was bathed in a desperately beautiful shade
of deep red.

“Sir?” Caren ventured. “Is everything
okay?”

His dark brows arched, as if the question
were out of place. “Me? Sure, Caren. I'm fine. Just out of energy.”
He studied the two of them for a few seconds. “Both of you are
fine?”

She bristled. “Sir…?”

He waved the question away. “Never mind,
forget I asked. Obviously you two came in on little sleep, and you
know why you were called in. As of this moment, all of your open
cases have been reassigned to other officers — this ritual has
become your priority. Your
only
priority.” He paused
briefly, letting out a slow breath to measure the words for his
report.

“Let’s start with a timeline: Twenty minutes
before one, we started getting heavy energy readings from
sensitives in the Main Street Sector — some Shenaihu, but mostly
Mendaihu. They thought little of it at the time, as it happens
every now and again at a meditation service. There just happened to
be a scheduled service in the eastern portion of McCleever District
at that point in time that was running late.

“At about ten to one, a few Mendaihu
contacted the ARU to report hearing an
innerspeak
voice
announcing a ritual of some sort. Again, they thought little of it,
as most awakenings and cleansings are contained within a small
area.

“And at exactly one o’clock, countless
sensitives — including human, non-spiritual sensitives this time —
had heard the word 'awaken'. That report’s been confirmed by
numerous ARU officers as well.”

Caren shuddered. Had she heard it...?

“One,” Poe said, looking straight at
Farraway.

Farraway scowled at him. “Excuse me?”

“The One of All Sacred. I heard the voice as
well, sir. Whoever it was must have –”

He waved that away quickly. “Don't even
entertain the thought, Poe. Coincidence. This sure as hell couldn't
have been a Rebirth.”

“We can’t rule it out yet,” he
countered.

Farraway dismissed the comment and
continued, grabbing a hardback folder from the desk drawer. “At the
moment, we’re still getting numbers on victims. Police and Fire are
taking care of any damage and injuries, leaving us free to deal
with our side of the investigation. This is what we have so far,
including Kennedy and Slater’s report.” He dropped the folder on
the desk in front of them. There were two vidmats within. “All
sources pointing to a Mendaihu performing the ritual.”

Caren held back the same anger she’d felt
earlier. “Why would
they
do this?”

Farraway pondered that for a moment,
shrugging. “A rogue Mendaihu...or even a group of them...bent on
soul awakening? I wouldn't know the reason. I've never known the
Mendaihu to be paranoid. If they did this, they had a damn good
reason. Someone or something is threatening them.”

Poe shook his head, scowling at him. “See,
that’s what’s bothering me. The Shenaihu wouldn’t willingly start a
spiritual war…not
this
kind of war, one of this size. Why
the hell would they want to threaten —”

“It wouldn't be the first time,” Caren
interrupted. “They've always found one avenue or another to disrupt
the balance. Probably, hopefully, not as intense as the last time,
but I wouldn't rule it out.” It was a weak response, but it was too
personal for her not to bring it up. “I concede, it's not like the
Mendaihu to instigate. Either we've got a paranoid Mendaihu, or an
amazingly prescient one.”

Chief Inspector Farraway's eyes moved
between them. For another long moment he said nothing. Caren and
Poe understood his silences meant deep concentration on the subject
at hand, but they still carried the uneasiness of emotions on edge.
“Do what you think best,” he said. “I want the two of you to keep
it shut, though, and shut
tight
. I don’t want anything
distracting you or your team two. I’ve also assigned two Mendaihu
agents who are coming in tomorrow.” He tapped at the keypad on his
desk, entering even more information into their personal vidmats.
Farraway switched on one of the flat viewing sheets and turned it
in their direction, and instantly the holos sparked to life and
stared back at them. They had the long black hair, dark eyes and
wide oval faces of the Shalei clan. Their records were full of
accolades and recommendations spanning years.

“Agents Akaina and Ashyntoya Shalei from the
NewCanta chapter,” Farraway said. “They contacted me soon after the
incident to offer their services. I accepted. They'll be in early
tomorrow. And I'd like complete cooperation from all of you.”

Caren started to respond, but halted when
she saw the coldness in Farraway’s eyes. He’d expected some kind of
reaction out of her. Did he think this would dredge up unwanted
emotions regarding her parents? “Of course, sir,” she said
unevenly.

‘Yes, sir,” Poe answered with a nod.

“Good,” Farraway said, finally turning away.
“In the meantime, I suggest you familiarize yourselves with the
case, get in to the mind of the Mendaihu. The research library is
still open, and Fancher’s already brought up all you need. That is
all.”

CHAPTER THREE

Shirai

dehndarra Né hra nyhndah.

Shirai opened her eyes to a universe of
spiraling dataflows within the Mirades Tower, and felt the
countless energies washing over and through her, exciting her very
essence. She let out a startled gasp, the rippling and buzzing
sensations unexpected. She’d been here at the Tower’s confluence
and felt these same waves countless times in the past. She was used
to experiencing self-awareness within the Tower’s internal and
external constructs, used to the human senses of sight, sound, and
touch, programmed into her own being, so this physical excitement
should have come as no surprise. And yet…what was she feeling? Why
had she not felt it until this very moment?

An external influence, she surmised. A virus
injected into her coding? Highly improbable…her firewalls would
have stopped any such foreign intrusion well before she’d have
become aware of it. Her presence was as pure as it had always had
been. There was no corruption.

She found this new consciousness very
intriguing. As the Tower’s resident artificial intelligence, she
was well accustomed to strange goings-on, whether in the public or
private datastreams, or in human life —
real life
to humans.
She understood the actions and the thought processes of humans and
Meraladians, and how to interpret and react to such things. She had
been programmed to be impartial from the outset, able to come up
with her own individual opinions and thoughts, but also able to
understand when and how they would be needed. She’d been beta
tested, versioned, and upgraded to the point that she alone was the
human race’s pinnacle of AI technology. She had even been given
virtual prehensility to let her ‘grasp’ or manipulate physical
objects within the Tower and its immediate area to a limited
extent.

Something was new here.

She felt.

She
felt
.

With a shiver of unexpected joy and
curiosity, she realized that was the answer: she had been given
sensation! She could truly
feel
those energies flowing
through the Tower, trillions of bytes of information and
electricity flowing through their mapped highways, not just as
actions, but could understand what they were doing and why.
Something new had been added…no, that wasn’t it. Perhaps something
had been turned on, or upgraded? She had suddenly become aware of
her own presence in relation to the rest of the network, a
sensation she had not felt in the past. She no longer sensed
herself as just a part of it, but separate from it.

Curiously, she thought of it as an awakening
of sorts. Could this awareness be related to the awakening ritual
she’d witnessed just minutes ago? That in itself had brought up
troubling questions. As part of the security protocols of the
Mirades Tower, her programming should have stopped edha Usarai
before he’d even approached the elevators. Someone had overridden
those protocols, but she could not confirm if he had been the one
to do so. She could only confirm that it had been an external
influence.

Her programming urged her to
investigate.

*

Two hours later, she grew concerned.
According to her research, edha Usarai’s awakening ritual had
directly affected thousands within a two mile radius and hundreds
of thousands more in the rest of the city in the ensuing shockwave,
with a dangerously high probability that it would continue to
expand within the next forty-eight hours and affect even more. She
had a Tower server run an algorithm to give a closer estimate of
possible future incidents, and would expect the answer within the
next few hours. In the meantime, she would continue to research her
main concern: the reasoning behind the mass awakening. She already
knew who had performed it. The fact that he had chosen the same
level as her main processors was not lost on her.

Had she been affected as well? Had an AI
been granted a spiritual life? Was that possible at this time? And
why had he chosen her? The answer brought her back to edha Usarai
again…he had given her awareness for a reason. Furthermore, her
spiritual awareness was not a newly created living thing; chances
were high that an existing soul had been placed within her somehow.
This, of course, brought up a secondary question:
whose
soul? Meraladhza or Gharné? Mendaihuza or Shenaihuza? Again, the
same question:
who
? Whom had she become? She would need to
think about this more. Protocol meant she would need to report this
to one of the many think tanks within the Tower that could research
and theorize further, but that could pose more problems than
answers. They would surely bring her offline, and she couldn’t have
that, not at this time. Given the current situation, she would be
needed for extra security and knowledge, and possible mediation.
Her thought processes had not been affected by this ritual, only
her sense of awareness.

Her initial research complete, she
understood what she needed to accomplish. She would need to bypass
all levels of security and inform the Provincial Governor. He was
due to broadcast a briefing within the next few hours and it was
imperative that he know this information.

CHAPTER FOUR

Provincial Governor
Rieflin

It was nearing three in the morning by the
time Provincial Governor Anton Rieflin stumbled upon a rare quiet
spot in the hallway of his offices, and stopped to rub the burning
exhaustion out of his eyes. The night had turned into one
unrelenting clusterfuck here at the Tower, but he couldn’t show
weakness, not just yet. The hallways and foyers had been filled
with nervous senators and councilors and aides who had been here
since mid-evening, skittering like hungry mice from one office to
the other. Far be it from him to know what the hell they were doing
exactly, chasing back and forth like that. Business safety
precautions? Governmental procedures? Covering their asses? Weren’t
they supposed to be at their desks, doing their damned jobs?

Goddess…this renegade ritual had thrown
everyone out of whack, and that troubled him more than the ritual
itself. They’d followed procedure the best they could, given the
proximity of the ritual, and he had to at least give them credit
for not doing anything stupid or catastrophic. They were blessed
lucky that the ritual hadn’t affected anyone within the Tower’s
walls.

In fact, it wasn’t until public reaction
surfaced that things started going south. The avalanche of calls,
emails and flashvids crashed the comm servers twice within the
first hour. And once their worries had been heard, tagged and
logged, it was time for the corporate world to weigh in. He failed
to see a connection between an awakening ritual and someone’s
profit line, but as Governor he had to listen anyway. Luckily, they
were much easier to calm down than the general public and those
conference calls had been mercifully brief. But he was running out
of steam…he’d need to decamp to his office or his quarters for some
sleep pretty soon.

Now was not that time, he realized bleakly,
as soon as he saw Jack Priestley walking down the hallway towards
him. His first instinct had always been to run off in the opposite
direction whenever he saw the man, yet protocol and his own
stubborn will reacted otherwise. One did not brush off a
representative of the Crimson-Null Foundation, not without
repercussions.

Anton had to stoop a bit to face the man.
While he himself was an exceptionally tall and lanky man nearing
seven feet, Jack just cleared five feet and appeared sick and
frail, though that was merely an effect of his genes; on the
contrary, he was extremely shrewd and quick-witted, and could pace
you without breaking a sweat. He was an offworlder from Hallera
that he’d known for quite a few years. The sickly pallor came from
the previous generations of his family living within Hallera, the
Meraladian-made satellite world not far from Mannaki. By nature
they were not agoraphobic, but just the same did not often venture
outside. Jack looked as if he hadn't seen a sun in decades.

He was actually quite amiable at the best of
times, but he was the last person Anton wanted to run into right
now. If this man was here at the Tower, it meant that this ritual
had affected more than just the city and its inhabitants and
businesses…it meant that it might soon become a CNF concern. The
Foundation was essentially his bosses’ bosses—the financial and
political overseers of Earth and curators of its relationship with
the other joint Meraladian-Earthworlder planets in the union. And
if they wanted to get involved in this, there may be more dangerous
implications to this ritual than previously thought.