Unawakened (17 page)

Once, my entire life had revolved around the lofty goal of numbering among the elite. I wasn’t sure what my exact goal was anymore.

All I knew was that surviving day to day ranked near the top.

“I’ll have to juggle my schedule and work as my classes allow,” I said, deciding an upfront approach would benefit me the most. While I hadn’t put a lot of thought into what I would say during the interview, I did have one goal, and to bring Dean Lewis down, I needed access to the police’s criminal databases.

Bach students could elect primary focuses in the second year, and one such field included the study, manipulation, and creation of information systems. “I have been considering working in information sciences, and from my understanding, the police force utilizes a lot of the more modern systems during everyday law enforcement. Seeing the systems in day-to-day use would help me structure my studies better.”

In application, information sciences covered a staggering assortment of fields from secretarial to database management.

Sergeant Gildroy’s grin widened. “If information sciences is of interest to you, you have come to the right place. We’ll start you on the smaller systems, of course, but if you like working with data, I think we can find work appealing to you. I’ve already seen a copy of what you created at the college during the initial registration. It’s been useful. We’ve used your basic layout to begin development of the new system. It would be beneficial to us all if you continued your work on that project.”

While I had known the dean had been gathering information on behalf of the police, I hadn’t realized I had actually been credited with any of the work. “Has categorization been completed?”

Sergeant Gildroy snorted. “It’s been started, but we’re still learning a lot about new types of dae. That’ll be part of your job. I’m in charge of the dae registration for our region, and while we have a list of names and general abilities, we haven’t been able to organize them in a way that makes sense—or converts well to groups. Apparently Washington thinks it’s a good idea for all major cities to handle their own registration databases. I don’t envy the bastard who has to take all of that data and turn it into something useful.”

A researcher’s paradise of servers, tablets, desktops, and laptops waited through a doorway, and Sergeant Gildroy gestured me inside. “This is our current workroom for categorizing the registration databases. Your interview will be simple. For the next hour, see what you can do with this mess. I’ll observe you.”

Jacob leaned against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and he smiled. His smug expression challenged me. Smiling made every muscle in my face ache, but I sat down at one of the stations, leaning away from the keyboard long enough for the sergeant to give me access to the system.

If the police wanted to see some magic, I’d show it to them. Some of the elite, like Kenneth and Rob, were smart. I couldn’t deny that, but I had seen the kids at the college.

Maybe they were smart enough under the egos of their upbringing, but they wasted their potential. How many people had?

Most of the world, if the existence of the dae was any indication. Rob’s explanation was starting to make sense to me. It wasn’t just the wishes and dreams of humanity that had gone up in flames, but their potential, too.

Maybe I couldn’t fart fire like most dae, but I hadn’t lost anything, either. Maybe some of them could fly, maybe others could grant wishes, and maybe they were all the dying dreams of humans, ripped away from their bonded, but they needed people like me to make sense of the mess they had made of the world.

The dae confused me, but I understood the rigid structure of elite society, and I knew what the government wanted. All I had to do was prove to Sergeant Gildroy I was as capable as I thought I was.

One way or another, I’d manage.

Chapter Eleven

From the outside looking in, the elite had it all. Wealth, intellect, and good fortune were theirs for the taking. All of my ambitions had been focused on becoming one of them.

My first—and last—day of classes at the college had educated me about the lack of critical thinking and education among the elite, but I hadn’t realized just how inane those in charge were until I got a look at the dae registration database.

Working for Kenneth had made knowing how to access and use databases a necessity, and my secondary education had refined my skills. Under the guise of reorganizing the data groups, I scanned through the types of identified dae, marveling at the variety of them.

Knowing they represented the hopes and dreams of their creators both horrified and awed me. Many dae had wings, ranging from feathered werewolves to avian shape shifters, vampires, and even winged unicorns. Fire breathers dominated the ranks.

The unawakened weren’t even listed in the database, nor was there a field for them. I considered the exclusion, wondering how it would benefit me in the future. Sometimes, being ignored and left out of the system was far better than inclusion.

When the military came calling, I wouldn’t be a consideration at all. I liked the idea, so as I worked at reorganizing the data, I maintained the exclusion of unawakened. I wasn’t just helping myself, either.

If Rob’s explanation of why Arthur Hasling had wanted me was true, excluding all the unawakened from Baltimore’s primary database would protect us from becoming a food source for the dae without humans to provide for them. Helping those untouched by the Dawn of Dae appealed to me as much as getting my hands on the information necessary to figure out what Dean Lewis was up to.

Manipulating the system from within intrigued me almost as much as making a difference to those who were just like me, trying to survive in a world gone mad.

One day, I would learn how to work without my world narrowing to the focus of my concentration. The clearing of a throat behind me startled me so much I jumped out of my chair, tripped on one of the legs, and landed on my ass while the air rushed out of my lungs. I floundered, my heart pounding in my throat and ears.

“Time,” Sergeant Gildroy announced, and I heard the amusement at my reaction in his voice.

I was so tempted to crawl under the desk and hide until I died of dehydration or starvation. Climbing to my feet, I dusted myself off, aware of how hot my cheeks felt. I mumbled an apology under my breath, fixing my gaze on the tiled floor.

The elite really liked marble.

“Explain your choices for your reorganization of the database,” the cop ordered.

I was aware of Jacob’s gaze on me, although the dae remained silent. Inhaling and holding my breath for several seconds helped steady my nerves, and I sat back down, gesturing to the screen. “There isn’t much point in creating a database you can’t realistically use. While there’s a lot of data in the old one, it’s spread over several different places with no easy way to link them all together. For example, in one set of databases, people are listed by an identification number only. To find the person’s name, you have to link to a database that lists both identification number and name. There are databases that go by name only, and since there are people who have the same name, the data becomes muddled. Those individuals will need to be resorted, matched with their identification number, and put into the system again. Unfortunately, that’s potentially tens of thousands of people. Then you have the issue of the dae who lack humans. Most externalized dae are recorded alongside their human counterparts, which doesn’t allow for free dae.”

“I follow. Continue.”

“If you want a system that works, you need a consistent way of linking all of your data sources. That’s it. That’s the starting point. You can’t develop much else until you have a foundation that actually works. If you try to put the end game goal ahead of the basic infrastructure, you get a mess like this.” While I wanted to point out the average fringe primary school student could probably devise something better given half a chance, I kept my mouth shut.

I was already toeing the line criticizing someone else’s work, especially when that someone else was likely an elite.

“Interesting. And your recommendation for correcting this issue?”

“Build a sane foundation with proper database linking and repopulate the data. Once the data with good integrity is loaded into the system, redo the remaining entries.”

“Did you not say this is potentially tens of thousands of people?”

“Could be hundreds of thousands, depending on how many people have the same name—or how many dae have the same name. I can’t give you an exact number without pulling records from the database.”

“How long would that take?”

I considered it. The police had good tools for sifting through records and even better machines backing their databases. I hadn’t had a lot of time to experiment with the system, but as long as I could find commonalities allowing me to get counts of the overlapping records, it wouldn’t take long to go through the data.

A few extra hours—or days—on top of my realistic estimate would give me all the time I needed to start comparing the surviving humans with those who had gone missing. To do that, I needed access to the primary database of those living within Baltimore’s jurisdiction.

I made a thoughtful sound in my throat, opened one of the databases, and scanned for addresses and last-known residences of the populace. “It’s possible if I could gain access to the citizen registry databases I can take the address data of some of these people and limit how many have to be redone. I won’t know until I try, however. It depends on how complete the information in the system is.”

“We’ve been looking into the problem of identifying the missing and dead. Will that comparison help do that?”

It took every bit of my willpower to hide my glee at Sergeant Gildroy’s question. “I can try. I can’t make any promises the current data set will allow it, but I can see what I can do.”

“Good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I’ll speak with Dean Lewis and make arrangements regarding your work hours, Miss Daegberht. What is the best way to reach you?”

“My email is likely best; I check it often. I don’t have a phone.” I wasn’t exactly telling the truth; I did have a phone, but I didn’t have the rank or clearance to activate it. “I’m staying with a close friend right now, so any documentation can be sent to his place.

When I gave Sergeant Gildroy Rob’s address, Jacob’s eyes widened before he recovered enough to smooth his expression.

I somehow managed to leave the station before smiling my triumph for the world to see.

Jacob stalked me all the way back to Rob’s apartment building. When I finally reached the doorway leading inside, I turned to face Kenneth’s dae. “What was your game back there?”

The dae tilted his head to the side, and the corners of his mouth twitched up in a faint smile. “I was ensuring your placement among the police. You’re not just an unawakened now. You’re a potential bonded. You should be thanking me. A little nudge and a little push, and you’ll be classified as a free bonded. That benefits us both.”

I had no idea what a free bonded was, but I had every intention of asking Rob. “I will assume this is a good thing for the moment. If you’re expecting thanks, don’t hold your breath. You’ll have to do a lot better than that to earn my gratitude.”