White light danced across the pristine black of Meelak's eyes, reflections from carriers under the street pulling endless streams of traffic outside. The dancing light complemented the idle, relaxed smile Meelak bore, delighting in watching a score of oily vermin scrabbling with one another over some object that had fallen through the grating of the street-side walkway that was level with the ceiling Meelak's high upswept black hair brushed. A sharp sounding of clothing brushing a wall and someone breaking into a sudden run nearby turned Meelak from his watch through the hole in the wall.
Meelak eased flexible metal hand restraints from a pocket into his ready hand while he crept to the doorway as silently as the rubble-strewn floor would permit. Through the doorways, Meelak caught the hand signal of his assisting enforcer and nodded his agreement; on cue the enforcer charged a room. Their quarry, seemingly the last of the party they'd pursued from their raid on a gathering in the nearby vice-ridden district, scrambled from the room, managing to avoid capture with a well timed tumble and recovery to spring up stairs to the street above. Anticipating the possibility that the culprit would attempt a double-track by returning through another entrance, Meelak remained, leaving the enforcer to give chase.
Within moments, Meelak heard someone coming through an adjoining room behind. Although Nebari vision was sufficient in the unlit, disused building, some areas were obscured by shadow and he'd long since learnt the value of having a bright illuminator in a quarry's uneasy eyes. His suspect avoided it, trailing just from notice along the nearer wall to Meelak, a clever yet foolish tactic that caught Meelak by surprise.
Pouncing at the suspect before he could gain possible escape through the doorway, Meelak struggled to gain control and restrain what was an infuriatingly slippery quarry. Finally, with their harsh breaths carrying chalky echoes in the nearly empty rooms, the struggle ceased and Meelak brought the subject up facing the wall with a grip on his forearms. Once the metal restraints were clamped in place, Meelak turned his light up to lift them from the corner's shadows and shine into the subject's eyes. The light of his illuminator, however, brought an unexpected grin from the unexpected person it cast upon.
"Won't work on me, you know," Nerri bandied to Meelak as he wriggled under the grip with which Meelak had him pinned facing the wall.
"You shouldn't be anywhere near here," Meelak harshly whispered as he put his illuminator away and hurriedly released the hand cuffs.
"Phah," Nerri dismissed with a quirk of his head. "They won't be back that quick. Ah... we could, mm, start interrogation?" he looked back to Meelak with widened eyes.
"Grief," Meelak nearly whined. "You're such a tralk," he complained, though now nearly smiling.
Nerri simply smiled back. "People like me."
Meelak stepped back and quickly checked his hand-held finder to locate his fellow Establishment agents in the area. Once Nerri's guess was confirmed, he turned wild eyes to Nerri, who finally turned around and fussed with his slightly ragged dark gray jacket.
"What are you doing here?"
"Ohm, well," Nerri looked down to the floor and ticked his head askew, "wasn't supposed to be, but circumstances... I expected to meet with another inside contact who might take my message to - our benefactor." Nerri sighed. "However, our inside contact became unavailable..."
Meelak returned a look of silent alarm.
"No, no," Nerri assured him, "they won't learn anything." But Nerri set a look of plain concern upon Meelak, before evading his gaze again.
"They won't catch me," Meelak affected confidence with simple voice. "But I shouldn't be meeting with anyone who might compromise me here!" Meelak's voice rose in very controlled outrage and alarm, but the widening of his eyes was a louder presence.
"A dangerous attribute for your position," Nerri walked over toward the hole in the wall which Meelak had recently been looking through. He turned his eyes back to Meelak. "Such a lot of things happen to you that shouldn't."
Meelak looked aside and let out a breath. He barely smiled for a moment before turning a plain face to Nerri. "Time isn't in our favor," he noted.
"No, it isn't," Nerri nodded his agreement, grasping Meelak's arm firmly. "But at least this far, it's just as well we met now. I want to tell you this, in case I don't see you again for a while."
"You want me to risk relaying messages to our benefactor?" Meelak asked, with an ironic smirk that cued his jesting.
Nerri snorted. "You? No. Um ..." he cast his eyes on Meelak from their corners as he dropped his hand. "Not yet," Nerri jested. "You remember the scanty, Nivirl?"
"The one which caused your transport to explode while docked by the temple?" Meelak asked.
"Yes," Nerri lit up.
"No, I don't," Meelak's flat reply flicked away the building enthusiasm.
"He died," Nerri said, cutting Meelak a sidelong glance from his brow.
The revelation only added to Meelak's smirking amusement. "An appropriate outcome of a glorious mission, no doubt."
"So florid," Nerri appraised, "but no - not quite." Nerri turned and began to pace over the gritty floor. "You recall what I told you of the rescue?"
Between being mindful of the urgency of time and noting the crunching of Nerri's footsteps seemingly amplified through the barren rooms, Meelak found it hard to concentrate. "Beyond the propensity for your customary accomplices to achieve success despite nearly everything frelling up ... no."
Nerri tisked his tongue. "But a good enough summary of Nivirl's escape. While they were, ah, seeing to Nivirl's escape, I was elsewhere, as suggested by a benefactor who arranged a false identity for this purpose."
"Tunis?" Meelak idly wondered.
Nerri tackled Meelak in a blur of motion and a choking head lock. In a microt, Meelak groaned at the rubble strewn floor and gave up. Nerri dusted off Meelak's rump before sitting on it to lean forward and put Meelak's own tanzer to his head. "The extent of your knowledge is inappropriate for your position," Nerri upbraided him with a sneer. "You will be conformed to the ideals judged proper for you by a body of drone peers with no evident sex life. What if," Nerri proposed, leaning close to Meelak's up-facing right ear and knocked on Meelak's head with his gloved knuckles, "your brain itself could be irreversibly altered to a pattern chosen by others, from within, in mere moments?"
"What?" Meelak gasped under Nerri's weight. Both halted to stillness at the echoing sound of footsteps near the entrance step to their level. "My locator," Meelak urgently whispered. Nerri filched something from Meelak's pocket and showed to him. It was a silver hair braid. "Not that," Meelak nearly spit.
"Oh," Nerri blithely replied, less than impressed. He frisked both sides of Meelak's pants, to a long-suffering glance from Meelak. He eyed Meelak quickly. "What are you doing with this?"
He raised to put the hair braid in Meelak's hair. "Ohp!" Meelak raised his finger up at him, wild eyed. "Don't you dare."
"Such a baby," Nerri rolled his eyes in contempt as he stuffed the braid into his own pocket and continued his search.
"Will you hurry up and get it?" Meelak hissed. Nerri tried a different pocket. "Not that either," Meelak nearly squeaked. "The jacket, outside left," Meelak managed to specify.
"Don't get your pants in a bunch," Nerri said as he finally found the locator and handed it to Meelak. Meelak checked and let out a sniff of relief. Nerri got comfortable laying down on his back atop Meelak's back, even throwing one leg across a knee. "You could tell it wasn't an enforcer by the sound."
"Go on," Meelak scoffed.
"No, really," Nerri insisted. "The steps were too slow, and this person has a limp."
Meelak nearly scoffed again, but listened for a moment instead. Sure enough, the footsteps as the person paced had an irregularity.
Nerri turned around and gripped a hand full of Meelak's hair. "You're supposed to notice these things," he hissed in Meelak's ear in mock offense, then let go of his hair and bapped his head.
"What was that insinuating exactly?" Meelak questioned as Nerri crawled over to sit against the nearby wall facing Meelak. "Altering a mind, like that?"
Nerri sighed, seeming to digress as he sat down. "I only planned to gather intel, and to stop Nirtal from expediting security efforts if the team was discovered too soon... he was looking to promote the use of technology which would allow them - anyone? - to do just what I said." Nerri paused as Meelak stopped in his progress to get back up and brush off. Meelak's eyes widened in an unspoken question, and outrage. "I'm not sure how," Nerri answered. "Something to do with the creation of cellular constructs similar to your brain, which could be pre-arranged to form in a given pattern."
"That's... fanciful," Meelak ironically half-smiled, as he straightened up and dusted his cloak.
Nerri gave his head a single sharp shake. "No. He spoke as though certain the means exist now, that only the perceptions of some in the Establishment were preventing development, and that he and others would persist in making proposals and appeals until it was realized. If - if he hadn't said it, maybe I wouldn't have been frightened - enraged. I wanted to stop it somehow... I know it was foolish... that it's going to happen anyway."
"In the ver'devule of scientific progress," Meelak supposed.
Nerri ran his hand through his hair, standing as he met Meelak's eyes with a gentle gaze. "I can't hope - you might research it on your own. But, what that man insinuated was of a microscopic technology, one that could replace mental cleansing from a hundred cycles to just a matter of arns... I fear this technology is related to what the contagion is, or wanted to be, and who the frell knows what else they can do with it.
"If the suspicion is correct," Meelak lowered his head, turning his attention to checking his locator again. "Then there is cause to focus efforts of deterring such as another contagion with counter suiting ... technology ..." he cast his eyes back to Nerri.
"No," Nerri ejected, more forcefully than wished. Carefully easing his voice, he continued. "There is cause for us to reassess our... approach," Nerri said in near distaste. "All those who would use these technologies need," he struggled for best articulation and pressed his hands together as if entreating understanding, "is a sense of desperation, and they would surely gain sway."
Meelak's gaze mutely drifted toward a distant floor. His eyes abruptly jumped back to Nerri's with the urgency of realization. "Even a lapse in the stability of the Establishment -"
"- Yes," Nerri sneered. He paced past Meelak, brooding in his thoughts. "Change, Meelak. It must change. But how," he posed the point, and pointed a hand vaguely back toward Meelak. "If reasons to be wary of the all-frelling-mighty Establishment were better known..."
"If our principal benefactor isn't aware of it," Meelak reasoned, "I've little reason to believe I'll find more than you have."
"It's there," Nerri stated flatly, his eyes lining with the heavy burdens weighted upon him. "This benefactor has suspicions, it seems he set me up to hear of this - but what kind of Establishment would tolerate talk on pipe dreams and fantasies? It must be enough of a reality."
Meelak's eyes softened at the reproach in Nerri's tone. "In the hope, we could change... be true to the greater good in ways unlike our Establishment, defiling our people's doctrines to suit their own agendas as it has: that is my love in the cause. Our hope that you've restored. You say it's there, naturally, I would be passionate for its evidence against them."
"And that," Nerri paused to pointedly meet Meelak's eyes for a moment, "is why your love has never been more needed in our cause. It is our best hope." Nerri quirked his head as he cast his eyes down.
Meelak lowered his head as well, his eyes unstraying from Nerri. "As your friend. I have no doubt of its truth, and it will be there to find." Meelak took a step for the exit and activated his comms. "Nuit," he hailed, "I've waited here long enough. I will be rejoining you. Should you detain the subject in the meantime, keep him there, I do not want to run unnecessary risk in conveying him around."
"That was Iachi you know," Nerri offered quietly as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Meelak paused, gazing out at the empty street from the open door. "I'm not the one with the problem when it comes to him," he side glanced back to Nerri. "No one is so important their life is worth more than yours ..."
"Don't worry about us," Nerri nudged his head at him defiantly. "We'll do fine on our own."
"I'll take care of it." Meelak sighed as he stepped away.
Nerri smirked, looking up again and nabbing the shoulder of Meelak's cloak when Meelak started ahead. Meelak stumbled back and glared with mock outrage as he brushed off his cloak. Nerri fussily helped him straighten the cloak. "It's just that you have doubts that you'll learn anything, with even our principal benefactor possibly ignorant of it ... but I did. It is like the old man said, there are ways. I think it'll become more aware of itself as a quarry, and perhaps therefore to you, as soon as I can pass intel with our benefactor. Just - if you happen along something."
Meelak nodded in agreement as he reached out. Slowly his hand came to rest on Nerri's chest. He stared at it for long moments, his eyes drawing distant and solemn as Nerri's hand came to rest over his. "I don't know if I can do this forever," he announced quietly as he let his hand drop from Nerri and turned to walk to the steps leading out to the street. "I long to shed myself of Establishment duties."
"And join me in the carefree utopia of my flawless organization?" Nerri called after him, snorting a laugh as Meelak walked up the steps. A weary, bemoaned groan from Meelak carried down the stairwell.
With a subtle shudder and a thud, the aerial transport cleared its moorings and lifted away from the dock of the instructional facility in an effortless diagonal. Anlai spun around, startled by the loading doors having shut a mere instant behind her. While staggering back slightly from the relatively heavy and unfamiliar load of her backpack, her startled look leapt around to find which team member was so carelessly operating the transport. But after a moment, she realized that the reckless act must have been intentional, and upbraided herself in being caught off her guard by yet another prank. Had she caught whoever did that in the act, her startled look would only have added to their amusement. Her tongue clicked off of the roof of her mouth and she smothered a burning embarrassment.
Adjusting the backpack on her shoulders, Anlai wandered further inside affecting as casual a manner as possible. She turned her attention to gazing through the wide multi-paned windscreen running along the rear side of the triangular craft, watching as they soared away from the dock. The mute matte gray surfaces of the dock, with traces of very pale light blues for functional lines and accent lights, made a stark contrast to the pale yet luminous off-pink rock of the cliff which the dock clung to.
Now able to turn away with nonchalance, Anlai wandered further into the transport along the outermost perimeter level, which led to observation areas occupying the three bulbous corners, one at the fore and two at either aft side. As she ambled to the fore observation area, she looked around the lower inner level, which was nearly filled with waist-high functional interfaces of no particular note. Then, as she gained the front, she began to watch the metropolis on their approach with a peculiar sense of dawning awareness.
For the first time, Anlai consciously noted that the craft was so similar in esthetic to the the educational facility and its dock that it might as well have been a permanent part of it. The dock was homogenous with the facility, which was homogenous with the transport, which, now she thought of it, was likewise homogenous with the other facility she took the transport to, which in turn was a nearly seamless part of the metropolis; everything was harmonious except nature and - the place the transport was now taking her to.
A certain comfort might have been felt from the familiarity, but this time the notice served to accentuate the apprehension she felt towards the mission she was now on. In all of her modest years, Anlai had usually been content to see the metropolis from the vantage of a platform at the distant enlightenment facility she was assigned to. Seen from the rocky rim which the facility rested against, the metropolis filling the basin below was a removed and fairly uniform sight of spacious, harmonious multi-level structures of matte silver and gray ground with little conspicuous structure or color. At night it would be an ocean of lovely, if functionally restrained, white lighting.
On rare occasion, however, a flight to another facility within the city found her in this transport. From the shuttle, she had distantly seen the further end of the metropolis, where the buildings rose nearly weed-like to meet in sharp walls against a great carbon-fiber-gray dome, becoming so many dwellings piling high up against a towering, sheer cliff. To either side of the dome were the jagged, soft black mountains of the Barrch range, in whose recesses Nebari once eeked out survival in prehistoric and ancient times. But nowhere else did the city seem to rise so tenaciously as against the dome.
Previous trips to the inner city facility had always been made at some awkward arn well before start of first classes, but this time she had the chance to observe the view in full daylight, and this time it was the dome which had her attention. A conspicuously unmentioned yet ubiquitous feature from ancient times, the dome rested its further third into jagged, starkly gray mountains, as if it were an odd, giant mid-gray pebble laid on a miniature landscape between the metropolis and the inside of a slight crescent along the mountain chain.
High upon a long tapering stalk, at the topmost point of the dome, the very highest offices of the Establishment, sometimes simply called Guidance, were ensconced, a conspicuous silver speck atop the great dark dome. Only the highest of officials went there, a place of both great elegance and antiquity. The vast complex had many storied points of interest, some possibly true, but however improperly, her attention had ever wandered beneath the great dome. For there, she knew, lay what remained of the pre-enlightenment metropolis.
Apart from some broad discussion of history and intel of select current technology whose roots went back to pre-enlightenment eras, as far as she could tell that was just about all she, or anyone else, knew. But she couldn't keep herself from wondering, compounded regularly by the fact that her studies had a habit of teasing at her curiosity. Her mind was largely sustained by feeding itself strings of technical thought. So many facets awaited discovery, offering experiences and a journey to follow, and so many new paths she often forged. But so much of her technical and conceptual development was birthed only to be hived within the manila envelopes her mind sustained.
Missions she had volunteered for often taxed her abilities to utilize tech and all too many other functions. Only on a few occasions, however, had fruits of her conceptual tree been seen to grow, all of them spontaneous over-reaches of expectations in class projects. There were unspoken expectations for how much one was to achieve in studies, tests and projects, lest one venture too much excitement, or worse, perhaps, cause it.
Too much interest was even more of an unmentionable in the study of the history of technical developments. Yet, learning how things had developed, and in some cases about the developers, brought a kinship of a sense that she cherished. It was part and parcel with understanding the technology to understand the lives concerned with it. That end of the interest had always been least satisfied, with no one giving any appearance of interest and so much information being 'unavailable'. Those unspoken boundaries seemed implicitly understood by everyone but her, she had worried; a few times when she did too much development or too much research, her instructors, or sometimes even overseers she'd never seen before or since, would make cryptically subtle cautions to her.
On a few exceptional occasions, however, she had also been subtly encouraged to contribute odd projects and appointed an odd curriculum, including some studies of ancient tech or ancient variants of tech. It didn't quite escape her how some previously unavailable intel coincidentally became available just as her researches led to it, only to quickly become unavailable again. Memory of those appointments and coincidences couldn't be helped from repeating in her mind, as this time the shuttle carried her and a small team ever closer to the great dome. Now she was finally to see something of the relics so conspicuously obscured from the sight and minds of the modern world.
