Chapter 9

Message

Voidwalker Maximus

3 days later...

Ikora paced at the back of the room. Of the three Vanguard present, she was the only one out of her seat. Cayde was leisurely leaned back in his chair, and Zavala was hunched forward rubbing his temples. His eyes still closed, Zavala asked, "Are you sure this data is not counterfeit? That this actually was in a Fallen database at some point? Because we can't just break this news and not expect panic to ensue."

"You know the implications right?" Cayde added. "I'm not the Speaker, but I'm fairly certain that we don't want to put around 14 million people in panic mode because of an enemy they can't see."

I stood in front of them with a holographic projection of Starco and Stargazer's findings beamed up from the small disc. Currently, Starco was displaying the files with names and the map of the City, complete with insertion points and areas crucial to the success of the mission. Arla nor Charli were here mainly because the former was giving a little field training to the latter due to the lack of "combat simulation" from our expedition on Mars. I was about to join them when the Vanguard called me to this meeting. I answered Cayde's question. "I thought long and hard on this data and could only come up with only a few plausible solutions, only one of which actually made sense. The Fallen are trying to get into the City again, a little more discreetly this time."

Zavala opened his eyes and looked at me. "How would they get in though? Anyone on the Wall has orders to shoot any Fallen on sight and ask questions later."

"I have a hypothesis."

"Ooh, this ought to be good," Cayde sarcastically commented. He leaned even deeper into his chair, crossing his legs on top of the table, and leaned his head on his hands clasped behind it.

"I think the House of Illusion may be back." Ikora and the other Vanguard froze, a stunned silence ensuing. The Vanguard knew exactly what I was talking about. "I know they're supposed to be dead, but Arla and I have run across their agents several times since I became a Guardian. Given the limited amount of data we have on them, I have to raise the question: What if they never actually died out?"

Ikora, after several seconds, broke the ice that had gripped the room. "Let's not make any hasty assumptions Maximus. For all we know, this could have been data from the failed invasion. There's also no official House marker. The writing is clearly Fallen, but they have no way of actually getting into the City, not without getting shot first."

"That's because the Illusion are not normal Fallen. They can disguise themselves as almost any living being. They'll come in as Guardians coming back from patrol or survivors from beyond the Wall seeking refuge. They'll find ways to exploit us and literally kill us from the inside out."

Zavala held up a hand and spoke. "In all the reports we have on this long-dead House, I have never heard of them taking the form of a Guardian. Even if they could, they wouldn't be able to mimic the light that emanates off of one. They are controlled by the Darkness, and that becomes a permanent scar on someone, you've met Eris Morn. One cannot just stare into the Darkness and come back unscathed."

"Isn't that what I did in the Garden? Does that not buy me any credibility here?"

Ikora stepped forward. "I'm afraid it doesn't." I threw my arms out and then dropped them at my sides. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What you did in the Black Garden exemplified everything we stand for, but it was on Mars, not in our City. We can't just go public and say that a forgotten Fallen House has infiltrated the City and can be anyone within it. That will incite chaos, and neither the Speaker or the Queen will have any of that going on in their City. We can't afford another meltdown like we nearly had when that piece of the Wall came down. There's no way we can let the public know that they may be in grave danger once again."

"So you do believe me?"

"I'm merely humoring the thought. I honestly find any consideration that the Fallen could get into the City preposterous. The Traveler would never allow such a thing to happen."

Cayde was the next to speak up. "So, Maximus, if our smelly, four-armed friends are actually trying to get into the City this way, what do you suggest we do about it?"

I had planned this out. I was nowhere near a politician, so my plan was crude, but it would serve its purpose. "Close the borders and don't let anyone in. I'm fairly certain the Illusion can't carry much of their form's memory, so any Guardians that come in and out would need to have their person cross-referenced with data we have here at the Tower and imprison any who don't meet the standards."

"We can't just lock up Guardians for forgetting something about their past," Ikora interjected. This meeting was going about as well as it had in my head. It had taken a few turns that I hadn't expected, but I really thought that at least one of them would be on my side here.

"What happened to sacrificing the needs of the few to save the many?" I implored.

"That does not apply to our discussion! As far as I can see," Zavala stated with a slightly raised voice. "You walked into a destroyed Cabal base that looked like the handiwork of a Guardian or a Fallen raiding party. There is no evidence to suggest what House did it, and we certainly cannot say that a House that has been dead for a least a couple centuries is behind it. If the Illusion are back, I want evidence."

"By then it will be too late!" I retorted.

"If you find one within the City, yes, but they have to be somewhere else before they're in the City, so if what you say is true, then you may want to start looking. We'll gladly give you access to anything you need, just don't expect us to get involved. We're in a war with the Cabal, one that we will lose if we are not at least two steps ahead of our enemy."

"It sounds like you're denying a threat that has the potential to destroy us."

"We're not denying it exists!" Ikora snapped, calming herself immediately after. "We just can't incite a mass panic over something that may or may not exist. If we alerted the public that a Fallen House with the capablilites of diguising themselves as literally anybody had infiltrated the City, the last SAFE place on Earth, perhaps the Milky Way and beyond, this could become quite literally the end of the world as we know it. This would either incite mass panic or nobody would believe us, neither of which we can necessarily afford because the moment we cry 'Wolf!' should this House of Illusion be an actual entity we open ourselves to criticism because we're going to have to operate directly in the City."

Zavala shifted in his seat. "My money's on mass panic. Most people trust us at the moment, so I think that we may have a Civil War of proportions much like the one between the Factions."

"So," I began to respond. "You're saying that it becomes peace at the cost of lives or lives at the cost of peace? The way I see things, you're going to lose lives either way. The Illusion are coming if they're not already here." A thought hit me. "For all I know, each one of you could be one of them, refuting my claims because I've found out your secret." I slowly reached a hand and fingered the pistol I had holstered at my back.

Ikora stood abruptly. "Maximus! Don't be absurd! You're caught up in the moment and not thinking clearly. There is no conspiracy here, and you know it. If one of their agents could mimic us, the Speaker would detect it immediately. Quit your nonsense and leave if you have no other evidence to show us."

I forced myself to swallow my protests. They weren't about to heed anything I said, and that really got on my nerves. Could this denial be connected to my not being transparent about the Black Garden, about Dea? That can't possibly be a correlation. The Vanguard were human, with the notable exception of Cayde, but they wouldn't hold a grudge that could kill thousands. "I understand," I said solemnly. "Could you at least let the Speaker know of this possible threat? Whether or not it really exists."

Ikora and Zavala looked at each other uneasily, but it was Cayde that spoke up. "I needed to talk to the old man anyways, so I'll run it by him when I do. Heck, just because I'm curious, I'll take a copy of this stuff to the Cryptarch." Cayde winked at the end of that.

I nodded and exited the room without another word. I exited the inner part of the Tower and walked to the plaza, leaning against the railing and trying to think through the situation. The City was bustling even at this time in the evening. Various modes of transportation flitted about in the distance, their lights largely masked by the aura coming from the City. Faint but noticeable was a recent addition to the sky: the Traveler had a slight glow around its edge, a bit of light radiating off of it for the first time in what I understand has been at least a couple centuries.

My mind wasn't much on the natural and artificial beauty of the City though. I couldn't believe that they didn't want to even consider the possibility of a Fallen invasion basically because of a PR problem. I understand how it could cost them some popularity, but when you're protecting the masses, don't some things have to be given up? The Fallen had shown they could invade the City once and nearly win. Then there was the series of tunnels that showed they had been operating near the City. That should have been evidence enough to say that they were at it again. If I brought them the evidence I knew they desired, then that would mean I found one in the City, where that meant there were many more of them. Finding one outside of the City merely proved there existence, and while I may have limited experience with them, I could tell these were smarter than regular Fallen, they wouldn't make themselves obvious. That said, What could their end goal be though? World domination? Well, there was really only one place they didn't have any grip on, so that wasn't out of the question, but it seemed a bit cliche for the Fallen, especially ones that looked to be far more advanced than their brethren.

I then turned thoughts to Cayde's wink at the end of the conversation. He and I certainly were not on the worst of terms, but I wasn't on his best either, that was saved for successful Hunters like Arla. Was that wink to me or to either Ikora or Zavala? A sign of belief to me or acknowledging a required gag? I began to run through what had happened over and over again, trying to pick up on some hint from one of the others. I ran through it once, twice, thrice, even a fourth time, but I could not pick up on anything from Ikora or Zavala that would suggest Starco's data needed to be deleted, that his taking it to the Speaker and the Cryptarch was anything less than genuine. Perhaps I was overthinking this, maybe Cayde...I threw that idea out of my mind. There was no way he would manipulate the Vanguard and me so that he could get his hands on the data "off the grid" was there. Starco and I still had the files, but my ghost had sent Cayde's a copy to "satisfy his curiosity," which meant that neither of the others had it because they dismissed it completely

Before I got too far along a road steeped with conspiracy theories, I snapped myself out of my thoughts and looked back out over the City. Night had clearly fallen and a half-illuminated moon lit part of the sky, the battle scars almost highlighted by its invisible and much less damaged other half. The aura around the Traveler had not wavered nor had it grown any stronger, but the City's had only grown stronger, harsher and a little less reassuring than it had been in the past.

Still leaning forward on the railing, I looked behind me at the Plaza, empty as expected. The postmaster and special orders clerk were still at their stations as usual, but Banshee the Gunsmith and Master Rahool were not at their stands, probably in bed like I ought to be. I didn't feel like sleeping. I had waited three days for a meeting that lasted a little over an hour and a half and left me with more question than answers as well as almost no backing from the Vanguard. I get that it was an odd hunch and even more off-the-wall conclusion, but it made sense, at least to me and seemingly Arla, probably Charli too.

I looked around me again, ensuring I was alone. I didn't want the Vanguard to overhear me in case I wasn't supposed to talk about my findings; they hadn't said anything to the contrary, but I wanted to make no assumptions. "So Starco," I said. "On a scale of one to ten, how screwed are we if the Speaker agrees with the Vanguard?"

The Ghost didn't flash into existence, preferring to stay within my consciousness and felt rather than seen. "I'd have to estimate a hard seven or soft eight. What little we have on the House of Illusion shows why the Vanguard wants to be absolutely sure that it's them before they make a public announcement."

"Enlighten me," I responded.

Starco sighed audibly. Nobody else could hear him, so any passersby would think I'm talking to myself which is why I would check around me every thirty seconds or so, just to make sure I was still alone. "Well for one, they're supposed to be dead. Obviously they're not. Second, we know that they have the capability of turning invisible, like other Fallen, but for hours. They also can make scans of almost anyone and disguise themselves almost perfectly."

"Almost?" I inquired.

Starco responded confidently. "It's what ultimately led to their destruction as far as we know, which isn't much. The scans are superficial, superimposed rather than an actual transformation. Though, I think it's worth mentioning that this data is derived from recovered Fallen records. We have not necessarily seen them ourselves and have total record."

I thought back to my encounters with two of them, one in the cosmodrome and the other on Mars. I recalled the one on Mars seeming a little more sophisticated, more whole. "What about 'Lee' back on Mars?" I asked. "That gear on that Vandal was clearly his."

"Well if they've survived despite their supposed collapse, then that probably means they've picked up a few new tricks."

I thought about this for a moment, tossing the idea around in my head. It made sense that their technologies and strategies would change with time. The question really was: how much had it changed?After a few seconds of staring at the City, I asked, "What kind of tricks?"

"My guess is that they can hold a disguise for a few days now, maybe a week."

"Using a truck like that, could they sneak into a Cabal base and destroy it from the inside?"

"Remember, it's a hypothesis that remains unproven," Starco warned.

"One that you seem to readily entertain," I countered.

"The more I think about what we've experienced in the past and what we saw back on Mars, the more I have to accept that we're dealing with an enemy we may not have actually dealt with before. Something familiar yet not at the same time."

It was then that a passing thought crossed my mind. One I had almost forgotten even existed. "What about the Wolves? When Dea met me on the ship, she said something about the House of Wolves mounting a rebellion against the Awoken. Mars is the next closest entity besides the Asteroid Belt."

"I don't think that a House kept in bondage for that long would be able to inflict this much damage. Besides, why go to Mars where we are when they could just go hide out on one of Jupiter's moons?"

I tightened my grip on the rail. "Nobody thought that the Fallen would have been able to punch through the Wall either. They could've been amassing weapons for years in secret, waiting for the perfect day to rebel."

"The Wolves aren't traditionally as melee heavy as what we saw on Mars. Even if they didn't have enough weapons, they would have given anyone on such an important mission as much firepower as they could afford."

"Unless that wasn't their most important mission. Retrieving stolen intel is not necessarily the most pressing matter once someone else has already seen it and had some time to analyze it. Maybe they were trying to steal it back?"

"Which then makes it even more baffling that they succeeded presumably without a casualty," Starco pointed out.

I let go of the railing and straightened my posture, once again staring into the glowing aura of the City's night life. "Maybe we're overthinking this. Let's sleep on it and look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow." Just then, something hit me on my left shoulder. It wasn't heavy whatever it was, but it had my attention. I immediately looked over my shoulder and then at the ground for whatever hit me. At first, I saw nothing, just gray concrete and green grass, but after a second I noticed a small rock, curious in shape and size. It was no bigger than my little finger, but it was dense for something its size. I carefully bent down and picked it up. On its back was a small slip of paper attached with a very weak glue. I grabbed one end of the paper and lifted it off the rock, haphardly tossing the stone to the side and unfolding the paper. The handwriting was symmetrical and precise, each point made deliberately and dark without puncturing it. It read:

Maximus,

No time to explain. Baseball field now. Tower is not safe.

Look up

"What?" I muttered inaudibly. How could the Tower not be safe? Sure I'd had that one run in a while ago, but the Guardian that let him in had since been dismissed without any similar cases since. After taking a second longer to look for any hiddden meaning or signature other than "Look up." I had a pretty good idea who it was and looked directly above me, but to my surprise I only saw the beautiful night sky, stars twinkling from lightyears away. Slightly puzzled, I turned my gaze back to the City and immediately recognized a black figure, a silhouette against the City's lights, with piercing blue eyes that glowed brightly in the dark, standing on the edge of a rail used to guide the supply ships in to unload. Just as I was sure she noticed my gaze, she leapt off the edge and dove toward the ground, a faint flash of light accompanying her fall not even a second afterward.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The baseball field was deserted, especially at this time of night when there was no game scheduled tonight or even tomorrow. Starco had opened the doors to the players' entrance, the locker room, and then those to the dugout. I strode out of the locker room, a pistol holstered at my hip just in case something turned sour, and made my way up the few steps onto the grass and clay. I had been here a couple of times, but for those I'd been in an orange uniform with 'Sunsingers' written in slanted cursive across the front.

The large sets of lights that usually illuminated the field a few shades off of what the Sun produced were shut off, security lights up the aisles and covered walkways really being the only sources of light. There were a couple in the dugout as well, and that cast a light glow on the edge of the field up to about the foul line before cutting off strictly at that point, leaving the rest of it in a murky black. I waited for a several seconds, but nothing moved. A minute passed, then two with no sign of Dea anywhere. Doubt started to creep into my mind. "Did I imagine that?" I asked aloud to Starco. Surely I couldn't have imagined the rock and the slip of paper.

"No, you didn't," a feminine voice said in the distance. Suddenly, the two glowing eyes returned and began to bob ever so slightly, accompanied by the crunch of grass beneath heavy boots. Within a matter of seconds, I began to make out Dea's outline until she stepped into the light. I quickly noticed that she wore a raven black shawl, the attached hood pulled over her head, leaving her face in a fair amount of shadow.

"If memory serves me correctly," I began. "You're usually the one waiting for me. Not the other way around."

Dea crossed her arms. "Took me a minute to disable the security system," she replied rather curtly. A moment of silence passed between us, the air was tense, something was up.

I waved a hand as if to do the same to the comment. "Anyway, so what is it that's is so important that you made me come out here? You do realize that this is an extremely public place right?"

Dea chuckled lightly and kept her eyes on me. "You of all people should know I have my ways of disappearing when I need to."

It was my turn to cross my arms. "How so? To say I'm suspicious would be a bit of an understatement." Something was obviously up; she wouldn't be here if somethin wasn't.

"Look, Maximus, you know I wouldn't be here unless I knew something you don't, whcih believe me is quite a lot, but I digress. To keep it short, your suspicion is right. The House of Illusion have returned. How? I know not, but the fact is they're here now, and they must be stopped before the City looks a lot like that Cabal base you and your friends investigated."

"How do you know about that?"

"I have my sources. Just don't worry about it, The less you know about them, the better."

I raised my right hand, palm out, at her. "Hold up a minute," I said. "You can't just say something like that and expect to get away without giving me a little more."

"Maximus, even now there are still things you won't understand. Just leave it be while you still can. Let's take a seat in the dugout, and you can pick my brain there."

I said nothing but turned around to descend the steps into the dugout. I didn't mean to appear rude, just trying to get a read on her. As usual though, there was nothing in her body language that suggested anything I could use in my favor. The confident swagger I rarely saw her without was present in full force. Now in the dugout with Dea in tow, I sat down on the wooden bench and leaned back against the wood and wall. Dea followed suit but about a foot away from me. I decided to start with the most glaring question in my mind. "Why isn't the Tower safe?" I asked sternly.

She hung her head for a second. "I thought you'd start with that. To be frank, that was a lie. The Tower's probably as safe as it's ever been; I just didn't want to talk to you there where others could be listening. Your knowing me must stay between us and Arla beacuse you can probably guess how the Vanguard would react if they knew you were working with me."

I could understand that. Being an Agent of the Nine was likely a tough job, one I did not want to have personally but understand the secrecy. The Vanguard would not appreciate me getting help from a total stranger, not as much of one now, but there was still plethora of things I didn't know about her, things I knew she wouldn't answer straightly if at all. "It's becoming harder and harder to keep that secret you know. The Vanguard have been up and down my back to share the Black Garden footage and rewrite the report in more detail."

"They won't force you to do it, given you don't give them reason to. That said, don't give them a reason. So, next question."

It didn't even take a second for me to come up with the next one. "Who exactly are the House of Illusion?"

Dea thought for a moment, either censoring what she was about to say or trying to recall something useful that I likely did not know. "Due to the length of time they were presumed dead, there officially isn't much on them for the last couple of centuries. Essentially, I've read the same reports you have and a couple more. They're the Fallen except a little tougher than most of their brethren. As far as I've been able to tell, which isn't far mind you, the other Houses don't know they exist, but if they did, I assure you it wouldn't be pleasant for either side."

"What do you mean?" I inquired, adjusting my position on the bench so that the pistol would be a little more comfortable.

"A House with that kind of technology that refuses to share it with the others would not go over well. My theory is that they disappeared due to the other Houses somehow."

"What about unofficial documents?"

Dea stared at something behind me for a second before snapping back into focus. I didn't say anything meanwhile. Instead, I tried to get a read on what she wasn't saying. Dea responded, "There have been unconfirmed reports of modified Skiffs painted completely black moving through Reef space and Mars, but those were decades ago. Besides, anyone that saw them only got a glimpse before it disappeared completely. Unofortunately, there are no pictures or follow up sitings until years later with decreasing frequency.."

"What we need is concrete facts and evidence, not theories and rumors. If the Vanguard are going to believe me on this, we're going to have to convince them."

Dea shook her head and looked me in the eyes. "Maximus, you and I both know that they're not going to believe anyone about a threat inside the City until they have physical evidence…"

I interjected immediately. "...But if we wait, then it'll be too late. Finding one in the City would mean that they could be anyone anywhere."

Dea put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I know that you want to protect as many people as possible, but sometimes that can't include everybody." I opened my mouth to protest, but she stopped me before I could say anything. "The soldier in you says to find another way, but sometimes there are some that cannot be persuaded. In this case, that's Zavala and Ikora."

Her exclusion of Cayde perked my interest. That was an odd thing to leave out, so I jumped on the opportunity. "You didn't mention Cayde. What about him?"

"Perceptive as usual," Dea responded almost lightheartedly. "He's your target. Cayde is more of a renegade as compared to the other two. From what I understad, he's also the newest of the three Vanguard and may not be as by the book as say someone in Zavala's position. While he certainly could not have directly said it, he may believe you at least in part. The Hunter Vanguard is much more open to risky tactics, so if you get him on your side, then you stand that much more of a chance at nipping this right in the bud."

"I'm not sure what kind of terms he and I are on."

Dea looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"It's just that he and I are not really that close, yet he said he'd humor my argument and take Starco's data to the Speaker. The last time either of us interacted directly with one another was when I beat him in a sharpshooting contest, and then Arla beat him throwing knives a day later. He didn't act like a sore loser, but he sure didn't seem happy."

"I think a man in his position is able to put aside his personal dealings from official business. Besides, holding a grudge for some silly contest is a bit childish don't you think? Really on both of your parts."

She was right; it was childish to think something like that. Ironic considering I'd physically never been a child, but regardless… "I see your point. So you think he's actually going to take this to the Speaker?"

Dea leaned back on the bench. "I don't know Cayde as well as you do. I can pretend to be and know a lot of things, but that's not something I'm willing to say I know. What I do know is that he tends to be the wild card of the bunch; he takes more chances even at the cost of his troops' lives. I'm not saying to trust that he's actually taking this to the Speaker, but I think he may actually run through the data himself and come up with something on his own."

"You make it sound like it'll be something half-baked and dangerous."

"That's because it WILL be half-baked and dangerous. They're plans made in the spur of the moment, something Hunters specialize at from my experience with them. I swear, it's like they all share a brain sometimes."

I gently raised a hand. "Not all plans made in the heat of the moment are bad. I'm guilty of several of those. Heck, the Black Garden didn't necessarily go according to plan did it?"

"You're right it didn't, but...nevermind, it's not pertinent to our conversation. There was one recent sighting of the black Skiffs I mentioned earlier."

I didn't really want to listen to theories, but if it was the best thing we had…"I'm listening."

"The latest sighting was around 50 years ago by a Guardian." Dea produced a datapad barely bigger than the palm of her hand and handed it to me. At first glance, it was a file on a Guardian, a Titan as distinguished by the marking in the background of the picture. The picture was of a bald, dark-skinned human with buzzed black hair and a scruffy goatee that looked to run up both sides of his face as well. "Travis Bishop, a Titan, claimed to have seen a black Skiff that waited for several seconds for transparent soldiers, and then it disappeared without a trace."

"I assume he's dead then since you said was."

"In his report, he claimed that his Ghost began to spark like mad, his suit doing it as well to a lesser extent, until it popped and shattered." I gave her a suspicious look. Odd vocabulary, and an even stranger way for a Ghost to die. "His words right in the report. All in there if you want to believe me. I've got all night if you want to read through it. I scrolled down the page and found that it was the last report he ever filed. In it he described a low sound that quite literally shut his suit down and made him feel uneasy. He then described a sound that resembled a pop and just after, his Ghost lay in pieces just in front of him. I read the entire thing to try and get the whole story, but it was difficult. The stuff I was able to glean were hard earned because the vocabulary was horrendous and mangled. This man had not been in a stable state of mind when he wrote this, no surprise given the apparent trauma of seeing his Ghost die in front of him. I couldn't imagine what was going through his head.

Finished reading, I gave back the datapad. "So what happened to him?" Saying nothing, sheflipped the datapad back at me and scrolled it back to the top to a detail I had totally missed somehow: cause of death. There was one word, one that I didn't think was applicable to a Guardian: Suicide, committed just two days after the report was submitted. I re-checked the date just to make sure. Sure enough, my memory had served me correctly. It made sense though. If his Ghost was dead, then there was no way to revive him. The question was "why?" Could the death of a Ghost actually drive a Guardian to suicide? I leaned deeper into the bench. "Does it say why?" I asked, not hiding my dreadful surprise to his fate.

"The psycheval said he had never quite been the same since his fire team died." I sat up and listened even more intently. Dea held up a hand and quickly added "No details there." I leaned back again, still listening, but I was still trying to piece together the real reason she brought me here. She was dodging something. What, I knew not, but I could tell it in the things she wasn't saying.

Dea continued. "That was their main argument against his claims about a secret house."

"Almost sounds like they thought it was a UFO sighting."

"Funny you mention that because it technically is. They had an idea of what it was but couldn't confirm its identity."

"Ok. I get that, but what aren't you saying?"

Dea squinted at me. "What do you mean?"

I adjusted my seated position again. It was getting late, and I'd let her beat around the bush too much. "You're being cryptic about something, not directly saying it. I'm tired, it's been a long day, and I want to go to sleep for at least a couple hours before I may have to meet with the Speaker." I sounded more irritated than I had meant to.

Dea threw her head back and sighed, proceeding to look me in the eye afterward. "Fine," she said. "This is definitely not the first time the Vanguard have heard. If we're going to stop this House before they kill thousands, we need to take some initiative and get boots on the ground immediately."

"What do you have in mind then?"

Dea stood up, and I joined just a half second later. "I've got two things," she said. "Personally, I recommend doing the first before the second, but I'll leave the final decision." I nodded and crossed my arms. "Ok, so the first is a contact I have in the Reef." I raised a hand to object, but Dea pushed the hand away and continued. "I know how the Reef feels about you, about us, but if you play your cards right, then you won't have to deal with Uldren. You need to find a Fallen named Variks, he is a House of Judgement scribe if you could consider one an entire House. He serves the Queen, so I don't expect that he'll shoot at you unless the Queen has put a price on your head."

"Let's hope not. And the second?" I probed.

"Recently a communication array powered up in the American Wastes, one that was supposedly destroyed centuries ago when the Fallen first invaded."

"That's deep in Kings' territory," I blurted.

"Indeed. The problem is that this wasn't likely the Kings' doing. They tried getting into the bunker years ago but were defeated each time they tried to barge in by some invisible force. Recently, they've been sending all of their forces to the eastern front they've created with the Hive, and the northwestern one they're starting."

"What's so important about this facility? Like what is it transmitting?"

"A signal to a warmind, an earlier, more powerful version of Rasputin called Caesar."

"More powerful? How?"

"For one, it'll overthrow Rasputin's control on almost any weapons it has, but it also reportedly has an army of undisturbed Exos at its disposal. These aren't like you and me. They're ruthless killing machines that have no other purpose than to protect their warmind. If that warmind falls into the Fallen's hands, then we may be witnessing the last days of our existence."

"I'm going to guess you believe that this is the Illusion."

"I'm not entirely sure. I want to say it's them making a move, but..." She placed a hand on her chin. "...The question is why would they need such an instrument? When they attack, they stay in the shadows or find some disguise and kill when their opponent drops his/her guard. That's one of the reasons they were so effective when they were at their prime. They're not known for bombing someone into the stone age."

"You know the expression 'if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck?'" I asked. Dea nodded slowly, steadily growing aware of where I was taking this. "Take it in the opposite then. If this doesn't seem like their kind of tactic, then it probably is not them, and if not-so-stealthy Houses couldn't get in, how would they get in, barring they didn't disguise themselves as something it would recognize. In my personal opinion, I think this is the Kings trying to tip the odds in their favor. Not only will a warmind help their efforts to defeat the Hive, but also us as well."

"Making it all the more imperative not to let that happen," Dea interrupted.

"Never said I was going to," I replied.

Dea put a hand on her hips. "That's exactly what I'm counting on." There was a sudden flash of light, and she was gone without any sign of her ever being there.

"I guess that means you're not coming along," I mumbled to myself and began working my way to the exit.

I returned to the Tower a short time later lost in thought, trying to piece together what I should do next. The short and simple answer was to investigate the signal to a warmind out in the American Wastes. The last thing the City needed was to live in constant fear of orbital death from above. That could prove to be humanity's ultimate end, and the darkness would prevail as the Traveler would be destroyed or severely damaged and unguarded. At the same time, I needed to get information on the Illusion before they struck much closer to home. The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. Perhaps I was overthinking this. I needed to talk to Arla alone. As much as I would love to tell Charli about Dea's existence, she needed to get used to the basics of the world before she started going along the more complicated paths that I had unfortunately gotten myself wrapped up in.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The air at the Tower Plaza was much cooler than it had been back in the City, mostly because of the vast difference in altitude. While I generally didn't care what the temperature was outside, I preferred cold to hot mainly because it posed less of a threat to abnormally high internal temperatures.

I was of two minds to walk straight to her room and see if she and Charli had returned, but just as I entered the lift, I decided to go to my room instead for a moment. I had just walked in when 'Crush' bellowed from the table, "It's about time you got back! Are we going to blow something up or not? I can feel the rust creeping back." A typical greeting from the machine gun whenever I left the Tower without him (it?).

The lights flashed on as I passed through the doorway and walked over to the table, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a small phone, something I bought for Arla, Lee, and myself a while ago. I'd barely used it mainly because it was rare that the three of us were not in the same room. Of course, now substitute Charli for Lee, and you have our current arrangement. Before I powered up the device, I opened the drawer again, reaching into the shadow wedge of shadow at the back. Unsurprisingly, it was still there, Lee's phone, obtained a few days after the Black Garden when we officially declared Lee dead and moved what items we wanted to keep out of his room. He didn't keep much in his room besides guns and ammo, couple of journals filled with tales of his adventures (Arla took those). I took his small phone that he'd used maybe once or twice. I don't know why I did it now, that thought process long forgotten, but nevertheless I had it. For a moment, I considered giving it to Charli, but it just didn't feel right, not right now.

I pushed the drawer closed and powered up my small device, the screen turning bright white for several seconds before shifting to my screensaver, a picture of Arla, Lee, and me taken not too long after I'd gotten to the Tower. It still amazed me that this wasn't even a year ago. So much had happened since then, and by the looks of things, it looked like things were about to pick up again.

'Crush' piped up again, yanking me out of my momentary stupor. "Yo, Max! You in there?"

"Yes. Sorry Crush," I answered. "You'll get to see some action not too long from now. We just need to meet with Arla and Charli first."

"No it's all good," Crush said calmly. "Besides, that Arla's not too hard on the sensors." Starco shook his shell in disapproval while I rolled my eyes.

"If that's what it takes..." I muttered.

"You know that's not what it takes," the gun said, his voice raising again. "It takes you, me, a couple hundred bullets, and some Fallen to satisfy my craving for justice."

Ignoring any further comment, I checked the frequency the device was set to, ensuring it was the private channel now only Arla and I shared. As expected, it hadn't changed, and I pulled up Arla's name from the few contacts registered to the device. I pressed the call button and pressed the speaker to my audio sensor and paced slowly around my room. The rings droned on for several seconds before a gruff voice answered, "You have reached Arla's message box. She's unavailable to you right now, so leave a message or buzz off!" Just as it cut off, I could hear a stifled snicker. This was obviously another one of that Heksis' pranks. From what Arla told me, he was as good a fighter as he was a joker. Not willing to humor the joke, I hung up just before the message tone rang and called again. This time, Arla answered, her voice extremely groggy. The first thing I heard was a yawn. "Sorry, did I wake you?" I asked.

"No, not at all," Arla lied with another deep yawn. "Sorry, I must have dozed off. Charli and I got here just a few minutes ago. I kind of just collapsed on the bed with all my armor on."

"That probably wasn't comfortable. Nowhere near as comfortable as yours is," she responded, verbally noting the robes I wore with the armor underneath. Her voice still sounded half-asleep.

"You'd be surprised how awkward it can be." I sat down on the bed.

"Hmm...So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Go ahead and get some sleep. I know you earned it today."

Her voice seemed to relax into an almost dreamy state, like she was already going to sleep before disconnecting the call. "You don't have to tell me twice." The phone cut off.