Chapter Six: Kenai's Return
Torri sighed heavily reading over the day's reports, her thoughts wandering yet again from the facts in print in her hands. Things had finally returned to normal nearly five months after Kito's return and subsequent springing of X-5-452. She had thought things had been chaos after Kito had disappeared the first time with the rash of attempted defections by the young and strong willed in the younger classes. Things were worse, much worse, this time, because Kito's successful infiltration and escape with a prisoner had undermined the whole structure of authority that had been established here. Before the two incidents her subordinates were unquestioning in their loyalty and expeditious in the execution of their orders. Following it insubordination was rampant, and not just in the lower ranks of their strict little society. Not even her Company Commanders were immune from its influence. So far she had been forced to discipline Tempest and Monica for speaking out of turn and expressing unasked for opinions. The numbers went up exponentially as the rank lowered; all in all there had been nearly forty-five cases of insubordination, unauthorized absence, and various other breaches of their code of conduct. The measures to which they had been forced to go to squash the sudden trend was getting steadily more harsh. No longer was verbal or written counseling working, nor were extra assignments. They had to resort to physical discipline and Torri didn't like that in the least.
Discipline was a good thing done in the right way it was effective not only for the subject but for the witnesses to the event. What they were bordering on now was totalitarianism at its worst. Luckily they were starting to see a glimmer of reversal in the trend and that heartened Torri, hoping that they could turn it back before that thin line was crossed into brutality.
Torri sighed again, feeling peevish about the whole chain of events. She had not forgotten her promise to herself, Kito would pay for this, but her opportunity to act had yet to present itself. The longer she was made to wait the more frustrated she became. She found that her concentration was effected, as was her patience. But Lydecker said that the matter was done for now, and no matter her personal feelings about it she would not countermand those orders for a personal vendetta.
Torri's lips thinned, she set her report down and stood, knowing deep down that she was in no mood to review and approve another requisition. She moved to the window watching at a stiff parade rest as some of the junior Manticores were put through their morning calisthenics before moving off to their separate courses of training. A faint smile crossed her lips as they performed their routine effortlessly in total sync with one another like pieces to a well-oiled fighting machine. Just the way it should be, and hopefully that would be the way that it would stay. This was her slice of heaven and she felt proud of her integral part in that machine. Her eyes wandered across the yard to the outbuildings and the soldiers and civilians that made up this facility. Each individual cell of the organization had returned to harmony. She wondered how long that would last.
Reluctantly she turned away from the window glaring wickedly at the desk she had just been sitting behind. Sometimes she missed just being a grunt, having to worry about no responsibility except the prompt execution of the orders appointed over her. She missed the constant drilling, the teamwork instilled so deeply in her that not being with her classmates was like a big gaping hole in her personality. But as it was the way, things had to change. She had excelled among her classmates, and she had been given her first command by the time she was fifteen. And as was also the way of leadership she was required to maintain a requisite distance from her former peers, for the good of the command. With it came greater responsibility, less actual fighting and more and more paperwork. She had matured beyond her years, and sometimes she wondered what it would have been like had she taken a different road. The one like Kiara had taken… she had been given over to a special unit a closely-knit team of five individuals. It was surely some kind of Special Forces unit, somewhere where each individual relied on those in her team not only for the job but to stay alive. It was all conjecture on Torri's part, Kiara had never been able to say just what it was that she was involved in, it was so secretly classified that Torri would have been killed if she had even heard a whisper of it.
She missed her sister in arms, of any of the soldiers she had worked with over her twenty-two years, Kiara had been her closest confidant. Torri's eyes lost focus as she wondered just Kiara was doing now. She smiled a small smile as she remembered Kiara. She had been an Anglo descent, pale white skin with heavy freckles over her thin nose, her closely set eyes had been bright green, and Torri had always thought she should have been a red head, not the almost white blond she actually was. Lord knew Kiara had an "Irish" temper. She had been taller than Torri by a head or better, thin, and very feminine in her appearance. The look was deceiving, Kiara was a worthy opponent in any fight, using her height and her thin agility to excellent advantage over the boys brimming with muscles who thought that strength was everything.
A sharp knock on the door dragged her mind unwillingly from her reverie, and slowly she turned her eyes to the door, wondering who it could be. She moved quickly back to her desk seating herself again as she said, "Come!" in a loud voice.
The door was flung open slamming loudly into the stop and Torri rose staring wide-eyed as the visitor entered the room. She was at once happy and angry to see him, "Kenai?" She said incredulously, "What are you doing here?"
He should still have been on assignment. He had sent no signal to signify that he had been successful in his search for Kito. And she knew that they had sent no recall signal to bring him back to base, so just what was he doing back at camp?
Without prompting he strode into the room and seated himself opposite her, scooting to the edge of the seat and leaning forward, "I had to come back, the situation has changed. I need clarification of the precedence of my orders."
Her brows furrowed, "Precedence of orders?" She said slowly, "You're orders were simple Kenai, you were to track Kito to ground and then dispatch him. Wherein is the confusion?"
"Yes," Kenai said, "I have new information that affects my directive."
"You were not cleared to return, X-10-121!" She barked, angry about yet another breach of protocol.
Kenai popped up out of the chair hearing the edge in her voice spurring him to remember his training, "X-10-121 reporting contact with subject of my search, X-10-352."
"And," Torri replied testily, "Why would that cause you to breach protocol and return here without the successful completion of your assigned mission?"
"Ma'am," He started with the proper tone of respect, "While tracking the subject it came to my attention that he was and is in contact with X-10-321," Torri's eyebrow raised at that bit of news, as Kenai went on, "AND X-5-452."
Torri slowly seated herself upon hearing that news her mind going into overdrive about what it might mean. She had assumed, as had Lydecker that once they had gotten away from the city that the group would disperse, going separate directions to lose their trail. That would have been the smart thing for them to do, it would lessen their chances of being recaptured. But they hadn't, they were all together in the city. And if X-5-452 was in the city, where was her counterpart? The mystery man was still a snag on which her mind stuck. She had run circles in her mind about whom that man had been and where he had gotten the abilities that so much resembled Manticore abilities.
As if reading her thoughts Kenai added, "There was a man at the market with the X-5, a man that I recognize as the same man who helped Tima escape just after her return, and subsequent… rejection," he said carefully, "The man has abilities not unlike our own."
"I know," Torri said softly, "While you were away he was seen with Kito and Tima and another X-5. They infiltrated the building and made off with the X-5 you saw at the market."
"He… he did?" Kenai stammered.
She nodded, and proceeded to fill Kenai in on the events that transpired while he was out in the world on assignment. When she had come to the end of her story she debriefed Kenai on what his accomplishment had been on his mission. When he had finished Torri asked, "Where you able to track the X-5 back to her residence?"
"On that count I was unsuccessful," Kenai replied, "She only appeared one time, she stayed for a few days and then left. I was unable to track her, it seems that she is used to the thought of a tail and muddled her trail well enough that I could not follow. The other two, Kito and Tima seem to be sharing the residence that I tracked Kito back to. I tailed both of them on several occasions, but neither of them went to X-5-452's residence. Tima has a job doing grunt work at a local factory there, and Kito is employed a construction site on the edge of the downtown area."
Torri's eyes lost focus as she said, "We have to take this to Lydecker… he will want to know."
Torri moved swiftly down the familiar length of corridor leading to Lydecker's office, Kenai only a pace or two behind her. She stopped at his door going through the routine of announcing her presence with increased urgency. She knew Lydecker would be interested, considering his expressed interest in not the X-5, she was worthless to him now. From what he had confided in her the woman had been an utter failure in every sense of the word. He was more interested in the man that had been with her. Lydecker had mentioned that his name was Logan Cale.
She remembered vividly the conversation concerning the man, listening intently as Lydecker spoke of his recollection of the man being crippled by a bullet that had shattered his spine. How he had been a paraplegic from the incident, to become not only independently mobile some ten years later, but showing the same abilities that any of the Manticore classes showed. He wanted to know why… what had exactly happened to make him what he was? He had surmised that the X-5 had given him a blood transfusion, and that act had regenerated his burned out nerve endings and repaired his spinal column. That was easily explained, the pluropotins in Manticore blood, meant to help heal a soldier quickly, had differentiated into the needed cells and made him whole again. What he could not explain, and wanted desperately to find out was why it had reprogrammed his DNA to more resemble the supersoldiers that he had created.
She was permitted into the office and stopped before him snapping to stiff attention. She relayed Kenai's report to Lydecker seeing the interest in his eyes even when his face remained a clean slate. When she had finished she remained at attention waiting some verdict on what a plan of action might be related to the news.
"Good job, X-8-222," A different voice said from one dark corner of the office, a female voice, "That was exactly the news we were hoping to hear."
From the shadows stepped another soldier, one Torri could not remember ever seeing before. She was tall and Asian, dressed in a tightly tailored black infiltration suit. Her face was round and slightly pudgy, the features flat and her dark eyes sharply slanted. Her long dark black hair was plaited but still came to the small of her back. She stopped next to and just one step behind Lydecker's chair staring at her and Kenai with arrogance that made Torri rankle at the look.
Lydecker glanced back at her a moment and then back to Torri stating, "Torri allow me to introduce you to Bryn."