Chapter 82

Initially Kaleb had felt calmer after he had ensured that he wouldn't be the one to taint the earth red with the madness that was growing inside him faster than ever since Alja was gone. He had been able to strategize and think clearly:

The other Councilors didn't give up easily, just as he'd expected. His spies had confirmed the other three still met irregularly but their actions didn't seem coordinated. They were all trying to get through this individually. There weren't any military campaigns directed at his territory but still the fighting had started at the borders of his sector. There had barely been official borders between the sectors governed by the different Councilors before. And except for a few border posts Shoshanna and Tatiana didn't do much to keep their citizens inside. Maybe they even hoped for stability if those they considered flawed left their territories.

Only Ming had put significant effort into border security. That he was his fiercest adversary, was something Kaleb had anticipated as well. But he would no longer matter when Silence fell. He'd told that to himself over and over again to quell the impulse to find the man and kill him on the spot for taking Alja from him. And it worked. His promise to Alja still held. The strings of her emotional web mentally binding his hands from killing. They did allow him however to ruthlessly stop anyone who tried to restrain those who'd seek protection from rehabilitation in his sector. That he cleared enforcement stations of the refugees they detained and destroyed their holding cells, was something she would have approved. That he wiped out border patrols, wherever most people tried to cross, she would have at least understood. Soldiers died. That was how war worked.

It was harder to find those who would attack inside the Net. But he wasn't alone there. Rebellious forces were on the rise ever since the Council had broken and even more so since rehabilitation was no longer a threat in half of the world. Anthony hadn't yet taken his own side of the rebellion to the open. "With you, our goals now have a very strong face," he'd said. "As long as those goals align and the situation is so volatile, it is better for anyone else not to be too visible."

And the change had started showing inside the Net as well. His own sector had become the most stable regarding psychotic violence. Anthony's and Nikita's sectors followed closely. He theorized that it was because the people there felt the most. Even if it was mostly negative emotion, it seemed enough that they allowed it. It took pressure off the state of the Net. Their need for violence had gotten a new direction. Apparently it wasn't necessary that the Psy felt positive emotions. Just feeling at all and giving the suppressed negative emotions an outlet calmed the insane core of the problem. It fueled however the war.

He had checked on the dead spaces in the Net, where the rot had eroded all life before. And sometimes he had seen them, thin threads of silver crossing the emptiness, keeping it from fracturing further. The Net had started to heal. Somehow the flow of data had started again, strengthened the weakened fabric of the Net, at least in some areas. It filled him with a slow and bitter pain that Alja could not see this new hope.

It might just be enough for the Net to survive, when it lost one of his biggest power-centers, Kaleb's mind. At least he had to cling to that hope, because in other areas the rot was growing ever faster. Maybe they'd have to act more literal on the words of his speeches than he'd intended. We have to cut this cancer out of ourselves and hope we'll survive as a race.

He'd finally agreed to a meeting with Nikita and Anthony to organize a failsafe for the Net. He'd do this for her and then die in peace. That was his last hope.

Yes, he had been calm.

And then Judd had come with his suggestion, with that other hope he had abandoned almost completely. But the thread hadn't torn yet.

"You trust me with your life. Would you also trust me with hers?" the former Arrow had asked in the shadows of Father Perez' church. "We may have a way to help her. But you can't come with her. They won't allow you near."

His words had been simple. He didn't have to tell him, that his life was forfeit the moment he decided to do anything than blindly accept their conditions. And Kaleb didn't care.

"I'll agree to anything if it might bring her back." It had been a whisper. "I will trust you."

"I also won't teleport to save my energy in case I need it for you."

"I know. I'll bring her to the border of changeling territory and leave her in your care from there."

He hadn't been able to say much more. Hope and desperation choked him up inside, making his voice and his body tremble so hard he had teleported back and let Aden check, if he was healing right.

The Arrow had reacted surprised at Kaleb's sudden request, after he had refused any medical attention over the course of the last weeks.

"You're physically fine. The biocompatible components are fully integrated. Within a few months we can take out the artificial parts." A few months… that was far more than Kaleb had been planning on. But now… his heart stuttered again at the sudden wave of hope that flooded him. But he couldn't tell the man why suddenly his body should be important again. No one could know there was hope, and even less where that hope came from.

Kaleb met Anthony and Nikita in a highly secure vault in the PsyNet. Anthony and his rebels had provided one that was out of reach of the other Councilors but just as secure as the old Council chambers had been. He didn't feel secure however. He was on the edge, ever since he'd left Alja with Judd.

Still he had to get through this meeting. They had to find a solution for the Net.

"Let's start with the sectors of the others: Ming and Tatiana report a decline in interpersonal violence," Nikita began.

"That could be a lie," Anthony pointed out. "I have information that confirms the rate of rehabilitation personnel calling in sick has increased way above statistical expectations in all three of their sectors."

"That may be, but my spies report that the statistics are genuine. The sectors with the amped rehabilitation rates are stabilizing," Nikita clarified unruffled. "But that effect is not going to last."

"How do you know?" Kaleb asked.

"I have someone in Tatiana's sector. That's an image of the core region." She pulled up a shot of the Net-section. There was a big black stain at its busy center.

"It's no longer confined to quiet fringe sections." Anthony no longer hid his concern, when he saw the image.

But Nikita wasn't done. "That's not all." She zoomed into the mental 3D image. And the others went quiet. They all had seen enough images of the rot that eroded the Net to instantly spot the difference. The threads were no longer collecting in a pool, but flaring out in fine streaks right between the thousands of minds occupying that region.

"Does it affect the minds in the region?" Kaleb had seen often enough what it did to a mind to get in contact with the disease.

"It seems not. Not yet," she stated.

"Our sectors are erratic but the growth of the stain stagnates. I would say that is the better sign." Anthony didn't sound as certain as he wished he were. "But we can't rely on the hope that the effect persists. The uncontrolled emotion you foster in your sector and in the rebellious forces might spill over into uncontrolled violence." He directed that statement at Kaleb. "So we must take precautions for all eventualities."

"I already have," the other man responded calmly.

"For a complete breakdown of the Net?" Nikita couldn't believe Kaleb planned this far in the state he'd been in for the last few weeks.

"We should consider splitting the Net," was his suggestion.

"That's impossible, were designed to relink together." She found his suggestion just as irrational as she had expected.

Anthony however wasn't as opposed to the idea. He had had far more time to adjust to the thought of what would happen to the Psy if Silence truly fell, had prepared for it for a long time. "With a few trained anchors on the edges of each section we could control that effect."

"And how do you expect to organize the separation?" Nikita wasn't convinced easily.

"I'll cut the Net myself." The others didn't have to question his ability to do so. They had seen the result of his encounter with the other Councilors. "I'll cut out a wide range of it around the contaminated areas. The rot has spread out from the center in a few main directions. Three or four sections should suffice. After the information we just collected about the stability in different sectors, we have reason to believe that the more healthy sections could stabilize on their own if they abolish Silence completely."

"But that still means we leave millions to die. There are many minds left in those areas." Now it was Anthony who gave voice to his doubts.

"The alternative is risking, they take you with them." Kaleb didn't include himself in the prediction. Too fragile was the hope that Judd and the changelings would really bring Alja back to him.

"I'm willing to strike any deal that gets me and as many of my employees as possible through this alive. So if you say it's technically possible, I vote to prepare for the possibility of a split."

"But if we could save all of them…" Anthony began.

"That would be preferable, yes."

The discussion went on almost like one of their former Council sessions, rational, calm. Only it should have never come that far. Considering splitting the Net, leaving those behind, whose minds were located too close to the infected areas, it would have broken Alja's heart. Again the memory of her slammed into Kaleb with vicious force. He was so used to it by now, that he didn't notice at first that this memory hadn't just come from his own subconscious. But then he felt the tug. Something pulled at him, at the connection that had felt like it was just bleeding out into the emptiness ever since Alja was gone.

"Alja!"

Without further announcement Kaleb vanished from the mental vault, leaving the other two behind.