Scouring

Tácito Nelson, Head of the Archive Division, squeezed himself into HQ's most advanced full immersion VR rig. At an extreme two hundred eleven centimeters tall, he would not find this rig comfortable, but he was still the best choice. The majority of archivists only had implants to assist with Auditory and Visual integration, but Tácito had requested the full suite. He never expected to need them all, but he viewed it as a form of solidarity with the Watchers, who had more implants than anyone. "I'm ready," he said. "Run simulation."

Instantly, his body lost all external sensation. With no outside distractions, he more keenly felt the sting of a recent paper cut and the ache of a childhood injury. He respected the security personnel even more. They always had aches and minor injuries from training and sparring, which would be felt more intensely during full VR training. When he focused, he realized that his senses of smell and taste were gone too. All he had was sight and sound, which showed the footage of Klaus-21's last Watch. Ahead, Tácito saw the little rubber raft with the two children aboard. He unpaused the recording, with no controls active, so he could passively experience exactly what Klaus had seen and heard.

His view drew closer to the boat, lowering down toward the water…

And he felt the rubber surface of the boat.

Even half-expecting this, Tácito would have jumped out of his skin had he any direct control over his own body. The view angled downward, looking at the side of the boat. There were the two indentations, just what he would expect were he pressing against it with his hands. And his hands absolutely felt the contact with the cold, damp surface. We were right… For the first time ever, a Watcher experienced tactile sensation… But that was a very small discovery compared to what it implied. The indentations on the boat… that is not data corruption. Even as he felt contact with the boat, the rubber surface deformed. Klaus didn't just feel something… he physically interacted with an object being Watched! As the footage progressed, the boat moved away. The indentations vanished, and the sensation of contact disappeared. That settled it. Though Tácito had no theories as to how, it was essentially certain: Klaus-21 had touched an object from seventy lightyears away.

Text appeared in his field of vision. With total immersion active, his body couldn't perceive anything in the real world except its own aches and pains. The messages were from Supriya and Renya, who had signed in to the observation consoles near his rig. Supriya confirmed the data in question was tactile in nature, while Renya confirmed that the deformation to the boat was consistent with physical pressure from adult human hands. Tácito knew the room would also be projecting a huge, detailed hologram based on the same footage.

As the recording advanced, he finally passed the last of the imagery that had been fully rendered previously. Only in the last few minutes had the full recording been completed, so he would get to experience the end of this Watch for the first time.

The disgusting, polluted area the boat now reached stood in sharp contrast to the pristine forest from mere moments before. Calculations from the computers rendering the data provided the locational coordinates, so Tácito would be sure to have Charlotte-17 observe this place soon.

The recording moved toward a scuffed, dirty inflatable structure, which irritated Tácito somewhat. He would have preferred Klaus focus on the two children in the boat. A brief look in that direction showed the Lamia girl stepping ashore and picking up a stubby red-stained pencil, but then Klaus looked away again. Tácito considered taking control of the perspective to stay focused on the boat, confused about the Watcher's fascination with the ugly little house. But sticking to the Watcher's perspective at least once always had some merit.

The Unwanted boy spoke. "Are you gonna let me live? I promise I'll be good and–"

The words cut short, and Klaus rapidly turned toward the boat. There was a splash, and the Unwanted five-year-old was gone. Pause, Tácito thought. He took direct control of the simulation, rewinding two seconds and focusing on the boat. As usual, this resulted in small blind spots and unrendered areas. Watcher footage included a three hundred sixty degree field of view, centered on the point from which the Watcher observed. Thus, by moving his own perspective around, Tácito gained line of sight to areas Klaus could not have seen. Though the rendering software was the best mankind could produce, and it managed to fill in quite a lot, actual data didn't exist. These areas were often blurry, or even empty. The opposite side of irregular objects also faded into static. The projected awareness of a Watcher didn't actually require light to see, but their vision could still be blocked by opaque obstructions.

The little girl moved too fast to clearly see, a burst of red appeared on the side of the boy's head, and he tumbled into the water.

Despite the horror of that moment, Tácito forced himself to play the footage again, at five percent speed. With power totally at odds with her frail build, the little girl spun her whole body, driving the stubby pencil into the boy's temple. Somehow, the pencil survived the impact, punching through bone without taking any damage. The boy weighed more than half as much as the slender girl, but the force of the blow still flipped him over the side of the boat with ease. His small body fell out of Klaus-21's line of sight, which was currently low to the ground, thus he appeared to blur and then vanish before hitting the water.

Text appeared. Supriya reported that a hit of such power likely would have knocked the boy unconscious, while the puncture wound from the pencil would have guaranteed death in under a minute. Renya observed that a girl that size absolutely should not be able to generate that kind of force, and even then the pencil should have shattered.

But when the boy tumbled out of the boat, the little pencil was completely unharmed. It was soaked with the child's blood, and after a moment, the girl turned to flick one red drop toward the disgusting bouncy house.

Tácito rotated his vision in that direction, and apparently Klaus had been moving toward it, since Tácito could easily see inside. The disgusting bouncy house was positively filled with blood.

Horrified Tácito paused. Renya sent him additional text, estimating that the amount of fluid filling the inflatable structure would have required at least ten million drops of blood. A number that extreme failed to sink in. A catastrophe of such a scale simply couldn't register in the gentle librarian's mind.

Doctor Sharma drew attention to something else: The blood looked fresh. It had not coagulated or even lost its bright red color. Somehow, blood that must have been amassed over considerable time remained unchanged.

Unwilling to dwell on these details, Tácito resumed the recording, though at one third speed. Soon, text from Renya reported unusual brain activity in Klaus. Some of it was consistent with extreme stress, which Tácito figured was a perfectly reasonable response to the whole mess. But there were also spikes of brain activity that she'd never seen before. Supriya added that in some ways it resembled what happened when poor Niko experienced nerve flares, but it didn't seem to be pain…

And then another impossibility presented itself.

Allowing the recording to play as Klaus had experienced it, but still at slow speed, Tácito felt something in his hand again. And then, the bloody pencil rose into the air… He expected a storm of text from his fellow department heads, but none appeared. Perhaps they were as shocked as him. The pencil hovered, though Tácito clearly felt it as if he held it. And then, with a sensation similar to exertion, but mental rather than physical, the bloody little murder weapon shot through the air like a dart. It pierced all the way through the hideous bouncy house, not slowing from either the four layers of rubber or from passing through so much fluid. But when the pencil finally hit a tree in the distance, it burst into splinters, yellow flakes, and powdered graphite.

Blood flowed across the concrete and into the stream as the structure slowly deflated.

Still, no text from his colleagues. Like him, they had witnessed too many impossibilities in too short a time.

Klaus turned toward the terrifying, mysterious little girl, and froze. Tácito felt the same way. Had he been in control of his own body, he too would've been unable to move.

The little boat no longer drifted with the current of the stream. With no rope or any other obvious explanation, it remained exactly where it was, as the water flowed beneath it. And then Lamia started to turn.

In a rush, the perspective raced away at high speed. Tácito approved. Though this was only audio and video, it was clear Klaus had been "running" in abject terror. Even with the playback at one third speed, it still felt like a very rapid flight upstream.

And then Tácito felt something strange. A sensation he'd never experienced before. In some ways, it was a little like the tingling of goosebumps, from fear rather than from cold. But that wasn't quite it. Perhaps this is what someone would call a sixth sense.

The recording abruptly ended.

Deeply disturbed, confused beyond description, and overwhelmed at what he'd witnessed, Tácito extracted himself from the total immersion VR rig. His own sensations returned, and it was an immense relief to be aware of his surroundings, and safely in HQ. He stretched, groaning. Then he turned to Supriya and Renya.

The women looked utterly haunted.

"You too, huh?" Tácito forced a weak laugh. "Pretty messed up, right?"

Silence.

Tácito had a deep sense of foreboding, and he didn't even try to speak. He'd wait for them to work up the courage first.

Finally, little Supriya asked, "Did you feel something… odd at the very end? A sensation unlike anything else in your experience?"

"Yes… yes I did…"

"Because… the data from the end of the Watch…" she turned to the Head of the Science Division.

Renya shivered. "I've seen that sort of data before. Many times. It's something we specifically look for… when searching for new Watchers."

The Head Archivist raised an eyebrow. "How does that…" but he trailed off. The haunted expressions of the two women had not abated in the slightest.

Taking a deep breath, Renya continued. "When a doctor or school suspects that someone may have the potential to be a Watcher, they have them submit to brain scans, and then they call us. While examining the data from a little used area of the brain, they request that one of our Watchers observe the subject from afar. And if the subject experiences an indescribable sensation… and the brain data matches the end of 21's final recording…"

Supriya finished. "Then we know we've found a new Watcher."

Still badly shaken from his experience in the VR rig, Tácito nervously asked, "Are you saying… at the very end of the recording…"

"Yes," Renya said. "Immediately before his Watch ended with unnatural abruptness, Klaus-21's projected mind… was being Watched."

Niko-29's mind reeled with surprise bordering on disbelief. He hadn't really expected to be able to Watch at all. But to find his awareness on Elpis, without the benefit of his rig or the Southern Lights…

He rotated his perspective. He hadn't chosen any particular location, and he wondered what had landed his mind here. This wasn't even the last place on Elpis he Watched. He hung a fair distance above a polluted stream, and when he looked about, he saw it was lined by crumbling, filthy concrete. A deflated rubber structure was nearby…

And there was so… much… blood…

His heart rate began to speed up. His disturbing surroundings prevented him from even realizing that his pain had faded. The agony of his screaming nervous system was now seventy lightyears away, and the discomfort was relatively easy to ignore. But he could not ignore what he saw.

The concrete surrounding the deflated structure was covered in a wide pool of bright red blood. It looked like much had flowed into the stream, but the sheer quantity that had spread across the ground…

But that sight was a fair distance downstream from where he Watched. Much closer, there was a lesser horror… but one that perhaps had more personal implications.

On either shore, nearest the spot from which Niko observed, there were wild, random sprays of blood, and bits of what looked like torn flesh and splintered bone. Niko desperately wanted to return to his own body, despite the agony that awaited him there. But Klaus would've wanted him to be brave.

One shore had more blood and remains than the other, and Niko forced himself to zoom in. The closer he got, the more hideous it all was. One large strip of skin, hanging off a bit of trash, had a bruise. A bit of white nearby may have been a tooth. There were strange, fanglike barbed objects scattered about, broken and bloody…

Then Niko saw a hand.

For a moment, he stopped completely. He deeply, deeply… wanted to hide from this.

But he could not. A Watcher must be strong.

He zoomed in.

The severed hand was stained by blood, and two of the strange barbed needle things protruded from it.

But none of this mattered.

A ring adorned one of the fingers. A simple gold band, with no gem, but etched with fine flowing writing of a fictional language. A high-dollar replica based on Klaus-21's favorite old films and books.

This… this was Klaus-21's hand…

Niko's teacher. Almost a father. Almost a big brother. The thoughtful, wise, encouraging peacemaker who guided Niko through every day, and bound all the Watchers together like a single, quirky family.

Surprisingly, Niko's heart rate slowed. No panic attack threatened to grip him.

Rather, he remained there, his perspective fixed, unmoving.

Grieving.

Heart pounding, Renya Baldwin finally reached the Infirmary, with Supriya close behind. The spacious area was crowded, with nearly half the Medical team and dozens of Renya's scientists already there. The panting Tácito had arrived well ahead of her. Benicio Martins stood in one corner, mostly out of the way but with line of sight to Niko's hospital bed.

The boy lay still, his body relaxed, despite the equipment showing that his CPN-Ω was still flaring. Additional brain-scanning equipment had been brought over, and a wealth of data flowed across the screen.

"So it's true," Tácito said, examining the screens. "He's Watching. And from these scans… I think he's Watching somewhere far away… He's pierced HQ's shielding…"

"Who saw it when this started?" Supriya asked. Two of the nurses at Niko's side raised their hands, as did Captain Martins. "What led up to it?"

The older nurse said, "Klaus-21 apparently told Niko that his nerve condition might be harnessed to enhance his Watching. With Klaus unaccounted for, Niko had the motivation to finally try."

The younger nurse added, "I rushed the brain scanning equipment over, just in case, and I had it up and running shortly after he entered his Trance."

"He's one incredible kid," Captain Martins said quietly, though few seemed to notice.

"So," Renya said, "Niko has made a breakthrough. Without the equipment in his Chamber, he penetrated our faraday barriers, and he's Watching farther than anyone should be able to do unaided. Tácito, can you tell from these scans where he's Watching?"

But the Head Archivist didn't immediately answer. He had his eyes on Niko.

Tears ran down the boy's cheeks.

Klaus… dear, precious Klaus… How? How did you get all the way out here? And what could have done this to you?

Niko lost track of how long he remained there, numb to everything but loss and sadness, while the filthy stream slowly flowed. But he knew, deep down, that he had a duty. It was not a Watcher's job to understand, make connections, or figure things out. They only needed to gather data. The vast teams of scientists and archivists would do the rest.

Finally turning away from the sight of Klaus-21's hand, Niko examined the surroundings. Blood and barbed spines littered the area, along with bits of flesh and bone. The killing had been extreme, violent in a way Niko refused to contemplate. Perhaps it had also been quick. A strip of bloody denim and a length of shoelace lay nearby. After further searching, he found a mangled but recognizable strip of Klaus-21's favorite shirt. A custom print showcasing many of his favorite fictional settings. Klaus always wore it on days when he'd scheduled an RPG session…

Another pang of loss tore at Niko at that little reminder of the person Klaus had been. He forced himself to instead focus on… forensic evidence.

Some of the horrid barbed needle teeth were smooth at one end, as if they'd cleanly detached from whatever they'd been part of. But a few were bloody at both ends. Perhaps… perhaps some of these things had been torn out from the force of… whatever had been done to… the victim? It didn't really make sense that these things could cause serious injury. They were thin, and porous. One shifted slightly from a mild gust of wind. It must weigh far less than you'd expect from its size.

Rotating his perspective to the far bank, Niko hesitated. So much pain, so much sadness. But he still had his duty. He sent his mind to the far bank. There was less blood on this shore, though he did see a bit of broken electronics. Drawing close, Niko thought it might be one of the many implants all Watchers carried. He didn't recognize it though, meaning it must be one that had been completely internal.

Then, the concrete several meters to his left began to shimmer.

Niko turned toward it, and froze.

She rose up out of the concrete. And she had an old man with her.

"Please…" the man said. "Don't punish me for trying. Most adults on Elpis avoid learning, or training. They're too scared that they might change enough to create a duplicate and become Unwanted." His words felt a bit stiff, as if rehearsed many times. This Unwanted man had known he might one day be taken by this monster. "But I didn't let fear stop me. I'm trying to advance our technology and understanding, in ways that may help you quite frankly. My latest research on Exovasilio and the Lamia incursion–"

His voice cut off. Faster than Niko's eyes could track, the girl reached up and drove something into the base of the old man's skull. Instantly limp, he tumbled into the stream.

Lamia held a long green wooden pencil. It looked new, with a sharpened tip that showed no damage from being used to kill.

She cocked her head.

Then she turned toward Niko.

The boy felt the cold, tingling sensation that he had only experienced a few times before, back when he was first being tested. It wasn't something he could ever forget. It was an awareness of a like mind. One unfettered by the physical brain…

She was Watching him.

A spike of terror gripped Niko.

The girl's eyes widened in recognition, and she hissed, "Another one?" She raised a hand toward him, reaching...

For just an instant, Niko felt a strange tugging sensation... as if his mind was being pulled…

But in a burst of panic and rejection… Niko found himself back in his own agonized body in HQ.

Nurse Wilma Taibei took one final sample, and fed it into the diagnostics equipment. The morgue was deserted of all but her. The crisis of the missing Watcher had trumped all other priorities, and there was even some sort of commotion in the Infirmary. But Wilma was nothing if not devoted to her duties. Everyone else might view the death of Samantha Gross as secondary, but it would not be ignored.

Bringing up multiple holos, Wilma poured over the results of the tests and scans. The cause of death was clearly chemical in nature, but the drug in question was not in any database. If Samantha Gross had been trying to whip up something like heroin, lunafreude, or Martian cocaine, she'd gotten the mixture way off. Head Doctor Supriya Sharma had proposed that very thing: perhaps Miss Gross had botched her work so badly the resulting drug had been exceptionally toxic. But Wilma doubted it. Miss Gross had worked with HQ's Chemical Processing division for nearly a decade, and she had more than a decade of relevant job experience prior to that. It didn't feel likely that she'd make such a major and lethal mistake.

So… What else could it be?

Well… if the unidentified chemical didn't resemble any known illegal drug… What had she been trying to make? And if it was something legal… or completely new… why would she have done all her work in secret?

This task would have been beyond the knowledge and training of an unsupervised nurse anywhere else, but Wilma Taibei was ludicrously overqualified for her role. Watcher HQ drew the best of every field, and the majority of their nurses received intensive supplemental training that would qualify them as doctors at most hospitals. It was the same with most departments. The lowliest Private in the Security Forces could easily qualify as officers elsewhere, and most of the archivists had administered entire library systems before joining the Watchers. Wilma's time with the Organization doubled as residency experience, and it was only her intense focus on her duties that prevented her from starting on her thesis.

Though this autopsy was a very distant second in priority to the Klaus situation, Security Chief Rokoto finally granted Wilma the authorization she'd requested hours earlier. Samantha's private files had been decrypted, and the full data was now available on Nurse Taibei's screen.

As expected, quick initial searches didn't reveal anything interesting. Samantha had been careful, hiding anything incriminating from casual inspection. All employees at Watcher HQ had to agree to periodic, random searches of their possessions and files, accepting that the security of the Watchers mattered more than any of their privacy.

But Nurse Taibei could get a bit obsessive…

Soon, she found it. Carefully hidden amidst mind-numbingly tedious journal entries, she found files related to her "Pet Project." Chemical formulas and drug simulations were cross-referenced with data related to Watcher Brain function, and how this differed from the human norm during an active Watch. Curious. Samantha didn't even have the clearance to possess such data.

The more she dug, the more Wilma's excitement grew. Nothing about this suggested a motive so low and mundane as recreational drug dependence. This was something bigger. With her access to the advanced medical simulators Samantha never could have touched, Wilma began running tests on the final version of whatever the dead woman had been inventing.

Hasina Rakoto entered the crowded Infirmary. doctors and scientists pressed to either side, making way for the Security Chief. Heart heavy, burdened by a mix of guilt, disbelief, and failure, she reached the side of Niko-29's bed. The boy had elevated the head of the bed, so he now sat mostly upright. Sweat saturated his clothes, and brutal tension of his nerve flare had every tendon standing out. But he seemed to be giving little attention to his own pain.

Tears flowed freely down the boy's face. He met Hasina's eyes with something like dread. He'd likely already been forced to answer many painful questions, and he didn't look forward to more.

She'd keep it brief. "Are you absolutely certain?"

Niko nodded. "It was him."

"On Elpis? He was physically on Elpis? Seventy lightyears from here?"

Niko nodded again.

Hasina's head spun. How could such a thing be possible? Klaus needed the enhancement of the Aurora Australis just to see Elpis. And never had there been any realistic theory of how physical projection might be possible. But right now, the full processing power of the HQ mainframe was working double time to render the footage of Niko's unprecedented Watch.

One more question. "Is there… even the slightest chance that Klaus-21 could have survived whatever happened to him? Could he have been wounded and then taken elsewhere?"

The boy clamped his eyes shut, causing more tears to overflow. His small body quivered, likely from another surge of nerve pain. So young, so frail, but in that moment he was hard as rock, as his body tried to tear itself apart from the severity of his suffering. Eventually, this latest torment lessened, and Niko was able to answer through gritted teeth. "Too much blood. Both sides of the stream."

"Meaning there was far more that ended up in the water," Doctor Sharma said quietly.

Niko managed to relax, as much as was possible during a flare at least. "And they've shown me examples of all our internal implants. The one that I saw broken on the shore… It's the one that integrates with a Watcher's heart, to make sure we never experience cardiac arrest or arrhythmia…" Niko's sadness finally gave way to the panic attack they'd all known was coming. Captain Martins shouldered his way through the crowd to take the boy's hand, while Supriya moved in to help with his anxiety.

Chief Rakoto's mind raced. So… the impossible has occurred. Something we always hoped might be possible, which could revolutionize so many aspects of human society… but it led to a horrific tragedy. For the first time, a Watcher did more than observe. Somehow, Klaus traveled to Elpis physically. But… either the strain blew him apart… or something beyond our understanding terminated him with needless brutality.

Tall and slim, Hasina had little difficulty squeezing through the crowd, heading toward her Command Center. She'd trust others to learn the details. For now, she had two urgent issues to address. If it was possible for a Watcher to project their body across the stars, could this occur by accident? And was such a feat within the power of whatever had slaughtered Klaus?

How was she to protect the Watchers, when the impossible was becoming reality?

A chime woke Duri-22 from a deep, dreamless sleep. The previous day had been exhausting in so many ways, part of him had hoped to sleep for at least ten hours. But with his best friend missing, he doubted he'd forgive himself for checking out that long. Even so, noting the time, he was surprised how quickly he'd been woken up. That sure explains why I'm still so tired…

He signaled an acknowledgement, dragged himself out of bed, and swiftly composed himself. Of North Korean descent, but raised on Mars, he'd never given much attention to appearances. As long as his pants were zipped and his hair wasn't sticking out in too many directions, he didn't much care whether people thought he looked "together." But Watchers were an odd sort of celebrity, so he'd gradually accepted Klaus-21's advice to at least pretend to care. A few quick swipes of a damp comb worked wonders, he slipped into slightly more dignified shoes than his "flat cat" slippers, and finally made his way to his foyer. With a subvocalized command, he opened the door to his suite.

Worry quickly built into dread.

Four of the other Watchers filed in, slow, reluctant, silent. None of them seemed to want to speak first.

Charlotte looked utterly defeated. Peng looked bitter, even angry. Anya looked lost. And Fawzia had never looked so old.

This could only mean one thing. Duri took a moment to compose himself, erecting a temporary mental wall against grief. He needed some details first, to satisfy his curious mind. Then he'd let himself fall apart. "How did it happen?"

"We aren't quite sure." Fawzia's voice quivered from exhaustion and loss. "He was murdered. By means we can't even guess. It may have been fairly quick… but it was extreme."

Duri blinked. He honestly didn't know what he'd expected. But certainly not murder. Watcher HQ was the single most secure and well-defended facility in all of human civilization. No Watcher had ever even been injured deliberately. "How? How could something like this have happened? Where was the body found?"

"That's something… none of us were ready for," Charlotte said. She had a vacant look about her. She'd always viewed Klaus as her icon. The paragon of her worldview… and possibly something more. His pure, certain outlook of a better future had motivated her to train longer and harder than any of them. Duri wasn't surprised when she couldn't continue.

It was Anya of all people who finally explained. "Klaus… he died… on Elpis."

For a moment, Duri didn't react. Surely he misheard. But no one spoke up to correct her.

"Niko found his remains," Peng said through gritted teeth. "We didn't find Klaus in our searches because he was seventy lightyears away."

Taking a step back, Duri began to feel dizzy. "How? How could he…?"

But he doubted there was any point in asking this soon. The impossible wouldn't be explained quickly. He gestured for everyone to follow, and he shambled to his meeting room in a daze. He sank into a chair and waited for the others. Anya remained standing.

"Are we… absolutely certain?" Duri asked carefully.

Fawzia slowly nodded. "I'm so sorry, Duri. We all know you were his closest friend, almost from the day of your Induction. But it has been confirmed. Niko's latest Watch, which is an unprecedented story all on its own, was given maximum priority. The GLaDOS mainframe is being serviced right now, due to the issues created by overclocking the whole system. Multiple archivists and scientists have viewed the footage and confirmed its legitimacy. Niko wasn't hallucinating or imagining it. And the medical team agrees with Niko's assessment. Based on the… forensic evidence… there's no way Klaus could have survived whatever happened. The blood loss alone would have far exceeded lethal levels."

"Is it possible… that he was killed by the physical transit?" Duri asked. No one had any working theories on how a Watcher might project their physical bodies, though it had been a distant goal since the early days. "If Klaus was the first of us to achieve something so incredible…" But he trailed off. The others now looked a bit scared, not merely sad or angry.

"We think it's something worse," Charlotte said, finally pulling herself together. "We don't believe Klaus was responsible for getting himself to Elpis. We think it was done to him… by a previously unknown Watcher… on Elpis. He didn't project himself there. He was pulled there against his will. And the same thing nearly happened… to Niko."