Chương 27: Curfew

"WHY THE HELL DID YOU CUT COMMUNICATIONS!" Monica brought her fist down hard on the wooden table, making it shudder. Jeanne was seated beside her, with no intention whatsoever of taking part in the heated clash between the two.

"I DIDN'T CUT ANYTHING! I LOST THE SIGNAL AFTER THE ARGUMENT IN THE HALL!" Maliard shot back, showing the communication log on his watch display.

"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THE CALLS AFTERWARDS EITHER! YOU ARGUED WITH HIM AND LEFT HIM BEHIND!" She pointed out, this time bringing both palms down on the table, fortunately without damaging it. The floor plan and the centrepiece, empty and bare, trembled along with the wood. Maliard didn't reply, huffing irritably as he worked at his laptop. He sighed and pointed to the various movements of a white dot on the institute's floor plan.

"This is Lance, a few minutes after our argument… Something pushed him to head into the institute's woods. From there, I lost the signal completely." He explained, scrolling slowly through all of Lance's movements over the course of the day.

"That device's signal can't be cut that easily, unless it was a—" Monica stopped, jumping up from her chair and looking at Maliard with anguish.

"Yes… A Singularity or some form of Frequency variation." He nodded gravely, snapping the laptop shut and glancing at his watch.

"Curfew is in about thirty minutes. If he doesn't manage to get here in time, I'll go out and look for him personally." He murmured, holding Jeanne's gaze for a few seconds. Her face was wrapped in deep anxiety, yet she couldn't produce a single word.

"Why are you looking at me that way? Why don't you do something useful by yourself?" He turned to her, looking at her sidelong before turning toward the stairs. Jeanne flinched, covering her face with her hands, trembling imperceptibly.

"MALIARD!" Monica ran to her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders from behind and leaning toward her. The air in the room turned cold and unwelcoming at once.

"I stated an obvious fact. If she was interested, she could have gone looking on her own and maybe—" He stopped, shaken by a sudden movement under the floor mat, like a violent thud. Monica and Maliard looked at each other and exchanged a nod immediately after. They grabbed one of the standard-issue weapons kept on the kitchen shelf: a small pistol, no larger than half a hand, its barrel connected to a silver canister.

They loaded a single round into the chamber and began walking slowly toward the source of the sound. The blows grew stronger, making the armchair assigned to keep the hatch sealed bounce. Maliard seized it by the back and slowly shifted it to one side until it fell. The hatch snapped open, pushed by the force of a hand covered in dust and reddish sand. At its wrist, a watch identical to theirs. With difficulty, a torso followed, revealing a young man wrapped in grime, wearing only rags soaked in blood.

Gasping, he set foot on the floor, finally recognising the figures pointing pistols at his face. Maliard and Monica exchanged an incredulous look before settling on Lance, dazed and trembling. Monica lowered her weapon and dragged him firmly into the kitchen without a word. She dropped him onto one of the free chairs and handed him a glass of water.

"Are we sure it's him?" Maliard asked, keeping the pistol trained on him.

"You're finally talking to me again." He replied, pointing to the earpiece hidden under his raven hair. His face was entirely painted in dry red earth. Maliard sighed, finally lowering the barrel away from Lance. Jeanne noticed the figure seated in front of her and leapt from her chair with renewed vigour, throwing herself at him. Lance recognised her immediately and greeted her with one of his usual smiles, this time stained red.

"Where have you been?!" Jeanne clung to him, dragging him together with the entire chair to her side, completely unconcerned by the young man's embarrassment. Monica smiled, leaning her hip against the table just in front of him.

"Are we done with the dramatics?" Maliard asked, disgruntled, fiddling with his watch and unstrapping it from his wrist to let it slide directly onto the table. From the screen, a sweeping hologram projected, with all the data gathered on the first day.

"What happened after our argument?" Maliard asked, sitting in the chair furthest from the group.

"I ran into Malcolm..." He replied, without a trace of surprise at the sight of his companions' unsettled, fear-bleached faces. Monica moved closer and looked his body over.

"I followed him and ended up in one of those tunnels you'd shown me." He continued, trying to cover his abdomen with the rags. He caught his breath and pointed to Malcolm's name on the floating file.

"LANCE! WHY DID YOU FOLLOW HIM?" Monica looked at him with an alarming coldness, followed by a reprimand fierce enough to freeze his blood.

"Because…" He tried to find some form of justification, rather than admit that the reason was unknown even to him.

"Part of the fault is mine, for cutting communications." Maliard interrupted, turning his gaze away from both of them.

"Go on, Lance Klint." He redirected all attention to him, pointing at the hologram in front of them.

"I fought with some Helspawn, not so different from the ones at Arden Ring. One of them could be classified as a Monstrum. Then he arrived, talking about Lambdite and extraction methods…" Lance's eyes lit up. He pulled from his pocket a shard of the violet crystal, now empty of its inner nebula. Monica and Maliard stared, stunned by the quality and the size of the piece.

"How many samples of this kind were there?" Maliard demanded immediately, seizing the fragment with alarming speed.

"An entire cavern, but they'd already extracted what was possible. Then I fell into a chasm, and it collapsed." He held his head in his palm, probably still shaken by events.

"An entire cavern of these? Are you completely certain of what you're saying?" Monica exchanged a glance with Maliard. For once, the two understood each other immediately. Lance nodded to both of them without hesitating.

"Are you… All right?" Jeanne's voice asked quietly near his ear, hiding her lips with her hand so as not to disturb the heated debate between the two.

"Don't worry… You?" He replied, inching progressively further from her in small hops. Jeanne noticed quickly and followed him. The comic routine between the two went on until Lance found himself unable to move any further. Jeanne locked the leg of his chair with her boot, leaving him only the option of spinning in place. He resigned himself, settling in to listen with his head turned toward the sink.

"We followed you around the perimeter but lost sight of you immediately after. We split up to look for you until Maliard told us he'd lost the signal." Jeanne went over their entire patrol in detail, then lingered on the state of Lance's clothes.

"Lance… What really happened down there?" She murmured, worried, looking away from the filthy rags.

"I fought a giant spider, then a hornet, and finally Malcolm. He broke a couple of my ribs, dislocated my shoulder, and severed both hands…" Lance didn't register Monica's disgusted expression or the panic on Jeanne's face. Even Maliard looked at him with a degree of fear.

"I'M FINE NOW! EVERYONE CALM DOWN! LOOK!" He waved his hands, trying to imitate a dance he had seen on the street, resulting only in a disastrous collision with the table. Maliard sighed and dragged his hand across his face. Monica tried to help him up, but he stayed on the floor like a dead man. Jeanne grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him back to his feet. The young man swayed as he walked, confused and shaken.

"Lance…" Monica murmured near his ear, steering him back to his seat. She kept a measured smile while rotating her wrist, tracing circular movements in the air.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS AS THOUGH IT'S NORMAL!!!" She struck him hard on the head with a powerful right, almost like a press coming down. Maliard's eyes went wide, and he let out a low whistle. Monica seized him by the collar, forcing him to look at her.

"I understand that your ability allows it, but don't start thinking it should become a habit. It isn't human to endure that pain, and you are so young…" Monica grabbed his shoulders and shook them as she spoke.

"No one here wants this. No one considers you a weapon, Lance. Remember that deep down, you are still a human being. You may have lost everything typical of a human, but not your humanity." Monica's greenish eyes fixed on him, bright and luminous.

"Please, take better care of yourself. Consider this an order." Her tone wasn't as authoritative as in the prior meeting. It was more of a gentle request. Lance looked around at the people beside him, resting his gaze on his hands for a few seconds before speaking.

"I'm sorry… All of you." Those were his words, as he smiled at his companions. Monica and Jeanne brightened. Maliard turned his gaze toward Monica and looked at her darkly.

"Now… Go and rest. That's another order!" Monica helped him to his feet, walked him to the stairs, then watched him disappear up the stairs. Jeanne appeared in the doorway, trying to slip out of the debrief, only to be stopped by Maliard.

"Leave him alone for a while. He deserves rest after what he's been through." Maliard spoke with a less cold tone than usual, persuading Jeanne. The three discussed for a few hours the victims and the disappearances, managing to find the connection with what Lance had said. Monica bit her index finger as she thought about what to do next.

"Those creatures… They were like the ones described at Arden Ring. They're artificial, created solely to extract Lambdite. Am I right, Maliard?" Monica noted what was possible on the handful of blank sheets, drawing lines and circles around the names.

"Correct. I'm not certain why they would need such a vast quantity. A shipment of that kind would be enough to power NOIR for years." Maliard cracked his fingers against the table. Jeanne caught Monica's sleeve, trying to draw her attention without disturbing her. Monica noticed and smiled kindly, giving her permission to speak.

"Those soldiers… T-the ones you made me fight near the perimeter, who were they?" She asked, remembering the small group of individuals dressed in long red robes, open on one side. Maliard had told her not to use lethal force, and so she had, though judging by their groans of pain, she was beginning to reconsider.

"Those freaks with the black gear masks? Members of Machinamentum, an arms company that enriched itself enormously during the conflict. In truth, they operate in secret to capture the Meta and study them, or at least that was the case." Monica replied, opening a new image on the hologram. A gigantic tower, resembling a hive built from gears. Jeanne recognised it; it was the same one she had glimpsed as they arrived at the Child villa, and, together with the cathedral, it was the largest building in the city.

"Was?" She asked in return, curious about that story.

"After the war, Machinamentum and NOIR promised not to interfere with the lives of Meta unless they were dangerous cases. The current president is a harpy, but she isn't evil. We all decided, every one of us, to no longer consider the Meta as biological weapons." She began rocking on her chair, trying to clear the thought of her 'friend' from her mind.

"Many thanks for the history lesson, but now we need to decide what to do tomorrow." Maliard stopped speaking, presenting all the gathered information, especially what concerned Grayson. After another hour of discussion, they decided to go and rest.

"Goodnight, Commander and Jeanne. Have a pleasant rest for tomorrow's mission." He climbed the stairs in silence, slowly creeping toward the door." Now I gotta work on the analysis... I hope that he doesn't snore or I am gonna lose it, really." His expectations were shattered the moment he opened the door, finding his roommate in the middle of handstand push-ups on the balcony railing.

"ARE WE SERIOUS!" Maliard tried to smile, avoiding his face from becoming a contorted mess. Lance finally noticed him and jumped, using only the strength of one arm, righting himself to his feet.

"Lance… We are in the middle of the night. Why the hell are you training?" Maliard tried to be rational, but against a man like Lance, it was of no use. After everything he had been through, training without resting was the least rational thing possible.

"I couldn't sleep. I thought working a bit might tire me out, but it isn't working as I hoped. If you need to sleep, I'll stop immediately." He apologised, sitting on his cot under the bewildered look of his roommate. Maliard sighed and sat on his own bed, looking at him. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I wasn't expecting to sleep tonight either. I'm too busy thinking." He replied, keeping his eyes on the watch screen, which was close to dying.

"How does it recharge?" Lance asked, holding up his device, completely drained.

"It absorbs the Frequency in the environment. By tomorrow, it'll be as good as new." He replied quickly, unstrapping his own and setting it on the bedside table.

"You should still rest, though… Especially you, since you're the brain of the operation." Lance murmured, hoping not to be heard by Maliard, though his roommate had developed a certain talent for eavesdropping.

"Same goes for you, since you're the only one capable of doing the fieldwork." He stretched out on his bed, staring at the white, bare ceiling. The two remained in silence for a few minutes, listening to the feeble sound of the wind outside the window. The scenery of the forest near the capital, looming over them in the night while dancing under the breeze, filled both of their eyes.

"I apologise for what happened. You didn't deserve those words. Your interest was nothing more than curiosity." Maliard finally managed to say it, without looking at him. Lance felt something ease, smiling with his head lowered, yet he felt obliged not to let the conversation die there.

"It's my fault. I shouldn't have stuck my nose into matters that don't concern me. I should have expected it, given what Monica had already said to me about it." He tried to meet his face, nervously pressing his fingers together.

"Monica and I are no longer on good terms… After what happened with him." He raised his gaze, speaking with Lance in a completely different tone from his usual.

"Are you talking about August?" Lance ventured the question, but to his surprise, Maliard simply nodded in silence. He took a breath and resumed speaking.

"August… Was Noir's adoptive son. When he came to us, he was very young, maybe five or six. I don't remember. I considered him my friend, actually a brother, until he lost his mind and decided to attack us during an expedition. If NOIR was destroyed decades ago, it was his doing." Lance could catch a flare of rage in those words, while he turned over old wounds.

"I didn't weep for him. I would have wanted to find the body and tear it apart, but Monica nearly fell into depression. Even over our sister's grave, she kept murmuring his name. That was where we argued, and I decided I wouldn't follow her anymore." Maliard gripped the hem of his white shirt and pulled it so hard the sound of threads snapping travelled through the air.

"I don't like you, Lance… You remind me too much of him. In your manner, your behaviour, even your ideals. And yet the aura you give off is completely different… Sorry. I shouldn't let my old trauma get in the way of our work." Maliard looked away immediately, scratching his forehead with his hand.

"Maliard, I don't find you all that likeable either. You're cold, calculating, and cynical, but you don't give off the air of a bad person at all. Maybe we're simply incompatible." Lance smiled, drawing Maliard's attention. He held out his hand with the confidence of someone who expects a handshake in return.

"You're a lost cause... But I'd say we can make some steps forward, together." He smiled, seizing his hand firmly and shaking it.

"I need your experience, and you need some friends. Sounds like a mutual arrangement to me." Lance joked, pulling back from him quickly enough to make the mattress bounce.

"Look who's talking. You, who can't speak to a girl without dying of embarrassment? You could definitely use some help." He laughed, and for the first time between the two, a bond formed beyond simple work.

"Hey! What's with the great sense of humour now?!" Lance went red and looked at him sideways.

"You could treat her better, you know." He accused, referring to the hard, sharp manner Maliard often used when speaking about Jeanne.

"She needs to grow out of her shell. I know it might be hard, but I do it for her best interest. You may not know, but Edvard and Lautre are fond of both of you. You're a special case, but she seems like just an unlucky girl to me. I feel sorry for her." Maliard rose and stepped directly onto the balcony, letting the cold night wind pass through him.

"And yet she doesn't seem to have ever given up." Lance replied.

"If it wasn't for her... I wouldn't have had the resolve to be beaten up by Lautre."

"Maybe you two really are special cases. That's why I don't want you to hurt yourselves unnecessarily. Besides, it would compromise the operation." Maliard rested his weight on the wooden railing, looking directly at him.

"Thank you… Being treated like a human and not a data point is genuinely refreshing." Lance thought, stopping himself from saying it aloud.

"I have a question, and this time it concerns the mission." Lance jumped to his feet, pulling from his bag a small notebook with a greenish cover. He flicked through it quickly until he stopped on a page scrawled in haste.

"Here I've gathered as many notes as I could from Lucas's and Monica's volumes, especially on awakenings, but I haven't found a single outstanding case. Why is Grayson so dangerous?" The question immediately changed Maliard's expression. He tossed onto his bed an iron die that transformed at once into a computer. He pointed the cursor to a large series of lines and data.

"What is this technology? You and Monica use it constantly! There were even a couple of them at the Institute." Lance's curiosity completely overrode the original question.

"Electronic mechanisms, built thanks to Lambdite. Andimica has so many deposits that it can be used even for non-military purposes, though it isn't widespread as a technology. We call it a Computer. Compared to large steam and compound engines, it's far less costly." He replied, illustrating the entire device with remarkable attention.

"And what does it do?!" He exclaimed, watching the computer with fascination.

"I had the same reaction with cars and trains, but this is way more spectacular!" He almost jumped on Maliard's shoulder, trying to get closer to the object.

"Let me finish! They're tools for performing calculations and storing data. They can even transfer data onto smaller extensions or project holograms. They're genuinely useful." Maliard took a breath, immediately feeling Lance grab tighter, staring maniacally at the pale blue monitor. Maliard peeled him off his back and deposited him on the floor.

"Look at this. This is Grayson Dirac's reading over the last month. A dose this high can lead to a Singularity manifestation." He pointed to one of the peaks on the jagged graph.

"Awakenings occur the vast majority of the time unconsciously, and often manifest consciously even years after the first appearance." Maliard opened another tab, showing different stages in the transformation of a compatible human into a Meta.

"As you can see, instantaneous awakenings represent a minimal fraction of the overall picture. Often, years pass before an awakening, but Grayson is reaching it within a few months. It won't be instantaneous, but it will remain a problem." Maliard closed the tab and returned to the original diagram.

"So one can become a Meta during their childhood and then manifest the abilities later?" Maliard's gaze trailed off, moving from Lance to the moon shining bright in the nocturnal sky.

"Yes, usually it's like this... The body changes while still developing, but we still have to consider how much the psyche plays a role."

"What could happen if…" Lance tried to ask, only to be pinned by Maliard's look.

"The destruction of the Institute and a good part of Bayork." The answer came instantly, cutting through him. He went pale and still.

"Was Malcolm referring to this?" The thought of all the people who would lose their lives began to make him nauseous.

"Have there been other cases? Instantaneous or rapid awakenings? I... We need to do something!" Lance's voice started to get feeble and strangely low.

"In NOIR's history, there have been cases. During the Great War, an entire platoon was swept away together with nearly a thousand square kilometres of forest. Another awakening of that kind led to the birth of one of the members of the Jury." Maliard closed the computer and sat on the bed as he explained.

"The Jury?" Lance asked, remembering Monica's words well.

"Isn't that the group of obscenely powerful Metas?" Maliard nodded, with a sigh.

"Monica has already told you about it. All you need to know is that a single one of their members is enough to destroy Andimica." Maliard half-closed his eyes before continuing to speak.

"Lance… You know the basis on which Meta is classified, don't you?" Maliard snatched the notebook from his hands like a flash. He leafed through it, looking for something resembling Monica's silly nicknames.

"You have nice handwriting."

"Thank you… WAIT, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING NOW?!" Maliard finally found the notes in the little book. He held it open with his fingers and slapped it directly into Lance's face.

"I see you've memorised the categories, but you've entirely forgotten to go deeper. At your current level, you wouldn't even be a Zwei. You're strong for a Starken, but you don't emit enough Frequency to be considered part of the scale. In plain terms, the more your power manipulates and alters Frequency, the higher your rank." Maliard closed the notebook and tossed it back to Lance.

"And you?"

"Currently? A Schritt, but I can't use that much of my power after an incident. So I demoted myself to Zwei." Lance smiled, holding both thumbs up.

"Are you... Mocking me?"Maliard shot his down with a sudden gaze. Lance sighed, flicking his wrist.

"Ignore that... So a Jury member must always be a Herrscher?" He asked, glancing at the pair of bent and cracked glasses sitting on the bedside table.

"Correct, though not necessarily. The Korrupt can fall into that category, too." He replied with a certain apprehension in his tone, making Lance swallow nervously.

"The Herrscher are certainly a danger, but to be a member, power alone isn't enough. Evolutionary Potential, Affiliations, and Hel Compatibility." He looked at the moon shining outside the window, which gave him an unsettling sense of calm as he spoke.

"In this era, only two Herrscher have appeared, both instantaneous awakenings. The first is Jury member number eight. The incarnation of war, Kaiser, and the other is… The one who destroyed NOIR, the Unnamed." As he spoke those words, the air went cold, leaving the same unpleasant sensation Lance had felt the first time Monica had mentioned the name.

"All trace of that thing vanished, while Kaiser was last seen at the destruction of Dielmon." He concluded his explanation. Sweat ran down his cheeks, sliding onto his shirt despite the freezing air.

"Why… Does the Unnamed have no number?" He asked, perhaps moved by curiosity or perhaps to fill the silence they had fallen into.

"The number is assigned based on the order of the first sighting, but it is not part of it. The horror it brought with it was considerably worse than every single evil NOIR has ever faced. If I truly had to classify it, it would be number zero." Lance felt the blood freeze in his veins.

"When Kaiser awakened, it destroyed a large part of Termìe's forces... But if the Unnamed has disappeared, it's probably thanks to Kaiser…" Maliard stopped speaking, fixing his gaze on the wall.

"You've said enough. We'll stop Grayson Dirac, but I don't want to kill him or make him suffer. Agreed?" Lance brought his hand to his shoulder. Maliard looked at him and nodded.

"An idiot like you might actually be capable of it." He jumped to his feet, looking at him directly in the eyes with a trace of irony.

"Don't be scared now! We will do it together!"

"Oh yeah... Lucky me to be paired up with you!" Lance wanted to retort and gush at that smirk, but found himself stopped by a deep cramp in his stomach, followed by a fairly embarrassing gurgle.

"Sorry… I haven't eaten since we left." He excused himself, turning toward the door.

"There are leftovers in the fridge. I'd bet all those muscles require inhuman quantities of nutrition." Maliard returned to speaking in that cold, cutting tone.

"Hilarious… Do you drop the same joke on Noel, too?" He replied, bored with that tone. Strangely, Maliard held both thumbs up.

"Seriously now?" He opened the door and stepped out carefully, trying not to make a noise. He turned to Maliard, stretched out on the cot with his index finger pressed to his lips. Lance understood the message immediately and nodded. The moment he took his first step on the stairs, all the accumulated exhaustion caught up with him and sent him crashing down, waking the entire house. Monica shot out into the corridor in her usual white shirt, wielding a wooden bat she had found under her bed.

Jeanne followed her, rubbing her eyes, wearing her long blue dressing gown. Maliard intercepted the two and concentrated all his attention on the unfortunate Lance, asleep at the bottom of the stairs in a rather particular position.

"Maliard… It's nearly six in the morning… What is this racket?" Monica pointed the bat at her face, her eyes completely fixed on her roommate's figure.

"Why is Lance... T-there?"

"I have no words…" He murmured, pressing his forehead against the bannister.