Reflection, p.8
Reflection, page 8
part #2 of The Infected - Mirror Man Series
The reason no one was helping Tor, even if he was one of their people, was that tradition said that no one was to interfere in a situation where combat rage was taking place. Their wizard was just breaking the rules. Technically Bridget had as well. A thing that no one there was planning to notice all that much.
Attacking someone in a combat rage was, if not acceptable, not a thing that could be prosecuted in any court. The Count, given that, had done his part pretty well. His men going after Sorvee had probably been an act of war, however. Possibly between County Thomson and County Montrose. Worse than that, it was very possible that the Baker family would also be involved in that battle. Possibly the IPB as well, which was why no one there, including the downed men of the attacking Count, planned to mention Bridget or the others taking action at all.
For the third time that day, he had to admit that having Cin there was a flat-out boon to their current mission. He would have been completely lost without her data points. Probably trying to pull the hair of the still fighting Count as well. That or pulling at his arms ineffectively. At the moment, he simply moved back, safe in the knowledge that no one was going to think him a particular coward for not stepping in. Given that nothing much was going to be going on until the Count died or calmed down, he moved over to Erath.
The Ysidril boy was standing next to another of his own people. One that had been introduced as their Ambassador. Neesa. It was clear that the four armed, four eyed red and white alien was a woman, however. Mainly because everyone had referred to her as a she, earlier. Other than that, he couldn’t see it. She was a larger version of her brother. Both were squat and had a powerful look to them.
Muscle played under their scales as they stood there.
Smiling, he waved at them. That got another text prompt from Cin, which was for him to drop his mouth open. Fairly wide. That would signal them that he was faking a smile at the moment. There was a diagram showing just how far to go and everything, which was a thing he hadn’t known for certain Cindy Mableton could do. That could be useful for passing plans later. Really, she could probably do a real time display that would show where guards were during a heist or job, if she planned it out first.
The move got a very slow reaction from the others. Little Erath, who was less than four feet tall, if about Richard’s own weight, being blocky and slightly muscular like the kid was, didn’t speak for several moments.
“This is… Harmful touching?” Two hands, the right ones, waved toward the events across the room.
Richard nodded. That was one way to put it, after all.
“Exactly. Wasted effort as well. I hope it doesn’t disturb you too much? We seem to have handled it without anyone dying.” They spoke in English, which was useful for Richard, being out of his depth language wise there. He didn’t speak alien at a bet.
The other one, Neesa, gave him an almost ponderous nod.
“Very disturbing. We… Our people cannot truly comprehend this. We can see death and understand that things stop to function… It… When we see this kind of thing, it isn’t what you see. We can tell that people are close and are touching each other. That it damages… Not how it is happening or why though. We don’t have that ability.”
Richard nodded then.
“Ah. Well, that’s interesting. I was just coming over to set up some work with Erath. This probably isn’t a good time though, if you have that going on. We could leave the room?”
There was a head shake then, first from the bigger of the two aliens, then by the smaller one who was in red robes. Those covered his scales and marked him as a Mage of Vagus. A full mage, even if the kid wasn’t all that old. Tor had filled him in on that part the first time they’d all met.
“Not needed. We can work here. What work would you wish of me? I… I’m normally good with human identification. I can’t place you, however. Forgive me. It is a deficit of my people.”
“Richard Drake. I’m one of the IPB people. The one in charge of getting the volunteers for the life changing practice? When you took out my first mode you mentioned trying out giving me the correct number of arms and eyes. I said we could look into that later? Like I was telling Tim and Tor earlier, it’s later, now. It’s a big change to make, so I brought them into it as well. Really, if you think you can handle it without getting me killed, I was thinking we’d go in for the whole Ysidril package. Scales and all. Do it up right, for everyone to see.”
Both of the other beings stopped moving for a moment, then bounced on their toes. At different speeds. Erath was moving faster. After half a minute, the smaller one spoke. His English was a little hissing at the edges, due to his snout and hundreds of sharp black teeth. Very understandable though. Really, he had less of an accent than Tor did, even given that.
“We can do that! I have some plans but did not think it would be allowed to try. The other humans have all been most uncomfortable about the idea of looking normal. The trick will be in leaving that which is essential for life and comfort the same, while changing those things that will not do harm. I should speak to these others about this matter…” He took a single step, then stopped, staring at the fight on the ground. It had been going on for a few minutes and showed signs of slowing down at least. The sparkles in the air had faded a lot, for instance.
The man on the bottom, who had a seven plus feet tall Tor on top of him stopped dead then and seemed confused.
“I… What happened?”
No one explained. It was sort of clear that the man should understand that he attacked someone after all. His men had to have been ordered to take the action they had. Otherwise they would have tried to stop Tor and possibly Bridget when they broke the rules by stopping the Count from acting in his rage.
Instead they’d gone for Sorvee. Who was already fully healed. At least as far as visible wounds went.
Tor stood up though and helped the Count to his feet. Then, carefully, a brown-haired woman who seemed strong if not pretty in a classical sense, moved forward and ushered the man from the room. The downed guards went with him. Followed by Count Thomson. There was a sense of gravity in the steps of the last man.
Who was on their team.
“Bridget, Brian… Can you make certain nothing happens to Count Thomson?” Richard didn’t shout the words. They both heard him anyway, following quickly enough that it seemed slightly urgent. Then he turned back to his new Ysidril pals.
“There we go! We should be able to get to that planning now. We need to work out how to get that up on the net here. To show that even extreme work can be done safely. So, you get the idea… Don’t let me die. We’ll look bad if that happens.” He opened his mouth again, like before. A fake smile for the strange people.
They did it back, roughly matching him. Which probably meant they got just how dangerous the idea actually was. Even Rich understood that making one kind of being into a totally different one rapidly stood a chance of just not working as the transition happened.
Tor and Timon both rallied decently fast and since the meal was over, they were game enough to cover the whole thing with him. As odd as it seemed they both already had some plans for that kind of work. They were each a bit different that way, with enough overlap that they weren’t really arguing about what would be the best thing to do. That was a promising signal.
It was Timon that set the time schedule.
“We can start this in the morning. I want to cover the plans first, in depth. After a night’s sleep for those of us who do that kind of thing. The same for the people doing the work on the others. A full planning session first, instead of flying off without care. I’ve been meaning to push for that a bit more than we have been so far. We tend to just set the mages to work, after being told what to do for a few minutes. We can do better than that.” There was an uneasy look between the two giants, which finally settled on Richard.
It clearly meant something. What that was supposed to be was culturally significant, no doubt. Instead of pretending to get it, since blending in wasn’t an option at the moment, he looked back at them. Focusing mainly on Tor, since they had more of a history.
There was a duck of the head that seemed almost shy.
“We don’t know if you can stay. It would be rude to have you sit here, waiting on us like that. Perhaps we could arrange entertainments for you, while you and your people wait?”
There was an in, as far as their plans went, that the words provided. Rich jumped on it, trying to seem smooth. As if he were just trying to find that entertainment for people, being a good fellow, like he was.
“I think… About a third of the people with us came to see little Sara. She’s at school. The space port one? We could liberate her and her classmates there, if there aren’t too many of them and take a trip someplace? That can be educational, of course. Maybe a tour of the IPB base? The rest of us should be doing our own planning. Right now, we have an outline of a plan. We need far more information. Which Cindy can get for us, if she’s back home for a bit.”
Instead of saying no and asking him to leave, without a group of minors in tow, Timon waved at a boy and a girl who were standing across the room. They seemed about the same age. Really their whole group did. About eighteen or so, more or less. These two were fairly normal sized people, however. Dressed nicely, without going as over the top as some in the room had that evening.
“Da! Ma! Dis ist Richard Drake.”
No translation came up, but for once Rich didn't need one. It was practically in English, after all, even if the accent was heavy.
He waved, then bowed.
“Hala. Which is about the end of my Standard so far, unfortunately. I need to learn to speak it. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
The couple didn’t speak English it seemed. So, they all used the same trick and smiled, a lot. It was clear that they were Douglas and Laurie, which Timon explained, translating for them as they negotiated not only the liberation of little Sara, but her thirty-six school mates. It wasn’t a huge school, thankfully. At first it was kind of clear that they weren’t all that certain about taking the tykes off to a different world, or even going themselves. That changed when Dumas Thomson walked up, smiling and getting hugs from the couple. They might have looked about eighteen or so but they were still the kid’s grandparents.
After he spoke for about a minute, they had the beginning of a real field trip planned. It would be about two hours in the IPB reality. Almost a full day in Noram time. Sixteen hours at least. Though Richard had to disagree with that one.
“Shouldn’t we time it so that they miss a whole day and a few hours here, so it won’t mess with their sleep schedules? Or is that too much time off from their studies?” He wasn’t in charge of their school system, after all.
The words, once translated, got him slapped on the arm by Douglas.
He, at least, figured that to be the better plan. It was the one they ended up going with at any rate.
Cindy came over then, pawing at Tor enough that it got the tall man’s attention. Not in a negative way, either. That got Richard to snap his fingers. The woman had a boyfriend and he’d asked after marriage. Cindy hadn’t said no, which meant she was likely leaning toward a yes.
“Right! We forgot to have Will’s parents in to meet with you. You know, to set up that wedding? We need to get on that. I’m not certain how to set that up. I’m sure they’ll want to do that though, before you two run off together.” He wasn’t really teasing.
After all, Cindy was going to end up in trouble if she didn't have a steady man in her life. She was too good looking to go around making passes at all and sundry like she’d been doing. Sooner or later one of the men was going to break down and get her pregnant, then she’d be stuck, scrambling to pass her kid off as being that of whatever man she could trap on short notice. If she didn’t become a single mother or abort the baby. There were more options now than there had been when he was a boy.
Those weren’t new things though, so it wasn’t truly a shock to him. He’d lived through the seventies after all. The changes had taken place while he’d watched.
Everyone there seemed to think it was a good idea as well, meeting the future in-laws. Even Cin didn’t growl over it.
Instead she sighed.
“Right. I should probably get on that. It’s a bit nerve wracking, you get that? What if they’re sane and don’t like me?”
Timon laughed at least, even if no one else did.
“Neh. Face it, they’ll love you. It’s a good political move, as well. The King has been practically pulling his hair out over how to bind you to us here a bit more tightly over the last year. A marriage like that should reassure him a lot. I’ll just coach him to make a gift of some land for you both. Maybe a title?”
Those words got the Ambassador to stick her tongue out at Tim, who laughed at the move. It was childish. Playful though, which everyone seemed to understand. It eased a soft undercurrent of tension that had been there all evening. Even the end of the fight hadn’t really done that.
Cin grinned then.
“I’ll get Brian to take me back now, so I can set up that tour for the kids. I should be back in… Probably an hour or so? Then I need to get some sleep. We can meet at the school tomorrow, for the trip, as long as we’re going to be allowed to do it now. If not… Well, we will be. Sooner or later. No one back home wants to alienate anyone from here. So far our relations have been nearly perfect. Trust me, that’s rare, for us.”
There were some noises from the hallway, which sounded like fighting, then after a few sharp sounds silence filled the room. Everyone went quiet, even if nothing new was happening. A single three fingered hand touched his arm at nearly the same time.
The larger Ysidril. Neesa. Their Ambassador.
“Is it allowed for those of my kind to visit your world?”
He didn’t have a clue but Cindy did. Nodding she reached out to touch the alien.
“It is! We can do that in this group tomorrow or whenever you like as a separate mission. We can even show you around. Everyone will think that you’re Infected, until we explain. I’m sure it will be fine, once they find out that you’re just aliens.”
Which was probably true enough. That there were people from other worlds had been on the television. No one cared all that much. Most of those people had been roughly human looking, which might skew things a little in the public eye. Then again, the Ysidril didn’t even understand violence as an innate part of themselves.
A thing he needed to remind Erath not to add to him in the changes to come. It wouldn’t really fit with their plans. It would be too hard to be a fight manager if he couldn’t understand what he was looking at when it took place.
Shortly after that, they were shown to their rooms by several of the staff. Brian, who’d been the one to remove the four attackers from earlier, when they’d tried to rally their forces in yet another ambush of Sorvee, left with Cin at her request. If they got back in a timely fashion, Rich didn’t know. In fact, he was off in bed almost ten minutes later. Dressed in pajamas, in case he had to get up in the middle of the night. The little room he was in was big enough for him. Lacking windows or easy escape routes, since the nobility back in the day had probably wanted to make certain no one escaped in the middle of the night. It did have a mirror however, with just enough light in the space to allow him to use it in order to get out, if he were trapped in place.
A thing he did once, just to make certain it was enough to get to that other world.
More to the point, it allowed him a way to get into his own subconscious mind. Part of it, anyway. An empty expanse, that only showed the spots of light let in by mirrors and shiny things. For some reason. Not that he didn’t like glitter in his world. It just didn't make a lot of sense to him as a power.
Some people had mentioned their powers seeming to reflect their inmost beings or desire at the time of their change. When it had happened to him, he’d been about to drown. If anything, he should have grown gills and webbed feet, given that.
Except that he’d fallen toward a mirror at the time and had been trying to save Tabby. So, really, his thoughts hadn’t been about him living at all. It had been seeking a way to save her. At a time when the only thing he’d had the power to do was reach out awkwardly as his hand hit the mirror.
It worked well enough. More to the point, he needed to make time to work with his power. No one had pushed him on that yet, since it wasn’t really useful in a fight. Or for much of anything else, other than bypassing doors or walking around unseen.
He’d been told that, since it was really all in his head, he might be able to bring the points of light together with a bit of practice. It could save on walking for hours, even if he had to move from mirror to mirror. It sounded useful enough, if he could work that out. So far, he’d kept busy enough with different things not to have simply stopped for a while to see what was possible that way.
Probably because he was freaking old and doing new things took energy, time and the ability to care. The first two had been returned to him. The last was taking a while to kick back in. It was showing, too.
At first, he’d blamed his being sloppy on his first mode. A desire to steal anything he could, that practically forced him to do it. That was removed inside a week. Then it was down to him being too busy. The truth was that old age had pushed him into not caring much about the world in general for a long time. Not outside of what was right there with him at the moment. There had been no family to worry about and everyone on the t.v. was remote. Separated by a glass wall of unreality as he sat in a room filled with people, waiting to die.
