Industry & Intrigue (26 page)

As you are all aware, residual
energy dating is a technique for measuring the amount of natural
magical energy in archeological and paleo
ntological samples. This energy
depletes over time in the geological strata and measuring it, gives
us good estimates as to the age of fossils.

However,
what it does not take into
account is when raw energy varies by region. Carvolg Bax lived on
of the supercontinent of Biveria which contained a higher
concentration of raw magic than anywhere else. This led to greater
mutations and thus its common line of descent rapidly diversified,
with the different descending species occupying different
environmental niches.

With
Dragensis, dragons had already
evolved sentience in the Age of Dragons and while they were
successful for millions of years, the competition between them
became too great and the larger dragons died off, much as the
colossi before them. The southern super-continent of Paxara was
nowhere as resource rich as Biveria. The dragons that were smaller
were better able to survive, as they required fewer resources. This
is what pushed the biological diversion of dragons into the smaller
bipedal shape of drakons.”

P
rofessor Xerin continued for a long time,
talking further about the next line of bipeds, the precursors to
each of the major races. She reached Numax Terrax the common
ancestor to humans, skylords and elves, when the bell
rang.

Xerin said
, “That is all the time we
have. We will finish this off at the beginning of next class.” Then
she suddenly remembered something else as the students stood up.
“Oh, before you all go, I have an announcement. At the end of next
week, a foreign delegation from Galria will be visiting Alkos City,
including our university. As such, there will be a presence of
watch officers and Imperial Guards on campus over the next two
weeks to ensure everything is secure. Please do not interfere with
their security procedures. They may also carry out random
inspections of students and staff. Please comply with their
requests. Students that are directly involved in departments that
the delegation will visit will have further instructions from their
supervisors.”

As Reese made his way out,
Xerin called him over, “M
ay I speak to you a moment Mr. Galius?”

He nodded and walked over to
the front of the room, “Is something wrong
?” he asked.

“
You were
not as active today, as you
normally are. Would it have anything to do with Ms. Breac’s
absence?” asked Xerin.

Reese nodd
ed. “Yes. We had a celebration
last night after the ceremony and Cassandra enjoyed herself too
much.” That was an understatement, but he didn’t want Cassandra to
get into more trouble.

“
I underst
and the honor that you
received,” said the professor. “But you should be careful not to
let it go your heads. And I do hope Ms. Breac does not miss any
more classes or her academic marks will start to suffer. I would
hate to see such an intelligent student fail.”

Reese nodded again.
“Don’t worry, I’ll
let her know.”

“
I a
m not heartless, I want see all of my
students apply themselves to fullest of their potential. I would
suggest that she talk to one of the university’s counselors if she
has been affected this much.”

Cassandra finally showed
up
while
Reese was having lunch at the cafeteria. He stopped in the middle
of his meal. “You finally decided to emerge into the daylight? How
are you feeling?”

She scowled and
said
, “How
do you think? I’m hung-over.” Then the smell of Reese’s food hit
her. “Mmm, that smells good.” She looked over to the food area and
groaned at seeing the length of the queue. “Could I have some?” she
asked, her bad mood having vanished.

Reese was in a generous mood and said, “Go
ahead.” He pushed the plate across the table. She sat down and
devoured the food as if she were in a race. Reese passed along
Professor Xerin’s advice to her.

“
I know, I
know
,” she
said. “I just…wanted to forget for at least one night. It won’t
happen again,” she replied.

“
Better not
,” said Reese. “If you start
dropping your grades, you’ll be hounding me to tutor you until they
improve.”

Cassandra smiled
at his joke, then
asked, “Where’s Michael? Aren’t you two normally joined at the hip
during lunch hours?”

“
Ha-ha
,” he said sarcastically. “He has a
chemistry project. Something about synthesizing an acid. It’s a
time sensitive reaction, so he has to keep working through lunch,”
replied Reese.

He brought up the other piece
of news she had missed.
“Something else you missed today. The Galrian
foreign minister and his delegation are going to be visiting the
university,” he said.

“
So what?” she said, not
appearing to have
much interest in his news. “Foreign dignitaries like to make a big
impression but I can’t imagine he cares one bit about the
University of Alkos. You know what the Galrians are like, they
think they’re way is best and anyone else doing it differently is
an enemy.”

Reese couldn’t argue with that, the
conservative Galrian mindset was infamous.

“
Does this mean we have to put
up with a whole lot of security procedures and guards?” asked
Cassandra.

Reese nodded and she made her
face that sh
owed her annoyance. “It could be interesting. How often do
foreign ministers come here, especially from Galria? Maybe they’ve
finally decided to play nice,” said Reese.

Cassandra
chuckled
.
“Now your countryside roots are showing. One little foreign
delegation and you’re swooning. You’re right though, if they’re
sending their foreign minister, it could be the Galrians are
finally going to stop waving their cocks and start dealing with us
like neighbors.”

Reese had always believed the
Galrian sabre rattling was more for show.
“I never thought they were ever
serious. What could they ever hope to gain by going to war with us?
I can’t see how anyone could want to put their nation through
that.” Reese could barely remember his the war in his homeland, but
he had dreams and flashbacks that terrified him.

“
You’d make a terrible
politician
,”
said Cassandra. “There can be valid reasons to go to
war.”

“
Like what?” he
asked.

“
To defend yourself, to defend a
nation that is being bullied by a smaller nation, to fight for what
is right
,”
she said. She spoke with conviction.

“
And you’d make a perfect
politician. It all
sounds good, the only problem is that everyone has a different
interpretation of defense and what qualifies as right or
wrong.”

“
True
,” admitted Cassandra. “Did you
figure out who broke into your room?” she asked, changing the
subject.

Reese shook his head.
H
e hadn’t
told his friends the full story, leaving out the part about being
ambushed on the train. Mastermage Abeliah had helped him
though.

There were too many candidates in the
records of Warded Spirals to figure out who it could have been. She
had given him an artifact which protected his room from magical
penetration, so it wasn’t going to happen again. He had informed
university security about the break-in and left them to deal with
it.

“
Security passed it on to the
watch, but it’s doubtful they’ll catch whoever it was. It was only
a couple of books anyway
,” he said.

“
Odd
for a thief to take books instead of
money.”

“
I imagine they
mistook them for
valuable antiques. They are old looking, but I doubt they’d be
worth much. They weren’t written by a famous historian or
philosopher,” he replied. He carefully left out mentioning his
father’s diary.

Cassandra nodded.
“Well, since we
still have time left before classes, why don’t you catch me up on
everything I missed in Professor Xerin’s class this
morning?”

“
You’re
certain
?”
asked Reese. “I mean with everything you’re going through, you want
to jump back into it now?”

“
Yes I am
. It helps to keep my mind
focused on studies and not…other things. But I promise I’ll go and
talk to one of the counselors, when I’m all caught up.”

“
Good
,” he said, satisfied that she was
starting to heal. “Then you better grab your text book and turn to
page eighty six, Stirling’s theory of biological
diversion.”

Cassandra grabbed at her bag,
t
hen set it
back down in realization.

“
Let me guess
,” said Reese. “You don’t have
it with you?”

She
nodded.

“
I’m done here
anyw
ay” he
said. “Why don’t you go get it, then meet me at the biology section
of the library on the fourth floor.”

“
No problem
,” she said. “I’ll see you
there in about twenty minutes.” She picked up her bag and walked
towards her apartment.

Reese cleared the table and
turned his thoughts to the visit of the
Galrian delegation. He was interested
in seeing it. Cassandra was right, he was a country boy, never
having visited anywhere outside of Alkos City and his hometown.
Michael would be interested too. The real problem would be getting
a good view.

Reese had no doubt that there
would be crowds of
students everywhere on the day. Michael had a telescope, so
if they could get to the right position they would be able to see
the delegation fine. They only needed to get high enough. They
would have to figure out where, once more of the details about the
visit had been released.

Chapter 23

Brenna
stared at the medal she had received
at the ceremony yesterday. Right now she did not feel like she
deserved it. She and Snar had apprehended a war criminal, but that
was not the assignment.

Both of Mikono’s employees
had
escaped
with at least half of the tarcaine shipment. Seizing one hundred
kilograms of tarcaine was nothing to sneeze at, but a hundred more
kilograms would go to into Mikono’s pocket.

The kitsune
dr
ug lord
was clever, and more annoyingly she was careful. Fortunately Brenna
had an ace up her sleeve. Selim had managed to get one of his men
undercover in Asulius’ operation. If it paid off, it could be the
break they needed. Mikono’s people weren’t going to talk, they had
been intimidated into silence or bound by loyalty.

Captain Tolov walked up to her
desk
and she
looked up at him. He gave her look that she had seen several times.
It was the expression he used when he knew something she didn’t and
was pleased as punch about it.

“
Brenna, Selim
has something,” he
said.

She crossed her arms and asked
“What?”

“
Where the rest of that tarcaine
shipment ended up. He wants you to meet him on the roof of this
building.” The captain handed her a piece of paper with an address
in Galmouth district.

“
Why didn’t he
tell me himself?”
she asked. “I am his superior after all.”

“
And I’m his
captain
.
Look can you go and meet him? He’ll explain. He said it was
information received from one of his sources.”

At the m
ention of that Brenna perked
up. Selim’s undercover man had something for them. She wanted to
hear what it could be. She stood up, pulled her coat off the chair
and said, “I’m on my way.”

“
Good
,” said Niko. “You have to stop
taking this so damn personally, Brenna. You lost the suspects, but
you saved a lot of civilians and caught a high profile target.
Considering how it could have gone, I’d say it was a good outcome.
So cheer the hells up.”

“
Uh-huh
,” she replied, barely paying
attention to his little lecture. She put her coat on and picked up
her gun and badge off her desk. “I’ll give you a full report when
I’m done with Selim.”

Upon arriving at the address,
Brenna found herself standing in front
of a rundown, apartment building.
This was one of the old sectors of Galmouth still to be restored or
renovated. She pushed open the door and climbed the wooden
stairs.

S
he exited onto the roof and saw Selim at
the edge. He was crouched and observing the other side of the
street. He noticed her and waved her over.

When she
reac
hed him,
he spoke in a low voice, “Stay down.”

S
he crouched next to him. She waited for
him to say something but he continued observing. Following his
eyes, she could see he was carefully watching the church across the
road. “Are you planning to explain why I’m out here crouching on
the roof of this shitty building?” she asked.