Saints of the Void: Atypical (5 page)

“I’m gonna kill them, I swear it,” promised Nes in
anger. The corporal had barely turned his head away from the view
before being rebuffed.

“We can’t chase them down immediately, the Cypher is
starting up,” cautioned Dastou.

Nes looked back down at the disaster area and saw it.
Anyone on the street who was not injured too badly started moving
with precision, purpose. It never ceased to amaze how well or how
quickly mass-hypnotism worked – it turned everyone involved into
machines, incapable of doing anything but their assigned task and
doing it extremely well. As the dust from pulverized concrete and
bricks literally settled, it became easier to see that the deaths
were far fewer than the various injuries, and a triage area was
being cleared. Siopane has a short life span in open air,
thankfully, so there were only a few instances of a blue-green
flame attached to one object or another, all of which were
dissipating quickly.

The problem with the incredible focus exhibited in a
hypnotism event is that anything not directly involved with it is
ignored, so the DSF has explicit orders to avoid Social Cyphers at
all times other than emergencies. When they record information,
they do so from a distance, with high-grade cameras and other such
equipment. This, however, was not a standard event: it was an
attack. Dastou pondered his next action, knowing that the criminals
would get away without him breaking his own rules about
interference. Nes’ next words snapped him out of his thoughts.

“What are they doing? She needs to be moved, too,”
said Nes, pointing at who he was trying to draw attention to.

Dastou found the abnormality without much trouble: a
woman, injured and out cold, was being wholly ignored. The other
victims near her were starting to be efficiently separated into
areas for the dead and two intensities of wounds, severe and minor.
But not her. Hypnotized citizens walked around her as if she didn’t
exist.

“I can’t tell how badly hurt she is, sir,” said
Saan-Hu, having found the woman via exterior cameras. “If she is
bleeding internally, she may die without the same medical attention
others are getting.”

“This is a strange enough occurrence as it is,”
mentioned the Saint. “Anything else out of the ordinary may give us
clues as to what happened. We’ll go and take care of her
ourselves.” He looked away from the window and at his comrades
again. “Saan, bring medical supplies with everything you think will
help. Nes, arm up just in case.”

“And the Interference Clause?” asked Saan.

“We won’t do much, just help that girl. With this big
a mess I don’t think we’ll really be in the way.”

Saan nodded, and used the holographic keyboard to
input a series of commands. When she finished, the bookshelves to
either side of her slid away from the wall with a hydraulic hiss,
then to one side with another hiss, revealing supply closets. In
one closet were more general use supplies, about half being medical
in purpose. The other held an array of warfare provisions, which
Nes walked to eagerly.

Nes began his prep by putting his decorative
arm-length sword away on a pair of horizontal hooks; it wouldn’t be
too useful against people who were using rocket launchers. He
grabbed a standard bullpup assault rifle and a multi-pocketed
combat belt. He stuck two extra magazines to magnetic holsters and
put a few large, chrome spherical devices that looked like marbles
in pockets on the belt. The corporal also strapped an armband med
kit on his upper arm. Finally, a wireless throat mic package was
taken from a drawer in the closet that had several of them. He
attached the circular, circuitry-filled patch from the package just
below his jaw near his jugular, a body heat activated glue keeping
it in place on his clean-shaven neck. A small receiver went into
his ear canal just deep enough so it didn’t block all outside
noise, while the palm-sized transceiver went into a slot on his
belt.

Saan took what she needed to treat a maximum of five
patients in a triage situation. Their medicine was so far ahead of
what civilians had access to that it only took a mid-sized shoulder
bad to hold it all compared to the full public supply cache that
would be emptied for the same number of patients. They were
probably only going to be treating the one woman, but Saan was an
administrator with a theoretically unlimited budget, so she tended
to ask for, receive, and take far more than she ever truly
needed.

Dastou walked near Nes and grabbed a throat mic
package for himself, but only put it in an inside jacket pocket for
now. He went back to his desk, swiveled the monitor forward and
closed it, making it once again indistinguishable from the bare
wood of the desk. The Saint looked at each member of his skeleton
crew to confirm their readiness, and then led them to the door. He
wasn’t grinning, but was obviously looking forward to continuing
with this strange day.

“I hate you sometimes, you incredible freak,”
commented Nes as he followed his suddenly optimistic friend and
leader out the door.

“Hmph,” Saan agreed.

*****

Four security officers, two inside and two outside,
guarded the series of glass-paned doors that served as the main
entryway of the Stone-State Embassy. They sported the bright,
sky-blue eyes of a person under Social Cypher influence and wore
breathing masks that protected them from any lingering airborne
dangers. Their presence here meant that some base aspect of the
hypnotic suggestion recognized the embassy or the people inside it
as important and was keeping it safe. The glass on the doors was
shattered, so Dastou and company simply walked
through
one
of the exits, stepping carefully.

On ground level, it was like treading into a cloud.
Almost everything looked grey from concrete dust, with occasional
hints of reddish-grey thanks to pulverized brick. It made the
shining sky-blue eyes of the worker bees extra creepy by how much
they stood out. The “fog” was dissipating fast, thankfully, and
allowing a more natural mid-day light to come through. Seeing the
sun high in the sky signifying noon reminded Dastou that he only
came to town for the summons a couple of hours ago.

The trio ignored sidewalks and went directly onto the
ring road to cut a straighter path toward their mysterious injured
girl. Every step they took made concrete dust puff up, resulting in
a good amount of grey stuff clinging to their shoes and the hems of
their pants, the rest of their bodies being colored – or
technically discolored – in smaller amounts by what was airborne.
Their strides also let loose a distinctive crunch thanks to the
broken glass and stone debris everywhere. With three of them
walking at the same pace, the noise, though not loud, was constant.
It was still not at the same volume as the occasional pained cries
coming from the injured and echoing along the streets, but at least
the latter sounds were less regular.

“This disaster is markedly worse at eye level,”
realized Saan.

“Maybe not worse, just... closer,” Nes said. “It
looked just as horrible to me upstairs, but now I can smell the
blood, taste the dust, hear the pain.”

“Even with the Sainthood’s long-standing tenacity for
record-keeping, I’ve never heard of a Brightseer-led attack like
this,” said Dastou. “The closest are maybe minor skirmishes between
city-states, but that was understandable compared to this, coming
from a desire for property, livestock, money, power. I can’t even
guess as to what the purpose of this insanity was.”

Nes was unable to keep a barely checked anger out of
his voice. “Whatever reasons those criminals had to do this, I plan
on not being too nice when I ask about it. This is... too much to
show mercy for.”

Dastou was glad that the fuel pipe exploded the way
it did. This event was, therefore, treated as an industrial-type
accident, so it would be taken care of properly. If those criminals
had only attacked other people, there was no way of predicting what
would have happened afterwards.

Saan-Hu spotted the girl again, and jogged to her
position on the western sidewalk. The men followed, and all three
stopped in front of the victim. Saan opened her shoulder bag and
handed Nes a tightly wrapped square of cloth the size of a fist
along with a small glue gun. The corporal, following DSF triage
procedure, fully unfurled the tarp. He spread the two-meter-squared
item on the ground. After it was down, he cleared the spot below a
corner of the tarp of any debris and used the glue gun to adhere
the sheet to the sidewalk. Nes repeated that last step three more
times, making sure the sheeting was well stuck to the pavement.
Dastou gave the young woman a quick visual examination, saw no
immediate need to be extra careful, then picked her up from the
dirty sidewalk and put her back down on the triage fabric.

Dastou and Nes stepped back as Saan got to work.
First, an aerosol stimulant was used to wake the girl up. The
stranger coughed and shivered for a few seconds, then groggily sat
up on her own. The Saint did a more thorough visual exam of her,
trying to gather ideas as to who she was.

Even with her face covered in dust and dirt, her age
was easy to tell as similar to theirs. She was quite thin, though,
her clothes scarcely a step above rags and none of it quite her
size; her shirt and pants were too big, her glasses too small and
likely not her prescription, and her already run-down shoes had the
tips cut away to let her feet fit better. Her hair color was hard
to determine with it so filthy, but it looked very dark brown or
black and straight as an arrow. Skin-tone could be better
determined with some spots cleaner than others, and it looked like
a mid-tone brown with a slight yellow tint. That and the girl’s
almond eyes hinted that she was from a land east of Dastou’s home.
She was over halfway across the world from she was likely born,
another bit of intrigue.

The stranger looked around after her coughing
stopped, focusing on the destruction and not the people close to
her. She was clearly perturbed by the remnants of the violent
scene. The aerosol stimulant Saan chose to use had a painkiller in
it, possibly making the girl’s thoughts a bit foggy.

“Please stay calm, miss, you’ll be fine. And try not
to move,” said Saan. She softened her voice a bit, part of standard
medical training to keep the patient as tranquil as possible. “What
is your name? Can you tell me?”

“I’m... I’m Trenna... Trenna Geil. What happened to
me?” Her voice was a little thick, a side-effect of the painkiller
which would be gone by the next time the girl spoke. Saan unwrapped
a bandage as the woman looked at her, confused, as if she would not
have expected to be cared for.

“Lift your arms a bit, please. I need to wrap this
around your abdomen.”

“Yes... sure,” responded Trenna quietly.

Trenna followed the instruction given and allowed
Saan to lift her t-shirt up slightly, revealing the midriff of
someone in need of a good meal. Maybe a few.

“Hold onto this,” Saan-Hu instructed, handing over
the pulled up hem of the shirt.

Trenna once again did as asked, and the bandage was
wrapped around the woman’s belly and back, covering up some bruises
that looked like they were headed for an ugly shade of purple. The
dressing was coated in a different mild analgesic that would speed
up the natural healing process by nearly three-hundred percent –
since she looked malnourished, that factor would be lower.

The girl was told to pull her shirt down, and did so.
She was told to hold each arm out as Saan wrapped them with similar
but weaker bandages, and did so again. Trenna was following
instructions as if she was too afraid to do anything else. All of
the bandages chosen created a balance that would result in faster
healing without a numbing of body parts that could result in
further injury; Saan was very good at this. Dastou and Nes were
behind the impromptu nurse, but Trenna was too busy looking at her
caretaker, or occasionally at the ground, to notice them. Saan
finished by cleaning and disinfecting the remaining minor cuts.

Saan looked the girl over one last time and was
satisfied with her own work. “I’m done here, and you should be just
fine, miss. No obvious internal bleeding either, which is
wonderful. Thank you for being cooperative.”

“Um, yes. I mean, thank you so much,” she said,
looking up respectfully. “It doesn’t hurt very...”

She cut herself off having now noticed Dastou. Her
immediate next action was to prostrate herself before him, bowing
low. Her forehead almost touched the tarp, and her arms were
outstretched, palms down. She hastily recited an old verse of
worship:

“To the souls of black vision and serendipity,

To the scales that balance against blue,

To those that sail the frightful and unknowable,

I pledge my mind, my actions, and my bright
eyes.
”

Trenna Geil said those words so fast she almost spat
them, yet they were sharp and clear. Dastou felt like he was just
thrown naked into a near-freezing stream: suddenly upset and
wanting to be anywhere else. Saints disliked being worshipped in
general, but he, as the last one, seemed to take that feeling to an
entirely new level of discomfort. He had to deal with the political
fallback stemming from a new sense of independence by people all
over the world these last few years, but he was happier for it. He
was worshipped far less openly, with mostly reverent bows at the
waist or clasped hands as he walked by. Sometimes, and preferably,
with quiet respect, like most members of the Stone-State Council
had done while Jandal Tryst rambled on during their meeting.

“Stop it!” barked Saan out of nowhere. “You were just
bandaged – such sudden movements will not help your healing
process.” Her reasons for the reprimand were true, but she also
would know how Dastou felt about the girl’s sudden bout of
faithfulness.