Serial
103: Provocateur
June 16th, 48 S.D. 14:37 Sieg Lowlands, Central Plains
At once, Losha reached out, snatching the stone from Irvis. He was more than a little surprised how fast and cleanly she’d stolen it away, but he wanted her to have it at any rate.
“Serastone?” Denze asked sharply, stepping closer to the table. He glared quickly at Irvis but switched to the small rock Losha was examining. “That stuff is illegal to have. Even possessing this much goes against the Treaty of Balawanda. The agreement does not apply to anyone outside of Sventa and Henron, however, you are Sventa...”
Losha held the serastone, pinching the piece as she moved it against the lanterns’ light. Her smoking hand edged towards her mouth, and she drew long on her cigarette. Squinting while she blew out to the side, she turned the stone over and over again.
“It looks depleted,” she said, frowning. A moment later, she tossed it on the table and sat down. “It has no more seras stored within it. Still, that begs the question of why your people have it at all, and greater still, why you present this to me.” Losha whirling her hand in a circular motion, casting a series. From one corner of the room, an ashtray floated through the air silently, landing and resting near the black stone. She tapped the dying end of her stick into the container; Irvis did likewise before answering.
“As you might have guessed from what I said earlier, the Central Plains, all of us, we are on the verge of a crisis. It only takes a push or a shove, and then there we are.” He coughed briefly but went on to elaborate. “This serastone is not ours, not Sventa’s, not Henron’s. It belongs to them.”
“Them? Someone else?” Denze asked, standing behind Losha now, folding his arms. “Is it this ‘third-party’ you spoke of? Another clan, just like the mine in Angali, 10 years ago?”
“Unfortunately, we do not know its exact origins. Where this sample comes from is a mystery,” Irvis admitted, shaking his head. “That mine was shut down, as you well know; we have watched it carefully ever since, and there has been no activity. Sventa has no serastone deposits, of course. No one in Henron has set foot in the Forbidden Grounds in years. The Marshal himself gave his word on the matter. He still values your friendship, you know, Losha. You can trust what Tibil says.”
“Ksh, unlike so many others these days, Ver Irvis. Least of all those from my homeland.”
Irvis frowned but nodded all the same. “As I said before, I understand your mistrust. That incident 10 years ago is still raw, no? I can imagine your misgivings against us.”
“Frankly, I find it hard to believe you could ever imagine it. To this day, I live with burning grief, a pain that smolders. It is not just raw, Ver Irvis, it never stops. Even as I look at you, sa, sa, I can feel it as we speak.” As she talked, she made it a point to lean in closer, never once losing contact with Irvis’ eyes.
“Perhaps I could never truly comprehend what we put you through, Losha, but that is not our primary business here,” the old man said diplomatically, deflecting the contentious issue. “We have a very serious problem, and it is only growing.”
Losha eased back a bit and threw away more ash from her cigarette. “Then speak,” she ordered curtly.
“Each of us present is acutely aware of how powerful and destabilizing serastone is. Even a small amount can shift the balance one way or another. Only Henron has the proper research to utilize it, but ever since that last war, all the Central Plains have dreamed of owning weapons like the serasword. A single blade could wipe out thousands; you can easily see how tempting it is. Equally so, the art of serialization is held in great esteem and demand. Major clans left and right would do practically anything to get their hands on a serialist.”
“On someone like me, sa?”
“Or any of your colleagues or students.”
“Ksh!” Losha sneered to the side. “What countless fools they are. They desire things they barely even know. Imbeciles. We are not weapons, not tools. Serialization has no place on the battlefield. It does not belong there. I may have aided Sventa for a few years, pulling all of those assignments under Boz, but that was a mistake. These other clans say they want that kind of power? What they really want is to destroy themselves. Ksh!”
“Nevertheless, everyone wants what you have, or what Sventa and Henron have banned. Both serastone and serialization are rarities. The only serialists available are you are yours, Losha. Serastone has not been seen anywhere since your last operation at that mine. Everyone has heard tell of the Sventa-Henron war, about the almost mythical forces both sides wielded. All the major clans want that for themselves. Fortunately, in the years since, no one had been able to recreate anything close. They dreamed of it, but dreaming was all they could do.”
“Was? Hmph, so now you are saying something has changed,” Denze observed. “What was it, Irvis?”
“Indeed. The clans can access serastone indirectly. It is no longer beyond them to obtain. Let us go back to this so-called third-party I brought up earlier.”
“You said they are the ones who possess the stone. Who are they?” Losha demanded.
“You really do not keep up with all the talk floating around these days, do you?” Irvis asked.
“We came here to be away from everyone, to stand on no clan’s land. Here, we can be independent, unburdened by the concerns of all these warring tribes.”
“Even so, you have missed out on a lot of important occurrences on the plains as of late. Alright, allow me to inform you... We are unsure what banner they call their own, but many currently refer to them as the Zeroes. They seem to be a sort of mercenary unit, completing offers on behalf of various groups across the land. Assassinations, sabotage, espionage, even attacks on military targets. The name ‘Zeroes’ comes from the fact that they accept no money. They work for free. At first, it was a mere rumor blasted as preposterous nonsense, but as their clientele expanded, so too did their notoriety. Nothing so far seems too crazy for them to accept, and they do a perfect job. The codename ‘Zeroes’ also speaks of their errors, in a way. From what we know, none of them has ever failed, been caught, or died.”
“That is ridiculous,” Denze asserted. “No one can be that good, not at that price anyway. It has to be misinformation, propaganda.”
“Were not you all just as skilled when you worked for Boz?” Irvis asked. Denze scowled as if hit with a barb.
“There has to be a reasonable explanation for these ‘Zeroes’, I am sure of it.”
“There is: serastone,” Irvis continued. “But, even if their skill is all rumor, one thing is not. They have been doing quite a bit of damage recently. Just before I left, a Prevati Prime Lead was murdered in his own quarters. The killing had their signature all over it, the Zeroes. At this rate, they really will do something to incite war. We only have to ask when it will happen.”
“You mentioned a third-party could prove disruptive if they were strong enough, if they had one of these.” Losha said, poking the rock twice, then flicking it towards Irvis.
“Precisely. No one has seen serastone in almost 10 years. Now, all of a sudden, as incidents involving the Zeroes rise, we find these stones at the scene. These are their calling cards as the Gandians would say.”
“They use all of the seras, then toss them on site...” Losha murmured. “And we have no idea where they get them from, or how they figured out how to use them... Since you brought this specimen to us, I assume you recovered it from one of their jobs?”
“Sa,” Irvis said.
“What happened? Sventa or Henron?”
“Henron. A member of the Henron Council was kidnapped three months ago. No ransom, just a fairly bloody abduction. We thought it might have been someone who just wanted him out of the picture, you know, from inside Henron, all the while using the Zeroes as a cover story. If you wanted to, all you have to do is commit a crime, hide the evidence, then toss a random black rock and blame this shadowy group. However, the people at Binfort ran tests and confirmed it; this is serastone.”
“One thing still bothers me,” Denze said. “How are they accepting jobs? Have Sventa and Henron tried to contract a job through them? It might then be possible to track them down, or at least provide us with more answers.”
“They do not technically ‘take’ jobs; they actually offer them. They approach those who they think are receptive to their outfit, then they hash out the finer details of an operation. All of this is done through an intermediary. You cannot go straight to them. If they suspect you are not suitable, you never hear a word from the Zeroes. Since Sventa and Henron are strongly against the proliferation of serastone, something the Zeroes rely on, we are ignored by them. Except when they strike us.”
“Hmm,” Denze mused. “You seem to know a lot about how they do these jobs for people who have never worked with them.”
Irvis sucked on his cigarette before shooting a stream of smoke to the ceiling. “I do intelligence work for a living, Ver Denze. It is a spy’s duty to know these things. Ver Losha, I think the predicament we face is very clear, sa?”
Losha tossed the butt of her cigarette into the tray as she narrowed her eyes, looking down. “Serastone is wild, deadly, and unpredictable. It cannot be allowed to find its way into anyone’s hands. All these clans would do is annihilate one another. These Zeroes are no different, sowing havoc across the Continent. It will destroy this region if left unchecked. One big bomb just waiting to explode, and everyone wants to push the button, the fools...”
“Sa,” Irvis agreed. “If serastone really has returned, we can be sure it will become a force capable of wasting the entire Central Plains. Was it not your goal, your mission to prevent these very nightmares, Losha?”
“Are you trying to convince me to work with Sventa again?” she asked flatly, looking up.
“No. Like I stated before, this is not a mission. I am officially not even here right now, as far as Sventa’s TACOPS is concerned. No, I am just here to inform you about this. After all, it seems to concern you very much.”
“Because I swore to prevent these abuses wherever they happen?”
“In part,” Irvis nodded. “But consider this. Serastone is something only Sventa and Henron have dealt with. It is exclusive to the two of us. Now, if the Zeroes have it as well, that looks quite suspicious for us. Some of our enemies have become victims of the Zeroes. Whispers of a possible connection are already damning our reputation.”
“Now, what do I care about that?” Losha asked dismissively, waving her hand in the air. “I am not one of you anymore.”
“Sa, how right. You are a master among serialists. Serialization is exclusive to you and your school. That is why everyone will suspect you as well.”
“What?!” Denze blurted out. “What on the Continent does that mean? Explain.”
“The Zeroes do not just have access to these stones. Apparently they have somehow gained your art as well.”
“Impossible!” Denze asserted, slamming his hand on the table. “We have no use for you lies. There is no way anyone but us practices serialization.”
Losha held up her hand at her friend, signaling him to back up a bit. “Hold yourself. Remember Palostrol... and that man. Our master illicitly shared the secrets we know today; perhaps there are others.”
“Fine. Plausible, but what proof does anyone have that the Zeroes know serialization?”
“Allow me to show you these,” Irvis said, pulling out a few black and white photographs from his coat. He placed them on the table, sliding them over to Losha.
“And what are these?” she asked.
“Pictures from an encounter we had with the Zeroes in Sventa a year ago. We were able to pursue one of them, until they started using powers not unlike yours.”
Mesel stood off by himself, using his glasses to zoom in with ease. Losha and Denze hovered over the table, studying the evidence. There was a figure running through the woods, darkly clothed. Their face remained obscured by a military-style face mask; it covered the skull completely, leaving only the eyes exposed. A strange light had been captured, sparks racing underfoot.
“This light,” Losha said to Denze, holding up the photo. “That is speed-stepping. No two ways about it.”
“And this,” Denze said, picking up one himself. “A kinetic series.” The person in that one had a glow around their hand as they moved it, casting aside several soldiers.
“What was the incident here?”
“Theft,” Irvis answered. “They made away with sensitive information from one of our bases.”
“You know what this means, sa?” Denze asked as he tosses the photo away in disgust. He growled to himself as he walked behind Losha and cursed at the wall.
“Everyone will think it is us, this school. We will become a target of their retaliation,” Losha concluded. “In the eyes of the world, it will look like Sventa, Henron, the Zeroes, and Talastol are all conspiring. We will be blamed for whatever the Zeroes do. Worse, the other clans can move against Talastol at any time. We are part of no clan, free yet left to our own defenses. We will look like open targets for anyone that wants to attack.”
“Framed by circumstance...” Denze said lowly, turning around.
“Sa, Sventa, Henron, and Talastol are all in the same situation thanks to the Zeroes,” Irvis said. “We will all face the wrath of the Central Plains if this group continues to implicate us. That is, if the Zeroes do not first set off the powder keg that is our geopolitics. Either way, they are an absolute danger.”
“Ksh...” Losha said. “You never said what you want from us. You said this is not a job.”
“It is not,” Irvis repeated emphatically. “We, Sventa, severed ties with you a decade ago. Just as much as you have turned away from your homeland, so too has it moved on. We will not employ or endorse you in any form.”
“Then what, Ver Irvis, is this all about?” Losha asked, looking around herself, gesturing with a sweeping hand. “Why come here at all? Do not tell me you want us to do your off-the-books black operations?”
“This is nothing like that, Losha. This is merely us providing you with information that mutually concerns everyone. A friendly little exchange.” As Irvis spoke, Denze scoffed, shaking his head, pacing a bit with his hands on his hips. “We demand nothing from you. What you do is your own action, your own responsibility. If, based on this conversation, you decide to investigate the Zeroes, that becomes your decision. You are at liberty to proceed as you see fit. Whether you begin your hunt or stay here oblivious, that is your call. But do remember that as long as serastone exists in the hands of the Zeroes, as long as these rouges possess serialization, the Central Plains sit ready to tear themselves apart. Mark my words, the worst war we have ever seen is coming, and I will be damned if the Zeroes do not start it somehow.”
Losha leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, weaving her fingers together. The room carried with it an eerie silence save for the gentle touch of rain outside. She seemed locked in contemplation, almost lost in it. Irvis moved to say something, but she cut him off.
“You can go now, Ver Irvis, I have heard enough.”
“And... what of your-”
“It is no concern to you,” she said, pushing herself away from the table. “Get out.”
Irvis took such rudeness in stride. He knew he’d be walking into nothing but hostility when he came here. The old man smiled affably and nodded. He took his hat and prepared his coat while Losha folded her arms.
“Keep the photos,” he said, turning and heading for the door. As he made sure the hat fit snugly, he pulled the handle and gave Losha a parting last look. “You do not have to trust me, Ver Losha, just the choices you make.”
He disappeared with a grin.
After Denze escorted Irvis back to his carriage, the serialist returned to the meeting room, wiping his face as he closed the door.
“Shrieks,” he breathed in disbelief. Mesel was sitting at the table now, and Losha was rocking herself on the back legs of her chair. One arm of hers tucked itself around her while her free hand covered her mouth slightly. Her eyes fled past both of them, staring into nothing.
“This stinks,” Denze said, walking towards them. “It is a trap, like the last one they played us into, that damned mine. Just like then, they have a ‘problem’ with serastone spreading its way across the Central Plains, and now they want us to clean it up for them. Except, this time, they can have their hands off anything, since we have to act on our own. Shrieks!”
“To be fair,” Mesel started. “We cannot exactly ignore this. Each of us vowed we would see that serialization is used peaceably. These Zeroes have to be dealt with, if not by us, then someone. They must not be allowed to continue as they are, however.”
“I know that Mesel,” Denze shook his head while putting both hands on the side of the table. “But that is just what Sventa is counting on. They know how we feel. Despite our issues with that clan, these Zeroes are a trouble we cannot simply ignore. We could refuse any request Sventa throws at us. So, instead, they merely tell us things they know will cause us to take the initiative. But what do they really want, what do they really plan to have us do? I do not think we have the full picture here, just a snippet. Just enough so we can do their dirty bidding. We still know very little about the Zeroes, where they come from, or what their goal is if anything.”
“So, what precisely do we do now?” Mesel asked. “We are not going to just sit back, sa?”
“Losha?” Denze looked over to her. She stopped rocking and leaned forward, reaching for another cigarette.
“Hey!” Mesel said, ripping the pack away. Her hand had already grabbed a stick. “You need to quit smoking.”
“Why?” she asked, using the same series as before to light the end.
“Do you know the effects these things have on the human lungs? It destroys them, blackens them with tar and cancer. These things kill, slowly but steadily. There is emerging science in Gandia proving it.”
“So?” Losha said, puffing up into the air. “We are serialists. Regenesis keeps our bodies ageless and free from disease. Just another side-effect of the overwhelming seras flowing in our bodies. Any damage caused to the vessel is repaired by the soul. I can smoke as much as I like. So can you.”
“No thank you,” Mesel said, pocketing the pack so she couldn’t have anymore. “It is a... an unappealing habit.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, tilting her head all the way back and sucking. Out of nowhere, a large droplet of water fell on her, dousing the tobacco.
“Gah!” Losha sputtered and coughed, leveling herself quickly. She glared up at the ceiling. “Denze, I thought you fixed the roof,” she grumbled.
“I did,” he sighed. “Looks like we need more repairs.”
Losha grunted angrily as she looked down at her cigarette. She tossed it into a nearby bucket, then dragged the container beneath the leak.
“This place is falling apart,” she said distantly. Denze and Mesel said nothing as they glanced away. After a bit, Denze cleared his throat.
“So, the verdict? What do we do now, Losha?”
Outside, the rain had scarcely let up. The showers were not vigorous, but they were constant. At this rate, it looked as if it would continue into the evening as well. Of all the days someone like Irvis had to come see her, it had been raining. It were as if fate had decided to taunt her, summoning up the past. She could feel the uneasy similarity between this last interview and the same one she’d had in Sventa all of those years ago, right before she’d lost so much. The aching started within her, welling up, squirming to the surface as memories awoke. Abruptly, she stood up and began walking to the door.
“We will do nothing,” she said, stepping into the downpour. “Absolutely nothing.”
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