“By the fires of Kaama-Drezz!” Gorrmunsa swore. He dug his
claws into the back of the chair in front of him and raked long furrows in the
rich material. “Our entire plan, completely failed,” he turned to the two Black
Hand operatives, “Because you did not tell me anything about a pneumatic
filtration system!”
Carsius shook his head, nearly laughing in complete
surprise. He looked at Laurel.
“You saw those and learned about the filtration system, and that’s
how you knew the plan would fail?”
Laurel paused a moment; part of her wanted to lord it over
the men, to throw it in their faces and tell them, “I told you so!” But she saw
the crushed expression on each of the operatives’ faces, and so she chose to
remain gracious.
“Yes, I wanted to tell you about the filtration system. I
had wondered how the people could remain healthy in spite of the factories
spewing filthy smoke day in and day out, and that’s what led me to discover the
filtration system that automatically takes any foreign biological
substance—like the althraxine spores—out of the air.” She sighed, “I tried to
tell you.”
“I know that now,” Augustus admitted mournfully.
“Laurel,” Carsius remarked pensively, “there was something
else you were saying about the wyrts earlier, when Augustus first arrived. If I
remember correctly, it had nothing to do with vapor dispersion. What was it?”
Laurel heaved a sigh; here was the moment she had been
waiting for.
“I was trying to say that it’s not just the althraxine that
will overload the wyrts, nor is it the analthraxine that will keep the people safe
from them. Chemicals don’t defeat wyrts; their whole existence subsists on the
transmission of information. If there is a forceful inundation of information
that conflicts the current trend of information, I believe that this, coupled
with an infusion of the althraxine and analthraxine vapors, will be the key to
ensuring widespread neural liberation.”
“But how can we accomplish this inundation?” Augustus asked.
“Such a thing sounds impossible.”
“It must be focused,” Carsius observed, “we’ve already tried
hitting the whole city at once, and that didn’t work.”
“Then, too,” Deej observed, “you have given the Elitinati no
less than eight colorful announcements that there is someone within the city
seeking to end their influence.”
Everyone pondered that somberly.
“Where do we even start?” Augustus burst out.
Renata raised her hand timidly. “What about the Six Pillars
of Illuminus?”
Laurel blinked in surprise, “Those are the foundational
beliefs of the Elitinati!” she mused.
“And if the Elitinati are the ones controlling the
wyrt-mother—“ Carsius continued.
“—then to get them where it hurts,” Augustus completed, “we
need to take down the pillars!”
Laurel looked at the wyrts still crawling around the
paneling on the walls of the house. “Which pillar, though? All of them?”
“Let’s start with the easiest one,” Carsius suggested,
mulling over each of the six in his mind. “If we can figure out the order of
importance, and begin with the less-noticeable one, we may be able to squelch
the Elitinati influence before they decide to fight back.”
Laurel paced agitatedly. “So,” she prompted the man, “which
one would that be?”
Carsius frowned in deep thought.
Augustus suddenly gasped, eyes alight, “The Pillar of
Scholarship!” he exclaimed.
Carsius confirmed it with a nod. “Taking over the
Universities and schools of a country is the first step of an Elitinati
infiltration.”
Laurel grinned and rubbed her hands together, “Then let’s
take over the University!”
“Now, wait a minute,” Deej spoke up, “Is it really as simple
as taking over one building, or are there several? And how are we supposed to
get inside?”
Laurel shrugged, “Walk in, I suppose; we are invisible to
the wyrts and their victims, so we could just get inside and—“
“And what?” Deej interrupted. “That is the problem with you
humans! You are always so hasty to go and kill each other that you do not take
time to make plans!”
Laurel heaved an exasperated sigh, “All right, we need to
make a plan.”
Deej nodded, “That’s more like it! Now, what is the first
step in overcoming a wyrt-influence?”
Laurel thought back to when she had accomplished this feat.
“Well,” she answered slowly, “at first I was overcome by its
influence.”
Deej nodded to Renata, who immediately grabbed a book of
empty pages from the shelf and began writing at his direction.
“So perhaps the air is different here than it is on your
homeworld; one cannot simply ‘be overcome’, they must have althraxine in their
system for it to happen here.”
Renata wrote: 1. The saboteur must take a dose of
althraxine to enable the wyrt-connection.
“Good,” Deej continued, “then what happened?”
“Then…” Laurel faltered as she tried to sort out the
details, “Then I realized I was being overcome, and I fought for a time.”
“What happened when you fought?”
“Gwynna—I mean, the wyrt-mother—pushed harder to influence
me.”
“So…” Carsius tried to factor this into the plan, “The first
sign of an influence not working will push the wyrt-mother into overdrive to
enact the influence.”
Renata wrote: 2. The saboteur must remain in control, to
cause the mother-mind to push harder and react, focusing on the single host
instead of the whole city.
“What happened after that?” Deej prompted Laurel.
Laurel blinked, “That was when the neural connection
suddenly reversed,” she remarked with surprise, “and suddenly I had the
capacity to access the wyrt-mother, and influence her.”
Deej thumped his staff on the floor, “There we have it! When
the mother-mind is focused on a single host, and that host has the capacity to
fight back, as long as the resistance is powerful enough, the ‘signal’ will
reverse, and we can begin introducing the counter-idea to the Pillar!”
Renata wrote: 3. The saboteur must continue to push
against the mother-mind until the signal reverses, enabling the saboteur to
influence the information passed on to the network by the mother-mind.
Gorrmunsa had remained silent this whole time; his tail
flicked slowly back and forth, but inside, the wheels of his mind spun at a
furious rate. He shook his head in amazement.
“That’s all we need, then,” he noted as the pieces fell into
place in his mind. “Once the pathway is open, we need only to introduce the
counter-idea, ensure its effectiveness with a dose of analthraxine, and the
people will be awakened!”
Renata reviewed her notes. She looked up at Laurel. “Will it
work?” she asked.
Laurel picked up a passing wyrt and studied it. “There’s
only one way to find out,” she stated simply.
Carsius accepted the book from Renata and looked over her
notes himself. “Who should be the saboteur?”
“Perhaps it might be me,” Gorrmunsa purred, “everyone knows
that the Kytarr mind is the most resilient of any species.”
“Yes, but we’re talking about an influence on human hosts,”
Augustus objected, “Therefore it might work best if the saboteur was human as
well.” He looked to his fellow Black Hand operative, “may I be the saboteur?”
Carsius, to Augustus’ dismay, shook his head almost
immediately. “You’re so hot-headed, you’re liable to destroy the whole system
before we could topple the first Pillar.”
Augustus wore a wounded expression and did not reply.
“Besides,” Carsius observed, “there are Elven races here,
too; therefore, if we’re going for a species match, the saboteur would have to
be one who is both Elvish and human.” He winked slyly at Laurel, “Plus, it
wouldn’t hurt if the saboteur is one who has done this before and succeeded.”
Laurel wagged her head and sighed, “All right, I’ll do it!”
she conceded. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll take a dose of althraxine and we can
begin.”
“Tomorrow?” Augustus asked in surprise, “Why not today?”
“It is nearly nightfall,” Gorrmunsa pointed out, gesturing
toward the window.
The young man shook his head, “Is it just me or did the day
go by really fast?”
“That’s something you’ll have to get used to, Augustus,”
Carsius noted, “Time moves a bit faster in Eillumaeia than it does back home.”
Just then, Renata appeared with a pot of soup, and Deej
followed her with a tray of bowls, spoons, and goblets of wine.
The Ewok passed the goblets around to each person. He raised
his glass and toasted, “To the Day of Reckoning!”
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