Bastion 2 - Chapter 35

Cho was in a cold sweat by the time we reached the lodge, but Mae confirmed there was nothing wrong with him outside of his anxiety. Hana and I both worked some zo calm on him, and in a few moments, he was asleep in his bed.

Ko-nah wasn’t in the room, but it appeared all his stuff was still there. Perhaps I was wrong. What if he was just off in some dark corner with the exchange student? The idea felt plausible, but I knew in my gut it was just a lie. Ko-nah may already be a master of ry—but where did he learn?

I walked Hana back to her lodge, my mind in turmoil.

“The Grandmaster won’t give up. He’ll see it through,” Hana said as she turned back on the porch.

I took a deep breath of cold night air and straightened my slumped posture. “I know. My conflict is the worry that nothing will happen, and this will fade away until it rears its head again. My other worry is something terrible will happen. Half the school or more had enough tea to become infected, and as Mae said, death is a possibility.”

Mother was slowly dying, too. This could be the answer to her problems if we discovered the truth. There was so much at stake, and so much in danger. The lives of hundreds of students…

Hana ran her fingernails across the scar above my right ear, then pulled my head down to hers. She bumped my forehead, looking into my eyes. “We’re going to figure this out,” she whispered, and her words calmed me.

The scent of lilacs filled my mind, and I knew she was using a ry spell to relax me. I accepted it anyway. I wanted to feel calm. I wanted to know in my heart that everything would work out.

I put my arms around her and held tight. “Last year, when we were coming into the school for the first time, you tried to infiltrate my mind. Why?”

“You remember that?”

“How could I forget?”

She hummed thoughtfully, then looked away. “It’s a bit shallow. You might not like me as much if you knew.”

“Try me,” I said with a laugh.

She sighed, then looked back with a blush. “I was thinking you were very handsome, and I wanted to see how best to approach you.”

I smirked. “You’re right. That’s shallow.”

“Oh,” she groaned and shoved my chest, but I held tighter, my stomach filled with excited butterflies.

“But I still love you just as much.”

She froze. Her breathing became heavy and the color in her cheeks deepened. “You love me?”

A hunger I was becoming all to familiar with swelled in my chest. I ran my hand through her hair, mimicking the gesture she’d done moments ago. “It was inevitable,” I whispered back, our lips tantalizingly close.

“Into your lodges, students! We will update you within the hour!” Pung-sah’s nasally voice extinguished the flame in me, and I looked toward the instructor. There were others loitering about, chatting—though not as closely as Hana and I had been—who stood and moved toward their buildings.

“I’ll see you soon.” I pulled away from Hana with frustration. I didn’t want to leave her alone in the lodge when who knew what was about to happen.

“We will figure this out and fix it. Don’t give up hope.” She stepped backwards up the porch, her fingers sliding off mine as we moved away.

“I won’t,” I said with a nod, feeling more positive than I had before.

I walked toward my lodge, noticing the gazes of the other meandering students—Tae-do and Shin-soo among them—scrutinizing me. A new worry blossomed in my mind. With all the ways I had shown offthis year, Mae’s existence was going to be harder and harder to hide.

“Thank you for thinking of me,” Mae whispered to me. “There’s something we need to talk about, and you need to be alone. Can you sneak off to the glade?”

I looked left, right, then behind me. Pung-sah was keeping a watchful eye on every student, but especially me, it seemed. ‘We’ll have to settle for the solitude in the room.’

“It will be upsetting information. Prepare yourself.”

I cycled energy from the rich dinner I’d had and turned it into zo, then circulated it through my body. I instantly felt the relaxation effects, and found myself dragging my feet down the hall to my room. Il-sung was pacing when I came in.

“Were we poisoned? Do you know what’s going on? Who did it?” he rapid fired the questions at me.

I didn’t have the strength to answer with anything more than, “I know as much as you,” as I flopped face down into bed. Il-sung rambled for a bit longer, then calmed and sat on his bed. When his breathing shallowed, the sign of a light sleep, Mae spoke up in my mind.

“I’ve been analyzing the data from the—uh—underwater smuggling base? I’m not sure what else to call it. Anyway, I’ve discovered some troubling things. Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?” she asked and sighed.

‘I won’t know until I hear it, I suppose.’

“The drug import appears to be a multi-faceted operations intended to sow chaos in Busa-nan, weaken the strongest fighters and generate a huge profit for whoever is on the other end of these drugs, which I haven’t discovered yet. There’s a thick ledger of names that appear to be test subjects and”—she stopped, her uncertainty washing through me.

‘Tell me,’ I thought as I rolled onto my back and looked at the ceiling.

“Your mother’s name is on an archived list.”

‘What does that mean?’ I asked, my jaw tense. Part of me already knew what it meant, I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.

She was a test subject.

“She was, past tense. They abandoned the project and moved on. That was why her malware—while still sending data—didn’t match up correctly with the signal.”

My heart thudded as I actively work to slow it down with careful breathing. I kept my face placid as I looked at the long shadows on the wood planks. After a moment, I had my body back under control.

“That’s not all,” Mae said, and I fought to keep my breathing steady. “I found references to the name Hiro Kumiho as receiving shipments at the facility.”

I furrowed my brow. ‘Kumiho is a nine-tailed fox spirit said to have been raised by Jigu to protect the land from machina, and Hiro is a Kokyu male’s given name. Could it be the man in the fox mask?’

“Maybe.”

‘Anything more?’ I asked, hoping the well of bad news was empty.

“Nothing I feel certain about yet. I’ll update you soon. I need you to start working on the device, opening more nodes. I need more power.” Mae sounded near desperation, and I nodded.

I cycled my breathing for ma and got to work activating the tiny, self-contained nodes of power inside her secondary device. I took the main, fat highway from the power supply and found a dark corner of the device to start on. She had made substantial changes since the last time I’d checked in. Many of the nodes were actively in use, so I did my best to avoid them and work in other areas.

“Attention students,” came Min-hwan over the loud-speaker. “We do not have conclusive information regarding the allegations of tonight’s meal being unsafe. The sungchal have investigated a claim, but found no evidence. It is uncertain, but not out of the question, that we may face illness from tonight’s meal. We are preparing the dining hall as an overflow medical area for now, just in case. This will delay breakfast tomorrow morning by an hour. We will also delay classes to compensate.

“Going forward, we will be locking the kitchen at all times. Access will be restricted to a select few. Meals will be reviewed by an instructor before consumption. This is for your safety. Thank you for your attention.”

The speaker cut off and hollow devastation set in. They hadn’t found anything. How is that possible?

Mae sighed. “They could’ve mobilized their stores, put them back on the shipping submarines, or hid them elsewhere. They could’ve hidden the entrance to the base better than before, or paid off the sungchal, who knows.”

‘It’s up to us now. I don’t know how much time we have left, but we have to figure this out. Promise me,’ I thought as my throat constricted.

“I promise. I don’t think Min-hwan is giving up either. He’s putting new restrictions in place and I’m sure he’s actively analyzing the malware.”

‘But we know it’s been coded by you—another you. And you said that only a human with access to ancient technology and a deep understanding of it will be able to replicate that. Creating a solution will be the same, right?’

“It’s possible a solution exists in nature. I don’t know.”

‘All the more reason to get you additional processing power.’ I returned to working on the device as Il-sung roused, and turned out the lights.

I closed my eyes as I wove my way through the device’s highways, activating nodes with rapid precision as I cycled ma. My gold light danced with the blue of Mae’s as I flew from location to location. My hands worked complex motions at each node as my body took shape in my mind’s eye.

I woke to a sound like a deep snore and caught my breath. When had I fallen asleep?

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ I asked Mae in the darkness. It must’ve been early morning.

“You need rest. You’re exhausted.”

The snore came again, this time more like a choking gasp. I cycled for ry and lit the room with a hovering glimmer. Cho was trembling on his bed, arms and legs flailing at random intervals. I jumped to my feet and crossed the room as dread filled the pit of my stomach.

Cho’s face was covered in blood from a broken nose and a ripped lip. His hand flailed up to his head and I caught it before he could strike himself.

“What’s happening?” I asked as I kept his arm still at his side.

Mae’s voice came through strained as she analyzed. “Seizure. His signal has changed from sending data, to receiving. The malware has been activated.”