Day 19 (They Who Envision, The Endless Storm)

The council room was nearly full. Savant was standing in the middle of the room waving his book around. Richard hurried to find his seat while Jacob and Alyssa stood in the little remaining room.

Yael was nodding and frowned somewhat when she saw Alyssa enter the room. Her attention switched back to Savant rapidly, though, so she couldn't exactly tell why she was suddenly in disfavor.

"She who envisions is likely a leader of some sort. Someone with power over order and chaos. I thought it was 'they' earlier, and that we were they!" Savant was making as much sense as he ever had. "But 'she' works too. It's probably you," he pointed toward Yael, "because you have at your disposal all of us, who are of course skilled in the powers of chaos and law."

"Thank you for your confidence in me." Yael replied, smiling somewhat. "You had more information, I believe?"

Savant lost somewhat of his enthusiasm. "What's the way everyone puts it? The worst is far from over." he sighed, looking in his book. "I don't think the storm was the end of it. Even though half of them failed, the object of the storms were less to succeed and more as a trial to see if it could be done. The Unknown and Unknowable now believe such a storm can be done, and they are capable of mustering enough force to make it happen."

Yael nodded. “Of those of us here, I have known you the longest, Savant. I have seen times where you misinterpreted your notes from the past, times where you became over-eager and made a mistake. Like all of us, you are fallible.” She sighed. “I wish this were one of those times, I honestly do. If we had succeeded in stopping all the storms, if another that was not even suspected hadn't appeared in our midst, if Chad weren't hanging by a thread, I could convince myself. Everything I've seen, though, leads me to think that you are correct. We are at the cusp of a terrible change, and only we can determine how best to guide it. This will take all of us. Savant, I want to work with you to identify where the next sites are likely to be. Richard, I need you to recall everyone.”

Richard glanced up in surprise. “Everyone? That's a lot of people. I can provide transport for those who don't have their own, but it'll take a while.”

Yael frowned. “I mean everyone, Richard. Even the trainees. I hate to place them in harm's way like this, but if we don't then the harm will simply come to them, and they won't be in the company of their peers when it does.”

Richard looked like he was going to make some objection but then thought better of it. “With your permission, I'd like to start right away.”

Yael nodded, “You're dismissed then. Katherine and Gideon, I want you to divide our forces as effectively as possible. Some will need to stay behind here in case a frontal assault is tried, but I want that number to be as low as possible. The danger's out there, and if we have everyone here even they won't be enough against the combined force of our enemies. We have to hit them while they're divided, even though it means dividing ourselves.”

She sighed and looked toward Alyssa. “It's been a long two days for the both of you, I know, but I'm going to need you a bit longer. The city you came here from is probably in danger. With Gideon's permission, I'd like to send you back there immediately so we can start combating this as soon as possible.”

Gideon looked up from where he had already begun to take notes with Katherine, and glanced toward them. His gaze was hard and evaluating, and eventually he said “I think that will work, yes. These two have proved themselves a match enough. Jacob, contact us immediately should you require assistance. Don't get overconfident. Now go.”

Jacob turned and left the room the instant Gideon stopped talking, leaving Alyssa to puzzle over the nature of his remarks before she, too, departed the room.

Richard followed them out. Before he turned to go back down the hallway he glanced back toward Jacob. “We've got a lot of catching up to do, if we come back from this.”

Jacob nodded. “We'll be back.”

“Good.” Then Richard was gone.

Jacob led Alyssa through the door they'd entered, and she found herself back in front of the old courthouse, Jacob's car parked illegally out front. Traffic was light, though, and nobody seemed to have noticed. As she followed him to the car she found herself looking around carefully for the signs she'd seen the previous day. Thus far, though, everything seemed fine.

“The town seemed fine when we left. We'd taken out all the Sightless there, why did Yael think that it was still in danger?”

Jacob opened Alyssa's door and walked around to the driver's side. As they climbed in, he replied “Not that town. The Sightless will be unable to even approach it for some time, as saturated with Order as you've probably left it. She meant this town.” He gestured to the buildings around them, then started the car and pulled into traffic.

They drove for a while, and it didn't take Alyssa long to realize that they weren't actually going anywhere.

“I want to say,” Jacob began abruptly, “that everything's fine.” he left it at this as they turned left down a road Alyssa was certain they'd already traversed, then continued. “But I'd be lying if I did. I remember the first times we went out on an operation, even though you didn't really need it back then, I'd reassure you. I'd say that whatever we were doing, it was standard operating procedure. For the most part it was, we weren't usually surprised. I've never had to lie to you. So now, when we're doing this, I can't say that everything's fine, because it isn't. Everything's going to hell, and we both know it.” he sighed. “The most we can do, I suppose, is slow it down.”

“You don't think Yael will be able to save everything like Savant thinks?” she asked him.

Jacob actually laughed at this. “You heard her mention all the times Savant's been wrong, right? She was directing those comments partially at Gideon, but mostly at me. I know he's a friend of yours, Alyssa, but I happen to think he's off his rocker and has been that way for a very long time. I do believe him that everything's coming to a head, but I don't think Yael is the chosen one of prophecy. If I had to pick someone, it'd be you.”

Alyssa was at a loss to this. Her? It didn't make sense. Why her? Yael was the one with all the experience and, as Savant himself had pointed out, had the rest of them as resources. Why would Alyssa be the one?

Jacob knew she was thinking that exact thing. “Remember when we fought the Sightless yesterday morning? That wasn't the first I'd fought, and every time I had, I had at least two others with me to back me up. Even three to one, we were only barely a match for it. Yesterday morning, you moved fast enough that the both of us could take one down. By yesterday evening, how many did you dispatch? And how much of that wasn't even with my help? I wasn't around to see some of it, but the stuff I did see was pretty impressive. I've never seen that kind of improvement in my entire life. I haven't said much to anyone about it, because I think it's something you should come to terms with before everyone's yelling about it.”

Alyssa nodded. She knew she'd improved. When she thought back on previous battles, she knew she'd been good, but she'd never had to face something like the Sightless before. Just because they'd driven her to get better, though, didn't mean she was the one that could save the world.

“Something about Savant's wording bothers me.” she admitted. “He said that She Who Envisions will have the choice between destroying the world or immortalizing it. It sounds like saving the world, but I get the feeling that he used that word for a very specific reason.”

“That bothered me too, “ Jacob admitted. “But I figured it was the whole Order/Chaos thing. Chaos destroys the world, because it's constant change and thus nothing can ever really happen. Order immortalizes the world, because then there's no change at all.”

“Great, so the chosen one gets to pick from one of two extremes. No happy middle ground?”

He shook his head. “It doesn't sound that way.”

She turned her attention back toward the city. Jacob had driven them on to the beltway which surrounded it some time ago, and they were exiting for another drive through it. She'd been keeping her eyes peeled for signs, but as it turned out she didn't really have to be paying that close attention.

The stoplight at the end of the exit ramp had burnt out.

(( CHAPTER 10: THE ENDLESS STORM ))

“Turn on the radio.” Jacob said, peering into traffic and eventually turning the car to merge with it.

Alyssa shivered somewhat, remembering the frenzied words of the mad weatherman the day before. She didn't especially want to hear that sort of thing again, but Jacob was right in asking her to turn it on. It'd give them vital insights as to how quickly the coming storm was progressing.

The radio, when she turned it on, wasn't tuned to anything. She was going to try to find a station, but Jacob held out a hand to stop her. “Just listen for anything suspicious.”

She did, but thankfully, the static was of the ordinary sort. Eventually, he put his hand back on the wheel and she started trying to find a station she liked. Top 40, Rock, Roll, R&B, Talk, Country and/or Western, none of it really held her attention. She stopped for somewhat longer on the Talk station, to see if anything particularly strange were going on, but they were having a heated discussion of politics. The arguments and raised voices were far from unusual.

“Is it possible it might not come, despite the signs?” she asked. She didn't know whether to hope for one or against it. Gideon himself had thought them equal to the task, so if it had to happen, best it happen to them. It might not have to happen, though, and if it didn't then she certainly didn't want to.

“It is.” The traffic signals deeper in the city were only slightly mis-timed. “The storms, like the harpies, are a natural phenomenon. The Sightless amplify them, and call them to a certain site, but that cannot happen if the situation isn't right for it. That's why, when you do spot them, they're trying to increase the general amount of chaos in the world, to make conditions right for a storm. Even if we see the signs, it might not be enough.”

Jacob was trying to sound reassuring, and he was to a certain extend, but Alyssa couldn't help but hear the slight hiss of static in the background of the song the radio was playing. It seemed like normal interference, but she wasn't willing to take that for granted.

The next light they came to was out, and the next. A police car was stopped at the side of the road, its lights off and its hood up. Nobody was inside. The static on the radio got worse.

Jacob sighed. “It's going to happen, though. I wish I didn't have to keep driving in circles until it did.”

“Why don't we just find someplace to wait until it happens, like last time?”

Jacob shrugged. “I'm trying to spot them, see if we can't stop this before it gets started. They're good at hiding when they don't want to be seen, though, and they're not likely to want that right now. When it gets closer, we'll find a place to stop. Not safe to drive during one of these storms. Car would probably stall out anyway.”

They passed a fire station on their right. No emergency vehicles were there at all.

Traffic was worsening due to the increasingly frequent light malfunctions. Alyssa could have sworn that, out of the corner of her eye, she had seen one of the lights turn blue, and it was about that time that Jacob took them off of the main streets. The part of town that Jacob was driving them through now was not the friendliest, but it was very unlikely that a potential carjacker could even see their vehicle, much less successfully take it from them, thus they were not in any real danger.

Graffiti lined the walls of the industrial district they were traveling through. At first it was just gang names and symbols, but as they drove Alyssa could see a change in the character of the text.

“REPENT!” said one, and although that sort of sentiment wasn't exactly out of place, the date written underneath it was that day, along with a time an hour in the future. Others proclaimed things along the lines of “We can SEE what they can HEAR” and “Did you remember to set it? Fall back, spring forward!”

“I think we're getting warmer.” Alyssa suggested.

“I think we're just about there.” Jacob pointed ahead as the car crawled to a stop. Written in the middle of the road in red chalk – at least, Alyssa desperately hoped it was chalk – was a giant 'X'. Underneath, the words “marks the spot.”

“Nice of them to let us know.” she observed wryly.

“A bit too nice, if you ask me. I'd like to think they're overconfident, but it sounds like they've got no end of resources. I could say that they put that there to mislead us or misdirect us, but I think it's the truth. That'll be our epicenter.” he sighed. “I'd like to take another drive around before we stake the place out, though.”

“Sure”.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING, proclaimed a particularly poorly-written bit of graffiti once they'd driven past the X. Others carried similarly cryptic messages, but grudgingly returned to the gang symbols they had originally been as Jacob drove further away from the supposed epicenter.

There seemed to be no working traffic lights anymore, though Alyssa did see one or two actual on-duty policemen in the in the intersections directing traffic a few times. Their cars were parked nearby, apparently broken down. They passed an electronics store with televisions in the window – each seemed to be tuned to static, though their displays indicated that they were all supposed to be receiving channels that broadcast from the city. The radio Alyssa had turned on was still receiving a transmission, though, with barely any static.

Jacob took them back out to the beltway. “One more loop around, then we'll lie in wait.” he said, and Alyssa could hear the frustration in his voice. He wanted this over with, before it started. She had already resigned herself to it, though. The storm was coming. Already she could see clouds, and the announcer on the radio had earlier declared a severe storm warning. At least this declaration had been done in a relatively straightforward fashion. Though it had interrupted a song, the radioman had not then gone off on some rant about how he worked hard and why wasn't he being helped? She supposed she'd be thankful.

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