Pandion (Genera #1)

Chapter 19

K agesawa sifted through the data, indexing and sorting the jumbled mess. He was a little disappointed with himself for zoning out for a moment two-thirds the way through, but he’d managed to repair and recover most of what he’d missed.

The haul seemed better than expected, but he needed a deeper analysis to confirm whether they’d obtained anything useful.

Whilst sipping his coffee, Kagesawa could feel a mild headache that wasn’t his own, so he instinctively dampened the link to concentrate on what he was doing.

Somewhere in this mess there could be the explanation for what was going on with the organisms in his head. The files Satoru had picked showed promise. He had a good eye for detail, certainly. With a little practice, he’d be excellent at data-mining and compiling stacks.

Kagesawa re-emerged from his intense concentration when he realised he’d tried to drink from an empty cup for the third time. It was getting late.

Are you home? he had to ask. He was embarrassed to not have noticed whether or when Satoru had returned. He released the dampening to check.

Mmm. Satoru was in the living room lying on the sofa. He took over the dampening when Kagesawa stopped, but he was uncharacteristically lousy at it. Kagesawa grabbed his cup and joined him in the living room to see what was up.

“I finished indexing everything. Most of it’s intact, but I did mess up a couple of times. Are you all right?”

Satoru shielded his face with his hand and opened one eye to look.

“I’m having a wonderful migraine, thank you,” he said.

“Ouch. Do you need anything?”

“No, it’s fine. I took my meds. They’re about to kick in, wait, I mean, blue, they did kick in a moment ago. I’m sorry, I can’t do the mouth thing.” Blue red . “I’ll just speak— sleep it off. 267.”

“You don’t have to dampen for my sake. I’m also heading to bed in a bit.”

“Could you turn off the light? I’m going to sleep here.” R-red.

“Wouldn’t your bed be more comfortable?”

“There’s a whirring noise coming from the street, annoying, loud.” Sixty-four. “And my sheets smell of detergent.”

“Do you want to switch with me? I can turn off my server for the night.”

“Thanks for the offer, but red 7—7—5 , I’m fine here. Feeling a bit groggy from the meds.”

The organism was sensitive to some of the usual medications. That meant empaths were often forced to take unconventional combinations for the same effects, if an alternative existed at all. The alternatives tended to have more side-effects than their counterparts, but thankfully, in this case the medication was at least effective.

“All right.” Kagesawa turned off the light and fetched Satoru a blanket, a glass of water and something to throw up in as a precaution. “Sleep well,” he whispered, washed up to turn in and retreated back into his room.

Kagesawa woke up to someone banging on the door. He’d become so used to his super helpful wake up routine that it took him a while to drag himself out of bed. He’d spent half the night going through the data and only slept for a couple of hours, so he was extra cranky when he reached the door. It was Takazaki.

“I got your message. It’s insane!”

“I only just went to sleep,” Kagesawa grumbled but let Takazaki in.

“Sorry. You weren’t responding, and I had to talk to you. Where did you get that data? How accurate is it?”

“I really only just went to sleep. I’m not going to respond while I’m asleep, am I?” This conversation required an enormous amount of coffee, if Satoru was in any shape to allow it. Kagesawa shushed Takazaki and peeked into the living room. “He’s asleep. If he wakes up from your ruckus, I’ll throw you in the lift shaft.”

“Oh?” Takazaki eyed him as if calculating whether he’d actually do it. Kagesawa ushered him into his bedroom and closed the door.

“It’s straight from the EA. He transferred it nonstop for thirty minutes through the link yesterday.” Kagesawa didn’t know whether Takazaki would grasp how amazing that was, but the man did look sufficiently in awe.

“That is quite something.”

“I don’t know how he does it.”

“No, I mean, he’s great. I expect nothing less from him. But I’m assuming you were at the receiving end? I’m impressed. How much damage control did you have to do to make that data legible again?”

“Is that a request to be thrown down the shaft, because that can be arranged.” Kagesawa had let a lot of these snide remarks slide before, but they were much less tolerable now that he was actually making an effort.

“You’re in a bad mood today.”

“I’m tired, and you’re giving me shit. Forgive me for not farting fluff, sparkles and joy at you. What did you want to talk about? I’m assuming this ain’t it.”

Takazaki seemed to want to comment on the wording but decided against it. “Sorry, that was rude of me,” he said instead. After thinking about it for a moment, he added, “I thought you were a bit unreliable, but I didn’t realise it was fucking DEFD. I’m still not used to it.”

“You do realise it was just as shitty before the diagnosis? I accepted it because I thought it was accurate.”

Not that Takazaki had been outright rude very often, but these things had repeatedly popped up during conversation with Nishimura and most of the other neighbours. It was the long-running joke that Kagesawa was great to hang out with but better not ask him to do anything since he was sure to forget or botch it somehow.

“Can we get back to the point instead of easing your guilty conscience?” Kagesawa connected to the BCI, already anticipating Takazaki wanting to see the source files.

“Right. So we’re assuming it might be sentient?” Takazaki sat down at the end of the bed where he could see the screen.

“Satoru found some studies on the oldest currently functional links with highly developed tendril structures, and it seems the organism develops very slowly, but its development hasn’t yet hit a wall. They think it might be able to perceive itself fully with time. The human lifespan may not be long enough to determine that for sure.”

“Is it possible to speed that along?”

“Why would you want to?”

“Isn’t it obvious? To know what they want; to know what they’re capable of!”

“I have two inside my head for crying out loud. I’ve got enough stuff on my plate without them exerting their own free will to give me grief.”

“Maybe all they want is to communicate?” Takazaki looked much too excited by the thought.

“According to the analysis of the forty years of development we have on record, it’s aiming to do much more than that.” Not having a clue what that was, Kagesawa was glad he’d be dead long before he could find out.

At least, he hoped so. Something had caused those two organisms to merge and develop at a rate much faster than normal. It was difficult to calculate with such limited diagnostic tools, but it was possible that the fourteen years he’d been linked had somehow produced an unexpectedly mature organism, a mutation of sorts. “All I’m interested in is whether it’ll end up hurting me or Satoru, or if I should try to have it removed or, if that’s not possible, suppressed somehow.”

“We’re talking about an alien race here. I would love to know more! Do you have more than what you sent me?”

“There’s some, but I haven’t had time to look through all of it. I really need to sleep first…”

“Do you mind if I do? I’ll let you know if I find something relevant.”

“Knock yourself out, but keep it to yourself. I don’t want anyone trying to trace this back to us. Satoru has been on edge since the video was released.”

“The EA has been lying about all of this. People deserve to know what else they’re hiding.”

“You don’t know what panic that might breed. Keep it to yourself until we know for sure how this affects things.” Kagesawa sent the files over to Takazaki who was nodding. “I really need to get back to sleep. Satoru has a migraine, and I’m tired.”

“Ah, sure, I’ll get out of your hair.” Having received what he’d come for, Takazaki was raring to leave. Disturbing alien infatuation aside, him working on the data could be a good thing. Maybe he’d notice something Kagesawa had missed.