Chapter 603
The meeting had beefr called for three in the afternoon.
I knew this because Kael had said so at lunch, in the specific tone of someone who had a precise thing t accomplish and had allocated appropriate time for it. A border monitoring update. One of the specific Marcus’s he’d assigned to the northeast post three weeks ago had information that needed delivering in person rather than through the walkie system or the written report format. Standard operational meeting. Thirty minutes maximum.
This was not how it went.
I was in the office when Kael sent the order through the link.
The link was – it was still new, was the thing. Two days of full pack activation and the pack was still learning its parameters, still discovering what the connection could do and what it shouldn’t do and where the edges were between a directed thought and a broadcast. These were things you learned through the mindlink by doing them, which meant you also learned them by doing them wrong first and then adjusting.
Kael sent: *Marcus. My office. Now.*
He sent it the way you’d say a name in a room – clearly, with intention, not thinking about the fact that the room now contained two hundred and fourteen people and the name Marcus was not as specific an identifier as he’d assumed.
I was sitting at the side table going through Jordan’s intelligence briefing on the network’s current capacity. I felt the order go through the link. I felt it land.
In multiple places.
I counted, briefly, before I understood what was happening. The order touched – one, two, four, seven – it kept landing, the specific quality of a message finding every recipient with the relevant identifier and delivering itself to all of them simultaneously.
“Kael,” I said.
“One moment,” he said, not looking up from the territorial map he was reviewing with Elite.
“How many people in this pack are named Marcus,” I said.
He looked up.
His expression went through a journey.
“I-” he started.
The door opened.
The first Marcus walked in. Dark hair, mid–thirties, the specific bearing of a border watch operative –
16:42 Mon, Sep
Chapter 603
upright, alert, the eyes doing the assessment sweep of a room that was his training. He looked at Karl
called,” he said.
“Yes,” Kael said. “Wait a fnoment-”
The door opened again.
–
The second Marcus walked in. Older, stockier; from the western residential section I’d seen him around/ the pack grounds, he lived near the communal gardens. He looked at the first Marcus. He looked at Kad.
“You called,” he said.
“Yes,” Kael said. “Both of you, one moment-”
“Both of us,” said the first Marcus, looking at the second.
“I’m Marcus,” said the second.
“I’m also Marcus,” said the first.
They looked at each other with the specific expression of two people discovering a thing they’d known in the abstract was true and were now experiencing as concrete.
The door opened.
The third and fourth Marcus arrived together, apparently having met in the corridor and correctly identified each other as relevant parties. They were both younger – mid–twenties, from different sections of the pack, with the confused–but–compliant expression of people who’d received a clear order and were executing it and were only now questioning the context.
“Is this-” started the third Marcus.
“Marcus meeting,” said the fourth Marcus.
“I think so,” said the third.
I looked at Kael.
Kael looked at the four Marcuses in his office.
Nina was at the large table. She was looking at the four Marcuses with an expression that was doing very significant work to maintain its professional quality.
Jordan was at the window. He had turned from the territorial analysis to observe the situation with the expression of someone who’d identified what was happening and was conducting a silent assessment of how far it was going to develop before intervention was appropriate.
Ivory was at the side table near me. She’d seen the second Marcus walk in, and then the third and fourth, and I watched the moment it happened – the moment she understood where this was going. Her expression didn’t break, but something in it went very still with the specific quality of someone suppressi a response that was trying very hard to exist.
Elite was standing beside the territorial map.
Chapter 613
Elite looked at the four Marcuses.
Elne looked at Kaei.
Elite’s expression communicated nothing, which was normal. Elite’s expression communicated nothing in all circumstances. This was the most consistently unreadable face I’d been in a room with.
The door opened.
Six more.
They came in as a cluster – not organized, just the specific timing of people who’d all been in roughly the same part of the pack grounds when the order arrived and had traveled the same route to get here. They ranged in age from somewhere around nineteen to somewhere around fifty and they all had the specific quality of people who’d received a direct order from the Alpha through a new and exciting communication channel and had responded to it immediately because that was what you did.
The office was now containing ten Marcuses.
“Wait,” Kael said, to the room. “Everyone wait.”
Ten Marcuses waited.
Kael looked at the link.
Then he looked at me.
“How many,” he said.
“I’m not sure.” I said. “The order landed a lot.”
“How many is a lot,” he said.
“I stopped counting at seven,” I said.
He looked at the ten Marcuses in his office with the expression of someone recalculating the scope of a problem.
Then the door opened again.
The children were six and eight years old. The six–year–old I recognized – he’d been in the clearing during the wolf restoration, one of the small pups who’d been chasing butterflies and each other. His name, it turned out, was Marcus. The eight–year–old was from the northern residential section, quieter, with the specific expression of a child who’d received an order and was treating it with the seriousness it deserved.