Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

Rhovan did not begin by asking where Marek had gone. He asked where each of them had last seen him.

Kellan immediately looked irritated by the distinction. Rhovan kept it anyway. Where Marek had gone required an assumption, but where they had last seen him did not.

They moved the broken table against the wall and used the floor instead. Eren found a piece of chalk in an office drawer. Rafe offered a roadmap that was two years out of date, which made it approximately as reliable as most maps of Linden after Day 367. Rhovan accepted it anyway.

The six detainees stood around him while he reconstructed Route Eight from memory.

Dario remembered the vehicles.

Kellan remembered every place someone had tried to stop them.

Nadia remembered conversations that had not involved her.

Silas remembered which people had been watching Marek when they thought nobody noticed.

Eren remembered the order in which government instructions had changed.

Rafe remembered roads.

Rhovan asked each of them questions only when their memories overlapped.

By the time he finished, the chalk line on the floor passed through the pharmacy intersection, the damaged overpass, two temporary checkpoints and the route that had eventually taken Marek to the Linden Metropolitan Exhibition Center.

Rhovan tapped the last point.

”You are certain?”

”Yes,” Eren said.

Kellan folded his arms. ”We already told you that.”

”You told me he went to the Exhibition Center. I asked whether you were certain he arrived.”

Silas answered this time. ”I saw him enter.”

”With whom?”

”Henry. Clara. Cooper.”

Rhovan added three smaller marks beside the first.

Dario watched him. ”You know them?”

”No.”

”Then why write them down?”

”Because people are easier to lose when you decide everyone around them is irrelevant.”

Nadia leaned over the map. ”You really have been looking for him.”

Rhovan glanced at her.

She straightened.

The government broadcast about Mercer continued in the next room. Every few minutes, another voice interrupted with an updated instruction. Checkpoints were being reinforced. Recovery units were being redirected. Several facilities had been told to verify their internal rosters manually.

Mercer had managed to make himself everybody’s problem without being present.

Rhovan respected the efficiency, but he still had no intention of helping them.

”What did Marek do when things went wrong?” he asked.

Kellan frowned. ”Which time?”

”Useful answer.”

Dario rubbed the bruise on his jaw. ”He kept getting involved.”

”In what?”

”Injured people. The driver. Cooper. Anyone close enough to be his problem.”

”He went for the child while someone was still shooting at the convoy,” Eren said.

Rhovan looked at him. ”Even after the officer told him to stay?”

Nobody answered immediately.

But Nadia soon did. ”He stopped when stopping made sense.”

Rhovan waited.

”And ignored them when it didn’t,” she continued.

Rhovan drew a circle around the Exhibition Center.

A Sign could explain what someone was capable of. It did not explain why they chose one person over another. Marek’s choices did.

”Good,” Rhovan said.

Kellan looked offended. ”That’s the plan?”

”No. That was information.”

”You say that like there’s a difference.”

”Information tells me what he does. The plan begins when I decide how to use it.”

Rhovan stood.

Six people waited for instructions. Two hours earlier, three of them would have tried to leave simply because he expected them to stay. Progress was occasionally disappointing.

”We are not going to the Exhibition Center together,” he said.

Rafe looked toward the door. ”Why not?”

”Because seven wanted people walking toward a government facility during this Awakening would be memorable.”

”We’re not all wanted,” Eren said.

Rhovan looked around the room.

Eren reconsidered. ”Not equally wanted.”

”Better.”

Rhovan then pointed at him first. ”You will watch the official side. Registration desks, transfer notices, checkpoint changes, public movement orders. Do not ask for Marek Vale directly.”

Eren nodded. ”Because the request itself could be recorded.”

Rhovan smiled slightly. ”Excellent. I was beginning to worry I would have to explain everything twice.”

Kellan made a noise from the other side of the room.

Rhovan ignored it and turned to Nadia. ”You will do the opposite.”

”Ask for him directly?”

”No. Speak to people.”

Nadia stared.

Rhovan continued. ”Nurses. Drivers. Clerks. Civilians moved through the Exhibition Center. Find out whether anyone has seen an Ophiuchus bearer matching him outside the ward.”

”You want me to talk.”

”I want you to listen. You will unfortunately have to talk first.”

Rafe laughed.

Nadia pointed at him. ”I hope his assignment is dying.”

”It is not.”

Rhovan turned to Silas and Kellan. ”You two watch the facility.”

Kellan frowned. ”Together?”

”No. Silas decides which movements matter. You follow them.”

Kellan looked at Silas.

Silas did not react.

Rhovan continued. ”Do not watch the main entrance. Watch what changes. Guards do not reinforce doors without reasons. Vehicles do not move without destinations. If the government discovers Marek is missing, Silas identifies the response. Kellan follows it.”

Kellan’s expression improved. ”Finally.”

”You do not attack them.”

It worsened again.

”If they notice you, leave.”

”I know how to follow a vehicle.”

Rhovan looked at him. ”Your last interaction with a moving vehicle involved putting a concrete barrier in front of it.”

”It was slowing down.”

”That is somehow not a defense.”

Rhovan moved on and continued, ”Rafe, you scout the routes around the western and southern sides of the Exhibition Center. Surface roads first. Service lanes second. Anything that should connect but no longer does, you mark. Anything that connects when it should not, you mark twice.”

Rafe looked down at the old map. ”Linden changed.”

”Yes.”

”Half of this could be wrong.”

”That is why I gave it to you.”

Rafe considered that and nodded.

Dario waited.

Rhovan did not assign him anything.

After several seconds, Dario asked, ”What about me?”

”You stay here.”

Dario stared.

Kellan began laughing before he could stop himself.

”My task is to sit in a warehouse?”

”Freight office,” Rhovan corrected.

”That isn’t better.”

”You are Taurus. You can hold a position, protect supplies and keep six people from returning to six different places when the plan changes. Everyone reports back through you.”

Dario’s expression changed slightly.

Rhovan continued, ”You also find us transport.”

”From where?”

”I assigned you the problem. Not the answer.”

Nadia laughed without bothering to hide it.

Rhovan returned to the chalk map.

The plan did not depend on one person finding Marek. That would have been unreliable. It depended on several systems reacting to him.

If Marek was still inside the Exhibition Center, Nadia or Eren would eventually confirm it. An official transfer would leave something for Eren to find, while an escape noticed by the government would give Silas and Kellan a response to follow. If Marek had managed to leave without anyone realizing, then the problem became simpler. Rafe only needed to work out which routes were still possible.

And if all of those failed, there was still Marek himself.

Rhovan looked at the marks representing the damaged intersection, the injured driver, and the others Marek had helped along Route Eight.

”There’s one more thing,” he said.

The room went silent.

”Do not search only for Marek.”

Kellan frowned again. ”Who else are we searching for?”

”Problems.”

Nobody answered.

Rhovan tapped the route with the chalk.

”Injured people with Marks. Ophiuchus cases nobody can explain. People recovering from things they should still be suffering from. Reports where the injuries suddenly stop matching what should have happened.” Rhovan tapped the route for the second time. ”If Marek is moving through Linden, eventually he’ll stop for one of them.”

Dario looked at the map. ”You’re planning around him helping strangers.”

”I am planning around what he already did.”

Silas spoke from near the window. ”And if he decides not to?”

”Then he has learned restraint since Route Eight.” Rhovan put the chalk down. ”I would be delighted to be surprised.”

The radio interrupted again. Dr. Elias Mercer remained missing. Rhovan glanced toward the sound for less than a second.

”Go.”

The six moved.

Eren left first. Silas waited thirty seconds before following through another exit, with Kellan leaving after him. Rafe took the old map and disappeared through the rear service lane. Nadia complained about being sent out hungry until Dario told her that finding food was already one of her established talents.

Kellan was already halfway through the door when Rhovan called after him.

”Do not fight anyone.”

”I heard you the first time.”

”I know.”

”Then why say it again?”

”Experience.”

Kellan left.

Dario remained beside the crate, looking at the chalk marks on the floor. ”You really think this works?”

Rhovan looked at the final circle around the Exhibition Center. ”I think Marek is nineteen, carrying an Ophiuchus Mark almost nobody on Earth understands, surrounded by a government that does not know what to do with him.”

Dario waited.

Rhovan picked up the portable radio and turned the volume lower. ”He will leave evidence.”

Dr. Mercer had vanished from that room under surveillance without leaving a route to follow. Marek was different. Every person he stopped to help was another place Rhovan could look.