Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

If someone was following the sedan, Marek wanted to know.

He parked the utility car behind an apartment block, walked three streets south, and spent forty minutes inside another stabilization post asking about Gemini transfers. Then, he left through the rear exit, circled the block, and watched the sedan from the roof of a low parking lot structure.

Nobody approached it. He waited for another twenty minutes. Soon enough, a man crossed the street twice. The first time, Marek ignored him. The second time, the man slowed near the sedan, looked through the windshield, and glanced at the plate.

The man looked familiar. Marek watched him longer and remembered the face.

’Aries.’

The man near the concrete barrier on Route Eight.

Marek did not move as he watched him examine the sedan. Then, the man walked away.

’Is he trying to investigate me? Wasn’t he a detainee? Why would the government send him to find me? Were they caught and were offered a job or something? It’s strange, no matter how I think about it.’ He was confused about what was happening at the moment.

Marek waited until he disappeared.

”I think I know him.”

”Yes.”

”Route Eight.”

”Yes.”

Marek looked toward the stairwell.

”Why is he following me?” He then realized something and asked Celeste, ”Why do you know about him? Were you following me since the beginning of Day 367?”

Celeste gave him the answer he expected. ”I don’t know.”

”For both questions?”

”Only the first one. As for the second one, yes, I was there.”

Marek returned by another exit, thinking about the Aries-marked man and Celeste’s last answer. He was not bothered by Celeste’s answer, but it further confirmed his suspicions. She was someone he knew before Day 367.

Then, he recalled that the last Route Eight report said all six detainees were still being sought. Either they had found Marek on their own, or someone else had brought them onto his trail.

’Troublesome. I could not even think about the real reason why they would try to find me. The most plausible reason is probably that they have someone giving them orders to find me. It’s very likely. But no point in thinking about it now.’

He drove north again but deliberately took the wrong turn.

The road curved toward a district shelter where no Gemini group had been reported. Marek stopped near the entrance, remained inside for seven minutes, and left through another street.

A different person did.

Marek recognized the eyeglasses first.

’Scorpius.’

The man stood near a damaged bus stop and watched the shelter entrance without looking directly at the sedan.

Marek continued past him.

’Two.’

Marek turned east.

He stopped at a convenience store, entered through the front and bought a bottle of water he did not need.

Nobody followed visibly.

Then, a woman’s voice near the doorway told a man that the road north was closed. The voice belonged to the cashier.

The cashier was outside.

Marek stopped behind a shelf.

’Ah.’

The short-haired woman appeared through the next aisle wearing the same oversized brown jacket. The same woman he had photographed earlier. The copied voice finally connected her to Route Eight.

’Gemini.’

’So, that was you. I should have known.’

’So now, that’s three.’

Marek left through the loading door.

”They’re working together,” he said.

Celeste remained quiet.

”You knew before I did.”

”I suspected.”

”Who is directing them?”

”I don’t know.”

Marek glanced toward the alley. ”That answer is becoming statistically unlikely.”

Celeste ignored it.

Marek drove toward the northern learning route without stopping at the next two facilities. If those detainees were following him, leading them directly toward Mara was unacceptable until he knew why.

So he changed the search.

Instead of asking where Gemini minors had gone, he started asking about damaged roads, private transports, and any woman wearing silver-white clothing.

The information could still move him toward Mara without requiring her name.

At the next facility, nobody approached him. Ten minutes after Marek left, however, another familiar man entered and asked about official transfer records.

Marek recognized him after a few seconds.

He had remained near the damaged van on Route Eight before running when the security vehicles approached.

’Libra.’

Marek saw him through the rear window.

’Four.’

He drove away.

The fifth appeared only because Marek took a route that should have been impossible.

A collapsed pedestrian bridge forced the sedan through a narrow service lane. At the end, the road divided around displaced forest where an office complex had once stood.

A man was already there, examining the route with an old map. Marek did not recognize his face. Then, a bow-shaped pattern of light appeared along one arm.

He had seen that on Route Eight.

’Sagittarius. Probably.’

The man looked up as the sedan passed.

’Five. Probably.’

Marek did not see the Taurus detainee, the one who talked so much.

By the beginning of the dark period, Marek had confirmed enough.

They had divided the work.

Aries followed movement. Gemini talked to people. Libra checked records. Sagittarius watched routes. Scorpius was harder to place because Marek had barely seen him since the shelter.

’He’s probably supposed to stay out of sight.’

The Taurus bearer’s absence suggested he was doing something else.

’Someone had separated them according to what they were useful for. I guess it’s someone again from the Prime Continuum, someone who knows more than us.’

Seeing how organized they had become compared to Route Eight, Marek became more certain that someone was guiding them. Someone had probably taught them how to make better use of what each of them could do.

Marek parked in the lower level of an office building whose upper floors had been evacuated after a structural crack appeared across the stairwell. He turned the engine off and remained inside.

”The person organizing them knows what each of them does,” he said.

”Yes.”

”He also knows enough about me to predict that I’ll keep checking facilities.”

Celeste waited.

”Do you know anyone like that?”

Silence.

Marek leaned back against the seat. ”Of course.”

He opened the notebook.

The last reliable lead placed Mara’s group north of the learning center. The silver-white woman avoided registry networks and moved between Gemini stabilization sites only when necessary. She also appeared to know someone might be tracking the records.

Marek had been doing exactly that.

If the detainees continued following him, he would not approach Mara until the tail was resolved.

He wrote six Signs on a page.

ARIES.

SCORPIUS.

GEMINI.

LIBRA.

SAGITTARIUS?

TAURUS.

Below them, he wrote one question.

WHO ORGANIZED THEM?

He needed to know whether their roles changed with his behavior.

He parked beneath a damaged elevated road and continued east on foot. At the next intersection, he entered a relief queue long enough to be seen, asked nobody about Mara, and left through the rear gate.

Twenty minutes later, the short-haired Gemini appeared at the front entrance. She did not follow him east. She spoke to two volunteers and remained near the registration board.

’Social contact. Information.’

The Libra detainee crossed the opposite pavement without approaching the queue. He watched the officers and government vehicles instead.

’Government movement.’

The probable Sagittarius never appeared.

Aries was easier. Marek saw him once beside a motorcycle and then not again after a government transport turned north.

’Following movement.’

Scorpius was the problem. Marek did not see him after the shelter.

’Probably the point. Perhaps that was the job assigned to him. To remain in the shadows, and that sounds more dangerous than these detainees who are in the open.’

The Taurus detainee finally appeared when three of the others regrouped near a shuttered restaurant.

Marek recognized him immediately.

The same large man who had torn the transport doors open. ℴ

’Definitely him. No mistake.’

He handed the others water, listened, and remained there when they separated again.

Marek wrote something beside Taurus.

’Holding them together?’

None of them behaved like six people improvising the same search. Someone had divided the work before they started, or at least knew where each person would be useful.

The pressure behind Marek’s ear shifted.

Celeste spoke, ”He is close.”

Marek looked up.

”Who?”

For the first time, Celeste answered without avoiding the question.

”The person looking for you.”