“The prevailing wisdom of the time,” Abreo spoke loudly over the noise, “was that with a dimensional space already in place, another one was not going to appear, rendering the grid pointless in that area anyway.”
Abreo’s excuses only fuelled the fire as the room full of Network members exploded with outrage. Asya, sitting next to Jason, leaned over for an explanation.
“We Network members may be prone to inter-branch politicking,” she said, “but we’re united by a sense of duty to protect our world. None of us are too good to be at least a little self-serving, but this violates the core tenets of our unifying purpose. There’s no way they don’t purge the Lyon branch after this.”
Hector stood up to calm the group down.
“There will be time for recriminations later,” he said. “Right now, there’s work to do. Mr Abreo, please continue.”
Hector once again ceded the podium to Abreo, who was now faced with a deeply hostile audience.
“Over time, our branch developed the dimensional space, which came to be referred to as the dimensional fortress. It was named as such both for the nature of the dimensional space and for its purpose as an ultimate fallback in the case of catastrophic events that seem more likely now than even then.”
Jason leaned closer to Asya.
“Catastrophic events?” he asked.
“There’s been growing concern that the escalation in dimensional incursions may outstrip our ability to intercede,” Asya said.
“You’re talking about a monster apocalypse.”
“Something like that,” she said, and Jason turned his attention back to Abreo.
“…came under the influence of each succeeding Operations Director,” Abreo was continuing. “Which brings us to Adrien Barbou. I considered this man a friend, so I was betrayed as much as anyone by the revelation that he was working with the EOA. Once I realised this, I naturally contacted the International—”
“Thank you, Mr Abreo,” Hector said, standing up. “I think I can take things from here.”
He replaced Abreo at the podium while Abreo stood to the side, flanked on either side by bronze-rankers who did not look to be his subordinates.
“Adrien Barbou,” Hector said, “was part of the highly secretive and highly selective group of Lyon branch staff who knew of and worked in the so-called dimensional fortress. We now believe that he has been cultivating loyalists from within the Network’s ranks and that he stepped up this activity after being made Operations Director. It is highly likely that anyone and everyone in the dimensional fortress is one of his, not one of ours.”
“What’s the big deal about this dimensional space?” someone asked from the front. “What’s so important about an incursion space that doesn’t go away?”
“The key feature of the permanent dimensional space,” Hector said, “is that it appears to have a naturally heightened level of magic. That means the environment is beneficial for essence users, as well as producing magical materials. More importantly, dimensional entities manifest directly into the space. Primarily category ones, but also category twos on a regular basis and on two occasions, category threes.”
It sounded to Jason like the magical density of the space was similar to that of Greenstone.
“The dimensional fortress is a DE hunting reserve,” Hector continued, “and over the last seventy years, the Lyon branch has stockpiled resources. Most critically, they have figured out how to use the space to generate spirit coins.”
“Spirit coin farm,” Jason murmured to himself in surprise.
“The dimensional fortress is possibly the most important strategic asset on or adjacent to the planet Earth,” Hector said. “Right now, Barbou is holed up inside it, having sealed the apertures from the inside. He clearly recognised that he was tipping his hand in being so overt in his attempt to kill Mr Asano, who we have with us here today and is the second most important strategic asset we know of. Or, Barbou possibly tried to kill him because he was ready to make his move. Whatever the case, it precipitated some kind of incident at the Lyon branch black site. We’re still figuring out exactly what happened.”
“What about the outworlder he was holding at the black site?” Jason asked.
“We have confirmed that she was a prisoner of Barbou and the EOA when they entered the dimensional fortress,” Hector said.
“What does he hope to achieve?” a person down the front asked. “Can’t we just guard the apertures so he can’t come out?”
“That is what we’re doing right now,” Hector said. “We have teams that we know Barbou hasn’t compromised, preventing his escape from the dimensional space. Calling it a dimensional fortress is not just for show, however. He has sealed the apertures from the inside and we can’t get in. We have ritual specialists working on it as we speak, but they aren’t optimistic. Right this second, none of us can do anything but sit on our hands and wait.”
“What’s the point?” the person at the front asked. “If he’s stuck in there, why bother with it at all?”
“Barbou has been recruiting from within the Network,” Hector said. “He’s been working towards the entire staff occupying the dimensional fortress being personally loyal to him. He most likely has full control of the space. Our current thinking is that he’s playing a long game. Either he believes that the EOA will come into conflict with the Network and liberate him or that the dimensional space escalation problem is far worse than is generally accepted and the dimensional fortress will become a key refuge that he can leverage. He has the resources there to remain inside without external supply. In fact, the dimensional space was a major source of resources for the Lyon branch. He simply doesn’t need to come out.”
Hector tapped the podium touch screen and two points lit up on the map.
“These are the locations of the apertures to the dimensional space,” he explained. “As we speak, there are people attempting to breach the seals on those apertures. We are on standby until one of those apertures is opened.”
The back and forth of the briefing continued, but the details mattered little to Jason. He spoke up again when Hector called for questions.
“Where does the outworlder fit into this?” he asked. “How did she end up involved?”
“For that, you’ll have to ask Mr Abreo,” Hector said, gesturing for Abreo to return to the podium.
“We first became aware of the outworlder when the twin anomalous signals appeared on the grid simultaneously, in Australia and here in France. Our signal was right near the edge of the Saint-étienne dead zone, close to one of the apertures. Our original suspicion was that it was somehow related to an attempt to investigate the dimensional fortress by another branch that went awry. Our people were stationed close, near the aperture, and we moved quickly, finding the woman unconscious. We secured her with a suppression collar and moved her to the black site.”