“Thanks,” he said, returning to his seat.
“The Frenchman wasn’t the first silver-ranker to kidnap me,” Jason continued. “Sorry, that’s a category three. I was category one back then, so I didn’t resist as well as I did the Frenchman. Of course, that time I was still kidnapped, but I got my arse kicked first, so maybe there’s something to be said for going quietly.”
Jason shook his head.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I was quite thoroughly at the mercy of this crime lord, and he was not a man of mercy. In fact, he had a rather unpleasant device designed to not just torment my body but also my soul. Their plan was to hand both over to a… well, that doesn’t matter. Suffice to say, I was in a bad situation.”
He opened the bottle of water and took a sip.
“One of the people guarding the location I was held in turned out to be the man whose life I’d once spared. He chose to run off and tell my friends where I was, in return for having not executed him when I had every chance and right to do so. His sneaking off panicked the people holding me and they had a falling out, giving me the opportunity to escape. Otherwise, I never would have been able to endure what they put me through.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“You got the Network’s people killed, so your fate is theirs to decide. I’ve asked Annabeth Tilden to be lenient with you, for what it’s worth. The choice to be merciful saved my life once and that’s a path I’d like to find my way back to. Maybe one day, you’ll have the chance to make a better choice and help others, instead of hurting them.”
“That doesn’t help me,” she said.
“I didn’t come here to help you,” he said. “I had a sense that speaking to you might assist me in coalescing some thoughts that have been floating around in my head for a while.”
“Did it?”
“Does it matter?” Jason asked, getting up out of the seat. “As you said, it doesn’t help you.”
He returned the chair to the position he found it. Kylie had not moved from her place in the corner. He knocked on the door and it was opened from the outside. He paused as he was about to leave, turning back towards her, still in the corner.
“I’m sorry I derailed you so badly, Miss Chen,” he told her. “We can never see all the consequences of our actions. Something we’ve both learned the hard way, I suppose.”
In the corridor, Michael Aram was hurrying towards him as the security guard closed the door behind him.
“Mr Aram,” Jason said with a smile. “Good to see you well.”
“Anyone who saves my life can call me Mike,” Aram said. “We’ve just got a category three hit on the grid. Kete… Ms Arziani was wondering if you and your friend were interested in jumping in.”
60
IDEAL CIRCUMSTANCES
Jason ignored the sound and motion of the transport helicopter as he read from the book in his hands.
“Is that Pashto?” Aram asked loudly over the helicopter, peering at the open pages.
“Yep,” Jason said.
“You speak Pashto?”
“I speak everything,” Jason said. “Magic powers, you know?”
“Right. Why are you reading a book in Pashto?”
“I came across this during my very brief stint at university, before I dropped out to enter the exciting world of retail stationery. I really liked it and I finally get to read it in the original language.”
“What’s it about?”
“Imperialist foreign influences in nineteenth century Afghanistan.”
“Sounds like a real page-turner. The profile I read about you said you were all about terrible eighties pop-culture.”
“My interests do go beyond Thundercats and the A-Team, you know.”
“Glad to hear it,” Aram said. “The Network is laying a heavy bet on you. It’s a little worrying if the person we need to be a transformative influence is taking his own influences from the Transformers cartoon.”
“Oh, you can forget about the Transformers G1 stuff,” Jason said. “Pure nostalgia goggles. Transformers Prime is where it’s at. It’s a far superior series and has the best depiction of Starscream across the entire franchise.”
“You’re not filling me with confidence, Mr Asano.”
“You can call me Jason, Mike.”
Jason and Farrah had been flown from Sydney to South Australia, with Michael Aram as an escort. The Sydney branch had negotiated with the Adelaide branch to let the pair accompany the tactical response team into the incursion. They were flown to a military base in South Australia, where they joined the response team in a series of transport helicopters.
Their destination was near the top end of the state, deep into central Australia. Scrubby flatland spread out for miles, red earth dotted by patches of yellow grass and pale green scrub. Nearing the astral space aperture, Jason encountered something unusual.
You have entered a region coterminous with a proto-astral space. You can enter the proto-astral space directly.
Jason’s new physical state came with new physical sensations. The world around him felt different, although he knew the difference was him. The wall between dimensions was thin enough that he could feel it. He ignored the sensation and didn’t try crossing over— that was a rabbit he wanted to keep in the hat.
As the response team’s support unit set up camp and prepared to open the invisible aperture, Farrah looked around at the landscape.
“This looks kind of like the western edge of the Greenstone Desert,” Farrah said. She and Jason had passed through the fringes of that territory not long after Jason’s arrival in the other world.
“Yep,” Jason agreed. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“I’m hungry for it,” she said. “I might even try out some of these new abilities. I’m going to miss the old ones, though. Losing the personal space is rough. I would say it had all my stuff, but I think I saw some familiar-looking books floating around in your soul pagoda.”
“When we cleared out your things,” Jason said, “Gary and Rufus thought I should have your books. You were always trying to get me to study magical theory.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “I’m going with astral magic as my specialisation, for obvious reasons. Also, that’s Clive’s specialty, so he’s taught me a lot. Rufus and Gary took the rest of your things, although I think they gave a lot of it to Padma.”
“You met Padma?”
Padma was a young graduate of the Remore Academy that Farrah had taken under her wing. She had come to Greenstone with her team for Emir’s competition, only to be shattered upon hearing of her mentor’s death. As someone Farrah had also mentored, Jason had felt a kinship with the younger adventurer.
“Your parents too,” Jason said. “They came to Greenstone with Rufus’s parents.”
“It feels unreal, talking about my memorial service.”
“I got to watch mine,” Jason said. “One of my cousins recorded it on his phone, which seems a little tasteless. My mum made the whole thing traditional Japanese, which I am not allowing the next time I die.”