Chapter 5 The first real feed

Nine days after his life in the Warrens, Ethan had a map in his head that no-one had given him.

Not a physical map, but he was familiar with the streets, and could do without thinking now. A structural map. The kind that you create from watching the same systems running over and over until the pattern underneath them was discovered. He was familiar with the collection rotation and the boundaries of the territories as well as with which corners are kept an eye on and which corners don't have yellow-green activity after midnight, and which buildings. He had heard the name Knox spoken with the weight names carry when people aren't sure who was around to hear them and know the band color was Knox's.

He was not searching for this type of information. He had just been there, listening, and it had just been coming in.

This was the last nine days that had seen his fingers heal, one breath at a time, and the growing and disturbing awareness he had of the thing behind his sternum. Did not do anything that can be seen. It just sat and took in all of the world around it but with a sort of attention that wasn't really his, like being watched from the inside. Something that is close to the actual ability. The charge in the air on a man with a talent nearby. He could feel the light radiance of the power held at rest, but couldn't explain what it was, like hearing a frequency just outside the range.

He had not revealed anything to anyone as there was no one to tell. But Mira still hadn't located him. Solen did not make an appearance. He was sitting alone in a room on Cael Street with a gray band and sixty credits that were up for expiration in six days, and a pressure behind his sternum that couldn't be ignored.

The 10th day Knox's collectors were at the house collecting the tax for the room.

Two of them. Knock on the door at 9 am with the knock of people who knock because it's procedure and not because they expect the door to be open. The one in front was immense, relaxed, yellow-green-banded, his face expressionless like a man who knows how the conversation would end. The one behind him was younger and possessed a payment reader, and he was quite practiced in its positioning.

It was Ethan who opened the door.

He didn't have any money to pay for it. He said so without giving further details. The wide one studied the gray band and then the face of Ethan and concluded he had no payment registration. He raises his hand.

The wide collector hit him hard and the object behind his sternum exploded.

Not outward. First inward, the slow structural absorption, faster and more complete than the broken fingers triggered. The talent recognised a direct strike and responded the way a system dies when it finally get used correctly.The pain was unfelt. The force never got off the ground. Instead, the wide collector went back two steps and into the doorframe, a move that had nothing to do with the body and a lot to do with what was living inside.

The collector's eyes were fixed on his hands.

The younger one was in the hall already.

Ethan glanced at the broad one, but didn't speak a word. He said nothing as he was not required to. The situation had made itself very clear.

The wide one left. His steps on the steps were quicker than the steps that were going up.

Now, in silence they had left, Ethan stood in the middle of the room, his hands at his sides, his gaze at his hands, at the doorframe, at anything else at all, as the conversion settled, the reservoir behind his sternum sagging again and at a new level, deeper, firmer than before.

Before the hour was up, Knox would hear about it.

While he was sitting on the cot, thinking about this when he heard footsteps on the stairs, which were unlike the collectors, measured and deliberate, and a knock on the door, which unlike the collectors' knock, was a knock that was not here for anything.

He opened it.

It was the man in the doorway who had broad shoulders, short hair with gray at the temples, and a scar down his left jaw and a B rank wristband in a colour Ethan never had before in the Warrens. He was staring at Ethan like a guy who has done extensive work in this area and is verifying the findings of that research, directly against the source.

He introduced himself, "My name is Solen Vark." I've been following your file since it was noted by the Bureau and I need you to come with me before Knox feels it is something he needs to handle personally because of what just happened to his collector.

Ethan stared at him. Why take any chance with me and you.

“He's in a position to know what I am,” Solen replied. "You're only alive because knox doesn't know what you are yet and not for long.” He stood unmoving and looked which he didn't flinch at. You have already died once, I would expect you to not want to do it again.

Solen's B-rank band register on the sternum behind Ethan's heart. Passive sensitivity, a deep ambient pull that was there, faint and present, not threatening just there.

Ethan picked up the coat.

“Speak quickly,” he said.

He was still in the middle of the room.

Not heavier, but more here, the gray band on his wrist seemed different now, as if something that had been sleeping had turned over, and never returned. He inspected his hands. No visible change. No marks. Nothing that would give any onlooker that something had changed.

But something had.

He was aware, in theory, that the thing behind his sternum was a talent. Until thirty seconds ago, he didn't know what that meant. It was not the same to carry it and for it to answer.

He was starting to see the difference.