Chapter 6 The man who knew what he was

In nine days of watching the Warrens, Solen took him to a place that was not on any map that he had created.

Behind a transit maintenance corridor, two streets east of Cael, was a room resembling a utility panel which was unlocked with a key that Solen was able to produce without question. Inside there was a table, two chairs, a light which worked, and the ambiance of a space used for conversation that would not be possible in any other place. Solen sat across from him and placed his hands flat on the table and gave him the eye of a man who had found it easiest to be honest.

“The Bureau assessment panel spotted your talent in less than 40 seconds," Solen said. “Four hours later, Director Harmon filed a suppression order. I have an automated alert for all suppression orders filed by the Director because in 15 years of Tower Authority work I've found that the things that institutions suppress are more operationally relevant than the things that they show.” He paused. “Harmon didn't wait until there was any secondary confirmation or internal review; he classified it, buried it, and issued a gray band in the same afternoon.”

Ethan said nothing. His listened as if he were putting together a puzzle without knowing what it'll look like.

“Your talent is named Null Devour," Solen said. “There are four historical cases in the Registry of which I have seen three which were suppressed within weeks of the initial assessment, and the fourth case file exists, but the records within the case file have been altered. Null Devour is an absorption talent, it absorbs inward force and turns it into personal capacity. Every strike that hits you strengthens it, and every ability that is used against you makes it stronger.”

The room was quiet.

Ethan wondered, in between breaths, how the broken fingers had healed. Pol push had sent him two steps back into the doorframe. The deeper it sat after each incident, the more solid, the more present it settled.

“How strong," he said

“A talent with an unknown ceiling that is improved by every attack upon it cannot be controlled with a set rank system, hence the suppression. The development ceiling wasn't shown from the three cases I accessed.” There was a levelness to Solen's voice that indicated he was delivering facts instead of opinions. “The rank system is because the ranks are stable, everyone knows his or her place, and a talent that keeps increasing until there is no limit on it would ruin the whole thing.”

“So Harmon buried it to safeguard the building.”

“Because the structure is what keeps Harmon at this level, he buried it,” He stared at Solen. “The suppression order is not from Harmon; he initiated it, but it came from someone above him. I have not yet been able to determine who it came from. It's higher than the Bureau.”

Ethan sat for a while with this. The building was now in motion with its own rhythm as something mechanical cycled on and off in the transit corridor outside the building.

“You stated that you have handled three cases," he said. “What happened to those three people?”

Solen took a moment to think. “Two of them have no record since the suppression date: The files close without closure documentation; In Bureau parlance, it means that the situation was resolved in a way that cannot be officially recorded.” He paused. “The third is in a private containment facility in the mid district, which has a medical services designation, and has been there for 11 years.”

The words hit with a force greater than their volume.

Eleven years. A man of the same ability, in a building somewhere in this city, for eleven years, since he had considered what he was, and saw that it was easier to contain him than to account for him.

Ethan saw his hands. Pol's push was absorbed by the same hands. Hands that had healed, between breaths, on a corner of the Warrens, nine days ago.

“What do you want me to do with this information?" he asked.

“Because I've been around the Tower Authority for fifteen years, seeing the rank protect themselves at the cost of all the rank beneath them and I just don't have that many desires for being part of that.” Solen did not present the performance before his eyes. “And when a Null Devour talent is active development, it's the most destabilizing variable that the Bureau has faced in twenty years, and I want to be on the side of it and not against it when it's no longer possible to ignore it.”

“So that's another polite way of asking for something, isn't it?”

"Everyone wants something," said Solen. “I'm telling the truth about it, and that's something you're not going to be able to tell most of the people you're going to meet in this city.”

Ethan stared at him for a long time. The scars on Solen's jaw. The B rank wasn't something he had been bestowed on him, it was something he had earned.

"Knox," Ethan said. “He is going to come personally after what happened this morning.”

"Yes. Probably tonight."

“What can he do?”

“Force amplification. B-rank. Short range, Omnidirectional when fully discharged.” Solen paused. “He's a virtual unbeatable force against a conventional opponent at the Warrens level, and has always gotten the full deal out in a confrontation.”

Ethan wondered about what a discharge of B rank would feel like hitting the thing behind his sternum. He recalled pol's D-rank push and how the reservoir reacted. He wondered how a B-rank would react.

Ethan said “I need him to hit me”

Solen gazed at him. “You need knox to discharge at you”

“At full output. No warning, no probing. All the way!”

“it is a very risky thing to intentionally call for.”

“It is also the quickest that I have been able to get at this stage of development.” Ethan looked into Solen's eyes. “I am not asking you to set it up, Knox will come on his own; when he does, you should know what you are witnessing when it occurs.”

Solen was silent for a second like someone fine tuning his instrument. Then he said carefully, "If the conversion does not go well at this stage, if the talent is not ready for B-rank input then serious damage will be caused by the discharge.”

"I know."

“If you are a new developer, you have 9 days to develop from an "0" baseline.”

"I know that too."

He was studied by Solen for a long time. Then he nodded once, with the small definitiveness of a man closing a door on an argument that he has decided not to enter. “I'll be in the building," he said. “If the conversion is unsuccessful, then I can stop the process midway before Knox completes it.”

“Not to be a bother, I don't need you to step in.”

“I know that, I'm going to be in the building anyway.”

For the first time since he awoke on a Veran City sidewalk, Ethan felt something other than grief or shock or the vertiginous confusion of a man who remembered dying. It was small and not completely comfortable, but it sat beside everything else and didn't push it out of the way. The sensation of being not so lonely as to be completely alone in a situation that had been entirely alone since the beginning.

He would say nothing about it. He stood up and put on the coat.

“One more thing,” Solen said. “The man in the containment facility is named Rael Doss. His sister lives in the Warrens, and she's going to find you before Knox does – when she does, listen to what she has to say.”

Ethan stopped at the door. "You know her."

I” know of her, she has tried to get the containment records of her brother for 3 years, and they seem to be closing in on her.” Solen paused. “She's just not on to the right variable yet.”

Ethan gazed back at him. And you think that I'm the right variable.”

“I believe the only factor the Bureau couldn't have counted on is you," Solen said. “The only type I find worth listening to, in my experience.”

Outside in the transit corridor he pulled the utility door shut behind him and stood a moment and thought of a man named Rael Doss, who had been in a room for eleven years, because the building had decided he didn't need to be.

He began to walk back to Cael Street.

Knox would probably be here tonight. Good. He had things he wanted that came from that encounter, and the sooner he got them, the sooner he could move on to the next thing and the next thing and all the things after that—the picture that was forming from the pieces Solen had been putting on the table was bigger than he had realised when he woke up 9 days ago with no idea where he was or why.

He was going to have to be like something that didn't exist in the rank structure.

He was already at work on it.