NOVEL NEXT Chapter 32 - Zeinot (II)
[Volume 1 | Chapter 32: Zeinot (II)]
The morning sun crawled across starched hospital sheets, casting long shadows through the half-drawn blinds. Acacia lay propped against his pillows, absently flicking through channels on the mounted television. Every few seconds, the image would dissolve into static before reforming—a digital stutter plaguing the hospital's reception since dawn.
"—reports of widespread service disruptions across Windsor's telecommunications network continue—" Static consumed the newscaster's face. "—engineers are working to—" More interference. "—subjects are advised to—"
He clicked the power button with perhaps more force than necessary. The screen died with a soft whine, leaving only the steady beep of medical equipment to fill the silence. The Irregular's injuries throbbed in time with his pulse—a constant reminder of his brush with death against not just one, but two Bloodhounds. But it wasn't pain keeping him awake.
It was the patterns.
The TV signal.
The nurses' complaints about their phones dropping calls.
Even the hospital's internal communications seemed affected, judging by how often staff had to physically track each other down rather than using their usual paging system.
Telecommunications…
His mind strayed back to his walks through Windsor and the maps he'd memorized during his exploration of the city. There had been something—a complex of buildings near the outskirts, heavily guarded but seemingly ordinary. He'd dismissed it at the time, more focused on learning escape routes and public spaces. But now…
"You're thinking too hard again."
Acacia's head snapped up. Leila stood in the doorway, looking distinctly unimpressed with his current state. She adorned a black skirt and white blouse. It was a cute prelude to summer outfit, but the dark circles under her eyes suggested she hadn't slept much.
"The nurses said you've been refusing pain medication," she said, striding into the room with familiar authority. "Are you trying to make your recovery take longer?"
"I need to think clearly." He shifted, wincing as the movement pulled at his bandages. "Something's wrong with Windsor's communications. The patterns don't make sense unless—"
"Unless someone's deliberately interfering with them?" Leila finished, settling into the chair beside his bed. Her emerald eyes studied him with an intensity that reminded him eerily of her mother. "Dad's noticed too. The entire network's been destabilized, but no one can figure out how. Even SST's secure channels are affected."
"It's not how that matters." Acacia's fingers twisted in the sheets as his mind raced. "It's where. To affect this much of the grid, you'd need access to—" His eyes widened. "The backup hub! The telecommunications warehouse complex on the outskirts."
Leila's breath caught. "How did you—"
"A few days ago, Pandora told me to mentally map the entire city; while I was taking note of the outskirts, I noticed the guard rotations there seemed excessive for a simple storage facility. It has to be a crucial infrastructure point. Think about it. The Bloodhounds wouldn't just disappear after failing to kill me. They're planning something bigger, and it looks like it's something that requires control over Windsor's communications," he reasoned.
"And you figured this out from watching TV static?" A hint of impressed disbelief colored her tone.
"Patterns. Everything's patterns. It's just..." He trailed off, suddenly aware of how ridiculous he must have sounded. His hands clenched reflexively, knuckles turning white. Acacia attempted to swing his legs over the bed's edge, only to freeze as pain lanced through his ribs. "I need to get out of here! I need to tell Pandor—"
"You need to stay exactly where you are." Leila's hand pressed firmly against his shoulder, keeping him in place. "You're in no condition to—"
"To what? Watch while more people get hurt because of me?" The words burst from him with an unexpected flare. "I'm tired of being protected! I'm tired of watching from the sidelines while others fight my battles! If Nemesis wants Pandora's attention so badly...maybe it's time we gave that ripoff Dracula something else to focus on."
"Are you insane?" She hissed, leaning in close enough that he could see flecks of gold in her green irises. "You nearly died last time! What makes you think—"
"Because this time we'll have a plan." His voice dropped to match her intensity. "You're a genius with Mystic Gears. I know how to think like someone with nothing to lose. Together, we might actually have a chance to—"
"To what? Have an early funeral?" She straightened, running a hand through her dark hair in frustration. "Big Sis Dora would never allow it."
"Then we don't tell her." The words hung between them like a challenge. "Sometimes the best move is the one your opponent never sees coming."
He held her gaze, unflinching and resolute.
"I'm not asking you to risk your life, Leila. But if you help me, I promise you, I won't waste it."
Leila stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Finally, she sighed—the same long-suffering sound he'd heard her direct at her lunatic father.
"You really are the most inconsiderate trash-brained bastard I've ever met." She pulled something from her breast pocket—a small silver key. "The supply closet down the hall has spare clothes. If anyone asks, I was never here."
Acacia's answering smile was sharp enough to cut glass.
As Leila turned to leave, she paused at the doorway. "Be by the south of valleyside by 8 PM."
His smile softened slightly. "Thank you, Leila."
She was already gone, leaving only the echo of footsteps and the promise of action to fill the sterile hospital air. Swallowing his daily painkillers and washing it down with water, Acacia waited exactly thirty seconds before reaching for the key she'd left behind.
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It was time to stop running.
Seven Shades Technology's central facility dominated Windsor's commercial district like a crown jewel, its reflective surfaces catching morning light and casting it back in fractured patterns. Sirius Trafalgar stood at his office window, absently fiddling with the half-assembled Mystic Gear that cluttered his desk. The device—meant to be a prototype communication enhancer—lay in pieces, a testament to his mounting frustration with the city's telecommunications crisis. Without access to SST's secure channels, he felt blind to whatever schemes might be unfolding beneath the surface. Even the mundane tasks of managing his company seemed fraught with uncertainty now. His office bore little resemblance to what one might expect from a corporate tycoon. Diagrams and blueprints wallpapered nearly every surface, interrupted only by the occasional family photo of his beautiful wife and daughter, prototype Mystic Gears in various states of completion littered available spaces like mechanical confetti. It was less an executive's sanctuary and more a genius's playground—exactly how the eccentric trailblazer preferred it.
"Sir? You have a visitor."
The intercom on his desk crackled, interrupting his reverie. The bespectacled man didn't even bother turning from the window. "I told you I'm not taking meetings today, The network crisis—"
"It's Divisional Commander Rudyard Scryer, sir. He says it's regarding his son."
The half-assembled Mystic Gear slipped from Sirius's fingers, clattering against his desk.
Elias's father.
He was the Imperial Legion's infamous "Iron General" who'd shaped military doctrine during the Third World War. He was a man whose reputation for cold pragmatism rivaled only his expectations for his son.
"Send him up."
Sirius had barely straightened his bow tie when his office door swung open. Rudyard Scryer filled the doorframe like a statue carved from granite. His jet black military uniform bore the weight of countless medals and commendations, yet it was his eyes that commanded attention—the same mint green as his son's, but hardened by years of warfare into something altogether less forgiving.
"Trafalgar." Rudyard's voice carried the clipped tones of someone accustomed to immediate submission. "I trust you know why I'm here."
"Would you believe me if I said I didn't?" Sirius attempted his usual grin, but it faltered under the commander's steely gaze. "Tea? Coffee? I have this wonderful blend my dear Ellie imported from—"
"My son was seen fighting one of the Bloodhounds. The same criminal syndicate that's been terrorizing this city. The same group that nearly killed a boy under the supervision of High Inquisitor Kircheisen." He advanced into the office, invading Sirius' space without a care in the world. "Would you care to explain how my scion—who should be focusing on his preparations for Vanguard University—got involved in this mess?"
"Elias made his own choice to help." Sirius's usual playfulness evaporated like boiling water. He met Rudyard's gaze steadily, refusing to be cowed by the commander's presence. "He saw someone in danger and acted. Isn't that what you've trained him for? Being a knight?"
"I trained him to serve the Empire with distinction, not to play vigilante with criminals." Rudyard's jaw tightened, a muscle working beneath the skin. "Do you have any idea what this could do to his chances at Vanguard? One scandal, one misstep, and everything we've worked for—"
"Everything you've worked for, you mean." The words slipped out before Sirius could stop them; bad habits tend to surface at the worst times. "Tell me, Commander, when was the last time you asked Elias what he wanted?"
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several dozens of degrees. Rudyard's eyes narrowed dangerously, his prana rising with barely contained fury.
"You dare lecture me about my own son? You, who coddles your daughter like a child playing with toys?"
"My daughter?" A rare edge crept into Sirius's voice. "You mean the same daughter who disabled one of the Bloodhounds with a single shot while your son was fighting for his life? The one who's already pioneering new applications of Mystic Gears at sixteen?" He gestured at the blueprints lining his walls. "I don't coddle Leila. I support her. There's a difference. You know, I'd always wondered how a boy so kind-hearted could come from such a...strategic mind. But seeing you now, it all makes sense. Elias is the person he is in spite of you, not because of you."
"War is on the horizon, Trafalgar." Rudyard's tone dropped to something barely above a whisper. "Sugoroku grows bolder by the day. Hausa wants to reclaim their old land—our colonies…When the storm breaks, we'll need knights who can stand against the tide—not children playing heroics."
"You think breaking him will make him stronger?" Sirius challenged with a hysterical laugh. "You're so focused on molding him into Zachary's replacement that you can't even see—"
At that juncture, Rudyard's prana exploded, a shockwave of concussive force that sent papers flying and prototype devices crashing to the floor. And yet, in such a blaze of rage, the commander's eyes bore into the tycoon's with such cold, unbridled fury.
"Don't ever," he began, enraged, "speak of my firstborn again." With that, Rudyard turned on his heel, facing the door. "You know nothing about my family, and nothing about what we've lost."
"I know enough." Sirius refused to back down, even as the weight of the commander's prana pressed against him like barometric pressure. "I know Elias still wakes up screaming some nights. I know he pushes himself to the breaking point trying to live up to a ghost. I know that if you keep this up, you won't just lose one son—you'll lose them both."
Silence stretched between them like a blade's edge. For a moment, Sirius thought Rudyard might actually batter him—the commander's prana coiled around him like a serpent ready to strike as it made the very air shiver with possibilities innumerable in nature.
But then.
Something shifted in those mint-green eyes. The fury didn't diminish, but it turned inward, collapsing like a dying star into something far more dangerous: certainty. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If that was true, then Rudyard Scryer lacked such a fundamental abstraction.
"I will not watch my only remaining child throw his life away on pointless heroics. Elias will attend Vanguard. He will become a knight of the Empire, and he will serve with distinction. He will not die in some back alley brawl with common thugs."
Prophetic or not, it didn't matter. As far as Rudyard was concerned, the matter was settled.
"And if that's not the life he wants?" Sirius, nevertheless, continued to press.
The commander actually laughed—a sound devoid of any warmth.
"Then he is no son of mine."
He turned back toward the door, medals glinting in the noon light.
"Commander." Like he had done so many other times in his life, whether it was to close a deal or to gain a favor, Sirius Trafalgar knew how to suppress his ire. This was one of those moments. "You can't command the heart to stop beating any more than you can order the wind to change direction."
Rudyard paused, one hand resting on the doorframe. For the briefest moment, his rigid posture wavered—a hairline crack in otherwise perfect steel.
"No," he agreed softly. "But I can ensure it beats in service to something greater than itself."
And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him with the finality of a prison cell.
Once the commander's footsteps had faded, Sirius exhaled, his shoulders slumping. He surveyed the wreckage of his workspace, the shattered remains of his latest project at his feet, and laughed—the sound bitter and defeated.
"Well, that could have gone better." He glanced at the chaos surrounding him—the scattered papers, the broken prototypes. "At least I didn't end up in a body bag. That's something, right, Ellie?"
A picture of Eleanor Trafalgar smiled back at him from the photo on his desk.