Chapter Eleven: Baby Steps

*

When the halls finally emptied and rage didn’t occupy his mind, Aiden realized Anna hadn’t been in attendance. With the news of the Valkyr’s movements, he hadn’t put two and two together when he never saw her. The guilt of not realizing sooner was heavily outweighed by the concern and near-panic.

Isaac and James remained at his side, but Josh had taken off with the rest of the crowd, filtering out of the town hall faster than expected. He turned towards his two friends. “Have either of you seen Anna? She was supposed to meet me back here this morning. I got so caught up in everything—and we kind of got into a fight—that I didn’t even realize she should be here.”

“Sorry, man, haven’t seen her,” James said, eyes darting toward the stairs. “I can head out to find her though. Time’s of the essence, and I don’t think anybody can match my speed.”

Aiden turned to Issac, pending judgment. “What about you?”

“Nada,” he said with a shake of his head. “Thought she’d be with our native friends. Didn’t even occur to me to think otherwise.”

“Damnit,” Aiden said, leaning over and resting his head on the podium. He closed his eyes and thought of all the places she might’ve gone. Nowhere but Zion made sense, making him think something happened to her. He’d traveled back the same way she would’ve taken and hadn’t seen any signs of a battle, and he didn’t think any of the Factions would be able to suppress her if she gave it her all. “James, you know where I told you that portal was?”

“I do. That the direction she would’ve come from?” he asked, stretching habitually. The years of sports and athletics had ingrained the process into his head, even if Essence made such a thing pointless. “If she’s not over there, should I check with V’Yenya?”

“Can you communicate without her?” he asked, never having tried to do so himself. If there was a process, he wasn’t aware of it. “If you can, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure thing.” James took off, disappearing down the stairs in less than two seconds.

“Damnit,” Aiden muttered again, resisting the urge to take his frustration and rage out on the poor podium. It didn’t deserve his ire. Instead, he turned back to Isaac. “Give me good news. How’s Shadow, and has he found anything else useful we can use against the Valkyr?”

“He’s been patrolling steadily, but aside from what we already know, there’s nothing new.” His jaw clenched, the sound of grinding teeth filling the otherwise silent fourth floor. “I’m going out. I’ll be back before sunset.”

Aiden wanted to stop the boy from leaving, but some fresh air would be good. Seeing the barely contained fury in his eyes, he nodded, saying, “Until we all leave, stay away from the Valkyr. I’ll need you for what’s to come. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

Isaac hopped down from the stage, and Aiden turned and entered the backroom. Olivia had been vigilantly going over the compendium ever since he’d given it to her. He expected little results in the time she’d had it, but the second he entered, she nearly tackled him.

“Thank the lord you’re here, Aiden!” She dragged him down the stairs to the center of the chamber to where the book lay sprawled out, thousands of notes scrawled across the current page. “I’ve made a lot of progress. I have to say, you may not be good at recognizing formulas and patterns, but you sure can copy notes really well.”

“Thanks, I guess,” he muttered as he tried to read what she’d written. At the top of the first page, her handwriting was legit and even pretty. The farther down the page he got, the less legible and, consequently, the less he could parse from her time with the book. “What’d you find?”

“Oh, you’ll love this,” she nearly squealed, pointing to the first formation. “So let’s take a look at this example here. It’s one of the most repeated Formations throughout everything that you copied, and its structure is defined and limited. It took looking through about twenty to start drawing a correlation between the interconnections between the outer Formations, the inner Formation, and how it fed into the structure of the array as a whole.”

She spoke fast, almost too fast, and flipped through the pages rapidly to show how each piece of the puzzle had helped her identify the patterns she recognized.

“When I copied everything down, I noticed that the arrays were like Formations inside of Formations,” he said, flipping to a page farther back she hadn’t made it to. “The Formations have a minimum of three outer rings, but there’s several with more than that. Those ones seem to have no balance or reasonable functionality, however, they’re surrounded by these repeating Formations.”

“Yes, exactly!” she shouted, eyes beaming with zealous energy. “I looked at all the examples of arrays you copied, and there’s a simple repeating pattern in each and every one.” She turned back to the first page that had two three-ringed Formations with a single-ringed Formation between them. “These two here are what I’m calling Simple Formations. They’re all severely balanced in energy efficiency—determined from the notes you had sprawled down that identified the magical charges and functions of each Pattern.”

“Right, but these central ones make no sense,” he said, tapping the example that had a negative charge. “For all intents and purposes, it shouldn’t be operational yet is.”

“Yes,” she said, sucking in a deep breath, deflating in a big whoosh, “but also no.”

“Huh?”

“Whatever’s happening here between these connections,” she said, circling the two bonds attached to the central Formation, “has an unseen reaction or byproduct that provides enough energy to stabilize and provide functionality, kind of like chemistry. In simplest terms, almost every chemical reaction has some sort of heat or loss of energy equivalent. With the Formations, there’s an added energy.”

“Okay, fine. How does that help us?” he asked, hoping they’d come to a concrete method of utilizing the Formations so he could cement his plans for the future. If he could utilize the Formations, the options for arming his people and defending his territory greatly expanded. “What does all of this mean, and how can I use it, Oli? That’s the important part.”

She huffed and looked at him disapprovingly. “I get you're more hands on when it comes to these sorts of things, but if you want to actually make this work in any useful regard, you’ll have to pay attention and understand the basics and advanced theory and application before ever gaining a single thing.”

In her scolding tirade, she’d gotten uncomfortably close and pressed her pointer finger into his chest. He nodded in understanding, and the heat and intensity that appeared out of nowhere disappeared just as fast. The same bubbly excitement she always had when throwing herself at a new topic of interest returned in full force.

Pointing at the next structure, this time a two-ringed Formation connected to four three-ringed Formations identical to the model from before, she continued. “I think you’re both right and wrong about these Formations.” She tapped the four around the central one. “I don’t think they’re necessarily simple so much as stabilizing. Their structure is basic and sturdy, and they can function infinitely without any give. Without these, these central Formations could, in theory, blow up in your face—or just do nothing at all.”

“So would you say that these stabilizing Formations are more important than the central ones?” he pondered, looking at the diagram. If one of the four Formations on the outside was in the center and surrounded by the varying and unstable Formations, he doubted anything good would happen. “They have to be, right?”

“It depends on the intent of the desired function. These Formations on the outside aren’t static and can be manipulated just as well as the central ones can. You can take off the stabilizers if you really want to, but I don’t see the point,” she said, shrugging.

He cupped his chin and looked down at the small array. “Modifications can be made based on desired function, but what we’re seeing is something stabilized for a more permanent, or at least functionally stable, effect.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Really, I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to modify anything at the moment.” She turned the page to the next one and tapped it. “This is where things get tricky.”

He looked at the diagram and notes, but couldn’t quite determine anything too different from the last two she’d shown him. “How come? This one looks to follow the same basic principle of the last two, so I wouldn’t expect it to be too different.”

“Well, this is an entire magical language we’re trying to crash course. If I were you, I’d throw any expectations out the window. It’s like trying to determine the laws governing an entirely new branch of science that nobody else has explored.” She huffed in annoyance when he stared blankly back at her. “If on the first day of school I told you to do algebra but only explained aerodynamics—”

He stopped her then and there, shaking his head as he held up a hand. “Yes, it makes sense now. Thanks. I’ll be sure to be more open minded and not jump to conclusions just because there’s a small pattern we can identify.”

“Good idea,” she said with a playful grin, turning back to the compendium. “If you look at all the other arrays so far, each ring has only one type of Pattern, some with multiples and others with only one. I can’t tell if this is just for functionality, or if it’s because of some limitation with the structure of the Formation itself. Won’t know until we run tests, but the introduction of the third ring inside of the central array comes with the first example of this pattern not being an absolute rule.”

He looked closer at the current array. As before, the central Formation had an additional ring. And as Olivia had just told him, there was more than a single Pattern on the third ring. Not just two either but three total Patterns. To make things even more confusing, the stabilizing Formations no longer made sense.

The single-ring had two. He could do a ratio of one to two easily. The two-ring had four, following the same pattern. In front of him, the three-ring array had a grand total of…

Eleven.

The addition of seven additional Formations made him rub his eyes and take a step back. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“If you ever thought it was going to be, shame on you,” she said, rolling her eyes.

They made eye contact, and he could see the concern within, the desire to comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. He looked between her and the compendium and couldn’t help but smile softly. “Thank you for this, Oli. It means a lot.”

“Thank you for asking me to help,” she said, returning his soft smile with one of her own. “I know it’s hard and we’ve been on your case more and more about it the last few days, but your health matters to us—all of us, your friends and people. It really does make me happy to see you asking for help.”

“I think I’m at my limit for what I can bear alone,” he admitted, letting out a deep sigh. “I want to do more, and I’ve been trying to, but Ian got through to me. If I don’t bend, if I don’t ease up on myself and let others help, I’m going to break—and it’ll happen soon.”

Olivia threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. “It’s funny. Since the others have come here, I feel like you’ve adopted so many people under your wing. Everyone looks up to you like you’re their big brother or something, kind of like how I always looked up to you. You’re protecting them—us—as you always have. A lot of us aren’t those weak, scared children who arrived here. The lord knows you’re not.”

He hugged her back and pat her shoulders, feeling worn down by the nearly two thousand people he was responsible for. The weariness ran deep, and thinking about it all only made him want to vegetate in place without getting anything done.

“Time to get back to work. There’s a lot to do before tonight,” he muttered, despite wanting nothing more than to do nothing at all. However, the thought of Anna missing, Olivia and Magnus working with the Osh’Tika’Varu to learn how to craft, Ian guarding the portal that would inevitably awaken to another problem to deal with, James running around to find Anna for him, and all the other people working hard forced him into action. “So, where were we?”

She broke away from their long hug and returned to the book resting atop the Town Control Hub. “The three-ring Formation with eleven stabilizing Formations as well as three different Patterns on the third ring.”

“Too advanced,” Aiden said, shaking his head. “We’d truly be trying to understand aerodynamics with only an understanding of basic math if we tried to figure out how all of that worked.” He moved to stand next to her, flipping back to the first few pages. “Let’s keep things simple for now before jumping ahead.”

“That’s reasonable, I suppose,” she agreed, eyes tracing over the two examples Aiden traced on a new page farther back. “What’re you thinking?”

“Before we jump into the complexity of arrays, I think we need to first know a thing or two.” He tapped the first and second examples containing the two simpler arrays.

“Like, what specifically?” she asked, eyeing the notes he began to sprawl.

“That’s a long list that I’m sure will only get longer and more frustrating the more we know,” he said absentmindedly as he penned down everything as fast as he could. “To actually understand the Formations, we need to understand what each piece does. If we only learn how to use this one, then we won’t really have any idea how to create anything else.”

“Are you suggesting a deep diagnostic breakdown of each component?” She excitedly clapped her hands. “I can’t wait!”

“I think you’ll regret those words sooner than you think. I’ll be leading the people of Zion to attack the Valkyr, so I won’t be able to test anything until later. For the foreseeable future, I want you working on this—and only this. So much rides on being able to figure all of it out.” Her entire body tensed, and her face shifted into a confused mixture of disappointment, excitement, worry, and relief. “Before you say anything, you have to understand that this is more important than one conflict. What we’re doing in here can impact the entirety of our progress and severely reduce the time it’ll take to get back home.”

“But so does going out and being by your side when you may be in danger. We’re a team, Aiden, and you want to leave me behind and have me be okay with it? I know you’ve got a few screws loose in that head of yours, but I didn’t realize you’d gone completely insane!” she shouted, smacking her hand down on the open compendium. “You can’t make me stay.”

“Oli, please,” he said, the tiredness seeping into his words. “We may hurt the Valkyr tonight, but I have no expectation of ending things once and for all. We will teach them a lesson, but unless a miracle happens, that’s the extent of tonight’s excursion. Things will not end here, but understanding this magic means something.”

“Then why go?” she asked, crossing her arms and pacing back and forth. “Why take so many with you if you don’t have any hopes of succeeding? Isn’t that just reckless and stupid?”

“We can’t just do nothing, Oli. They’ve taken the Celestials, doubling their fighting power, and won’t stop with just them,” he said, running his hands through his hair as his stymied wrath returned in full force. He walked around the room to calm down, but the images of the last time he saw the people back at the school and the guilt of leaving them there wouldn’t let him. He turned back to her and pinned her in place with his gaze. “Have you forgotten that they’re using our people to do it? Does it not bother you that Adam, Maddie, Melony and Isabella, and so many others are getting tortured for sport and entertainment?! How many have died already, Oli, or do you even know?”

She dropped her hands by her side and stared at the floor. “I didn’t mean—no, you’re right. I didn’t think about them or what they might be going through. I—I didn’t think about how you’d be taking it either. I just thought—”

Her voice petered out into deafening silence. Aiden couldn’t take it for longer than a second. “Go on, speak. Don’t just shut down now.”

“I—I don’t know what to say,” she whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know how to help you with the pressure you’re under. It scares me. I keep asking myself if I’ll even know you or have a brother when—or rather if—we make it back to Earth. I’m just worried.”

“I already told you how to help, but you want to do whatever you want to do.” He took a deep breath and released it, schooling his voice. He knew the frustration and wrath bubbling under the surface wasn’t Olivia’s fault. Letting it out on her wouldn’t be justified, so he reminded himself who he talked to, then continued. “You don’t know the pressure I’m under at any point in time. The lives of everyone are on my shoulders, and making the choice to take everyone into battle like this wasn’t an easy one to make. To even imply that I haven’t relentlessly thought this through, questioning myself at every step along the way, frustrates me in a way I can’t explain.”

“I’m sorry, and you’re right. I don’t know the pressure, but I can’t even begin to understand if you don’t talk to me about it, Aiden.” Her lips trembled as she stared at him, the pain in her eyes making him feel like he’d done something wrong. She shook her head and wiped her eyes again. “I’ve tried to do everything I can to help, and I’m tired. If I feel that way, I can only imagine how you feel. I don’t have the Endurance you do, but I think attributes and the system mean little in the face of what you’ve taken responsibility for and the expectations you set for yourself.”

“That may be true, but if I don’t, nobody will. Then what?”

She hung her head, her shoulders shaking lightly as she tried to hide the renewed tears streaming down her face. Rather than continue arguing, she turned away and went back to the compendium, wiping her eyes. “Go. I’ll stay here and do what I can here.”

He watched her fingers numbly trail over the pages and notes as she tried to force herself to understand the magical language for his sake. There were so many things he wanted to say, and he questioned how things had turned into an argument and ended the way they had, but he held everything in. Turning, he made his way to the door, looking back over his shoulder, hoping that the last conversation they ever had wasn’t a fight over something stupid.

Pushing away such thoughts, he left the back room and stilled the uncertainty festering in his chest. He would act with utmost confidence and trust each group, each of his leaders and their people, to accomplish the tasks given.

As he exited the town hall, James came rushing up the mountain slope and passed through the gate, beelining for Aiden. The look on his face told Aiden everything he needed to know.

James crossed the distance in two bounds, pulled out a clear vial, and handed it over. “No matter how hard I looked, this is all I could find. V’Yenya and the rest of the Osh’Tika’Varu hadn’t seen Anna since she left to meet you with the compendium.”

Aiden emptied the vial of white gunk into his hands, running it over his fingers to get a feel for the texture and substance. Its balled up shape was misleading and unraveled with a little bit of pressure, revealing the white gunk to be silky webbing.

“The Spiderkin have made a move?” he asked quietly, eyes never once leaving the only clue about Anna’s sudden disappearance. He closed his eyes and allowed his Essence to permeate Zion’s city grid. He gestured towards James to follow and headed straight towards the two people who’d have the answers he wanted—no, needed.

“Where are we going?” James asked, easily keeping stride with Aiden’s furious pace.

“A little bug has a few questions to answer.” He frowned, continuing to roll the soft and sticky webbing in his hand. The thought of what he might do if he didn’t get the answers he wanted. If anything had happened to Anna… He stopped in place and turned. “On second thought, James, you don’t need to come. Go get your group ready and then get some rest. Thanks for doing this for me.”

“No problem,” James said, looking in the direction he’d just come from. “By the way, Ian’s a little pissed.”

Shit. Aiden nodded, the message received loud and clear. “Thanks for telling me. Now, go rest. I’ll see you before the sun goes down.”

James rested a comforting hand against Aiden’s shoulder, offering silent support and companionship. They stayed like that for several seconds, the older boy looking like he wanted to say something but not knowing the words.

“I’m good, James. Promise,” Aiden reassured with a soft smile.

“Alright, alright,” he said, letting his hand drop. “I’ll see you later. And Aiden, we’ll find her. No matter what happens, we’ll find her.”

“Thank you, now shoo!” he said, waving away his concerned friend. When James took off, he turned back towards the house he’d been storming towards and let the wrath numb him. “I wouldn’t want you to be there for what happens next.”