Chapter 47: Not Your Problem
The temporary stabilization post beside the commercial district had already been relocated by the time Marek reached it.
He found the original location by following pieces of blue tape attached to street signs. The tape ended beside an underground parking entrance blocked with concrete barriers. A handwritten notice directed civilians toward another building four streets east.
The fourth street no longer existed.
Marek checked the old map, found the intersection that should have connected to it and spent several minutes standing beside a section of pavement that ended against the base of the same black stone ridge he had seen near West District Central.
Someone had painted an arrow directly onto the stone.
DETOUR - 1.6 KM.
Marek followed it.
The detour passed through a residential area where people had tied extension cords between balconies to power portable lamps below. Several buildings still had electricity. Others had windows covered with blankets. Conversations stopped when Marek approached and resumed after he passed.
The new stabilization post occupied a vocational school. Its front courtyard contained two buses, neither of which had moved recently. One had a Gemini symbol painted on the windshield in blue marker.
Marek checked the tires before entering.
Flat.
The registration desk inside had no record of Mara Vale. The nurse did recognize the description of the woman in silver-white clothing.
"She wasn’t here," the nurse said. "But people were asking about her."
"Who?"
"Government. Another group. I don’t know."
"What did they ask?"
"Whether any Prime personnel had collected minors."
Prime personnel.
Marek wrote the phrase down. "Did they say Prime Continuum?"
"One of them did."
That suggested the woman identified by Mrs. Sorian was connected to the Prime Continuum.
Marek noticed Celeste’s silence. However, he did not intend to ask anything yet.
The nurse found a driver who had transported Gemini bearers away from the old post before it was moved. The driver remembered three groups. One went east. One went north. The third never reached the listed destination because a section of the road folded into an unfamiliar ravine during the second dark period.
"Folded?" Marek asked.
The driver moved both hands together. "Road was there. Then the far side was higher. Like somebody pushed two pieces of the city together and forgot they were supposed to match, this is if you understand what I’m saying..."
Marek did not speak. He just showed Mara’s photograph to the driver. The latter looked at it for several seconds before shaking his head.
"I drove a total of seventy-two kids that day. Of course, I wouldn’t remember every single one of them," the driver explained after seeing Marek did not want to let him go with just a mere shake of his head.
The driver did remember something else. A girl matching Mara’s age had spent most of one trip sitting beside another Gemini bearer and repeating the driver’s announcements in his exact voice.
"Exactly?"
"Close enough that I thought someone had recorded me."
Marek wrote that down too. If the girl had been Mara, the behavior was consistent with what he already knew about Gemini. However, the driver had not identified her well enough for Marek to treat it as confirmation.
The driver pointed him toward a relief center farther north where the buses had exchanged passengers after the road changes.
Marek left near the beginning of the next light period.
As the city brightened, people began switching off the portable lamps one by one. The water covering the western road became easier to see. It was not seawater. And it somehow smelled wrong. Moreover, the surface remained too still despite wind moving through the buildings.
Marek stayed away from it.
He passed another convenience store before noon.
The noodles inside his bag shifted against his medical supplies.
Two blocks later, he saw the same brand Mara always bought when she had enough allowance to choose rather than accept whatever was already at home.
Marek stopped.
The shelf remained almost full. He checked through his bag and saw he already had eight packets of noodles with him. But he still entered the store.
Celeste remained silent... well, until he added four more.
"You have twelve now," she remarked.
"Yes."
He found a plastic shopping bag behind the counter and separated the noodles from the medical supplies so the packets would not be crushed.
A group of civilians moved along the opposite side of the next intersection. Marek slowed before they saw him clearly. Two wore government armbands. Another carried a portable loudspeaker.
He turned into a service lane that had once connected to a small loading area behind several shops. It now passed beneath a concrete structure Marek did not recognize and opened into an alley lined with abandoned delivery vehicles.
Shouting came from farther down the alley.
A man stood beside an overturned cart near the far end of the alley. Another person lay against the wall several meters away, holding one arm against his chest.
The standing man was not dressed like anyone Marek had seen in Linden.
His coat reached below his knees. Narrow metal plates had been sewn into the shoulders. A strip of dark material wrapped around one forearm, covered with symbols that were not letters Marek recognized. A narrow blade hung from his waist, partly hidden beneath the coat.
The injured civilian tried to crawl away. Then, the stranger moved once, quickly crossing several meters.
’So fast!’ Marek took a deep breath.
His hand closed around the civilian’s jacket and pulled him back.
Marek stopped behind a delivery van. He saw how the stranger mouthed something. It seemed to be some language he wasn’t familiar with.
’A foreigner?’
But before he could continue to watch, Celeste’s voice entered into his mind. "Leave."
Marek kept watching.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because he is not your problem."
The injured man looked toward the alley entrance. He saw Marek. Then, the stranger’s gaze slowly turned to the same direction.
His face was ordinary enough. Dark hair. Narrow nose. A cut along one cheek that had already dried. He looked exhausted more than unstable.
Then, his sleeve moved.
Something crossed the skin beneath his wrist. A thin black line ran through the edge of his Astral Mark.
It did not reflect the light. For less than a second, Marek thought it was a crack, but it was not.
The line extended onto the metal plate around his forearm.
Celeste did not talk again.
The stranger looked at Marek’s bag. Then, at Marek.
He said one word in a language Marek did not understand and he opened his hand. The injured civilian flew backward across the pavement as if the movement had been waiting for permission.
Marek moved before the body hit the wall.