//------------------------------// // Interlude - Whispers in the Dark // Story: My battery is low, and it’s getting dark // by Naughty_Ranko //------------------------------// “King Thorax, you must realize what you’re asking would be above and beyond anything that could be called in good faith,” the elderly griffon said. He’d made a point of not looking at Thorax throughout the entire proceedings, instead staring at a spot just above his head as if to say that the changeling was somehow beneath him. “You must see that our proposal is in our mutual interest,” Thorax pressed. Pharynx, watching from a dark corner of the room had to admit to himself, he was a little proud of his brother. He’d been afraid that Thorax would fold like an origami crane when confronted with an assortment of shrewd Griffonian diplomats. But he’d held up surprisingly well so far. He’d remained firm yet polite, not rising to any of the insinuated insults. Pharynx secretly suspected who he had to thank for the gradual change in his brother. And he made a surprisingly good tag team with that certain someone, in a good cop, bad cop sort of way at least. “Do you feather-brains not see what’s at stake here?” A black cloud of ash hovered in front of Ember’s face as she leaned onto the conference table, metaphorically invading her opponents’ space. “We’ve been hunting this thing for weeks. And every time we get close, it slips across the border and our patrols have to turn back.” “Sounds like you’re making up fairy tales as an excuse to conduct illegal military operations in Griffon territory to me,” a fierce-looking griffon with an eyepatch countered coldly. “Why you, if I was conducting military operations in your territory, you wouldn’t be sitting here unless it was as a side dish of roasted chick…” Thorax quickly held a hoof in front of Ember before she could finish that thought. “With all due respect to your reasonable security concerns, General Blackwing, we’re not asking for full military access. Merely the permission for our patrols to be allowed to continue their investigations if the trail of the Shade leads across the border, under the supervision of Griffonian Border Patrol if need be.” “Ah, the ominous Red Shade,” a lanky griffon with leopard spots and a beak that seemed to be locked into a continuous sneer said while making air quotes with his claws. “We have dismissed those claims.” “Lord Goldstone, we’ve provided you the reports from our patrols, dozens of confirmed sightings and eye witness reports,” Thorax said while narrowing his eyes at the griffon who’d been the most dismissive of the bunch. “Changeling reports. And you expect me to believe the words of Changelings?” “And what about the dragons who have spotted it?” Ember asked hotly. “Would you like to call them liars, too?” “Please, calm yourselves,” the elder griffon tried to mollify both sides. “Name calling will get us nowhere, Dragon Lord Ember.” Thorax looked to him. While he hadn’t exactly been the soul of courtesy himself throughout the proceedings, the old bird seemed to be the only one who at least wasn’t shooting down every single proposal as a matter of course. “Would you dismiss these reports so lightly, Lord Gestal,” Thorax appealed to him, “knowing that it could be dangerous to the griffons living in the borderlands?” That gave him pause as he stroked the feathers under his beak, pushed up his spectacles slightly and, seemingly for the first time, looked Thorax in the eyes, seeing the earnestness in them. “It doesn’t matter,” General Blackwing declared. “If there is such a thing as a Red Shade, the Griffonian Border Patrol can handle it. And any incursion by Changeling or Dragon forces into sovereign Griffon territory will be treated as what it is, an act of war.” “Now, let’s not be so hasty. We agreed to this conference at Hook Beak Pass to hopefully add a peaceful chapter to this place, not plan the next battle,” Lord Gestal said. “Peace is easily achieved,” Blackwing declared, “they stay on their side of the border, we stay on ours. Peace in our lifetime.” “Hear, hear,” Lord Goldstone chimed in. Lord Gestal looked to his left, then to his right and finally back at Thorax with an unreadable expression. “Let’s table this discussion and break for lunch, shall we? I feel inclined towards some Saddle Arabian food today. Shall we order out?” “Let’s order Neighponese instead,” Lord Goldstone countered. “I’m in the mood for fish.” “If it’s fish, I want some genuine Trottingham fish and chips,” General Blackwing declared, crossing his talons in front of his chest. “Sushi.” “Fish and chips.” Thorax sighed as he watched Lord Gestal close his eyes and let the argument wash over him. Perhaps, Thorax reasoned, the old bird hadn’t been impolite to him at all, but had simply tried to tune out his own compatriots. Thorax looked towards his brother who was still standing guard in his dark corner and hadn’t moved a muscle. Now, however, he had raised his left eyebrow ever so slightly, a gesture only a little brother would catch. The Changeling King looked towards Ember who had begun to dig her claws into the stone table and leaving visible marks in response to the idiocy before her. He drew her attention towards Pharynx. Ember only gave a moment’s consideration and nodded at the both of them. Thorax looked once more at his expectant brother, then back at the arguing griffons who seemed incapable of even agreeing amongst themselves most of the time, until it came time to band together and disagree with anything he or Ember had to say. He clenched his jaw, looked Pharynx in the eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. Pharynx returned the gesture, turned and left the meeting room. “So that’s where we stand,” the blonde software engineer addressing her team in the JPL bullpen in Pasadena said. “Keep this under your hats. The PR department at NASA headquarters doesn’t want to tell the press until we’ve got confirmation. SatCom is diverting the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to snap some pictures of Oppy’s last known coordinates on the HiRise early. But we already know what they’ll show, an empty valley. The math nerds have been over the numbers five times, and unless NASA has secret relay satellites beyond the Oort Cloud, the Praise the Sun signal couldn’t have come from Mars. Questions?” One hand shot up. “Do we know who is responsible for the Solaire Protocol? And when is the ceremony to give them their Sunlight Medal?” A chuckle went around the room. It instantly died down when the handful of programmers realized that their boss wasn’t joining in. “Let me be clear on this,” she said. “We got a lucky break when we found the message. Doesn’t change the fact that unauthorized and untested code has been uploaded to a 400 million dollar spacecraft that is being funded by the tax payers. The NASA administration has made it very clear to me that if the responsible party is found, they can consider their career for NASA over.” She looked over her team, waiting for any more questions and lingering on one face in particular for a moment, the face of a man who wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Alright, back to work, everyone. I’ll have new tasks for you as the higher-ups get more information and decide what to do.” The man who had noticeably lost some of his famous sense of humor followed his boss to her office after the meeting was adjourned, swallowing hard before knocking on the doorframe. The woman motioned him in and he closed the door that was usually kept open at her own insistence. “You … didn’t tell them?” “Nope,” the woman said, sitting down and beginning to write something on her desktop computer, not looking up at him. There was a brief pause during which the clacking of the keyboard seemed very loud in his ears. “I … can hand in my resignation if it would make things easier for you, Christie.” She stopped typing. “Go home, Tom.” He stood there for a moment, locked in an effort to stop the tears from spilling out of the corners of his eyes. He nodded and began to turn. “And get some rest,” she added. He stopped and looked at her, a faint glimmer of hope returning to his features. “I’m gonna need you in the morning. First thing we’ll need to do is overhaul the communications protocols. Probably have to throw everything out and start from scratch. You’re on point for that.” Christie finally met his eyes. “Look, when you found the message in the junk data, what did you do?” He swallowed and licked his lips, realizing only now that his mouth felt as dry as the Martian surface. “I told you right away.” “Wrong. You told me everything right away. Key difference. You could have pretended to have found it by accident. You could have played dumb when I asked you how Oppy could even send a message like that. But you didn’t. You did a good thing here.” She pointed at a stack of papers on her desk that he knew to be the bureaucratic fallout from the Solaire Protocol coming to light. “Not this. This is bad. I let you get away with your little pranks at the office because I know you’re a good programmer, and they’re generally in good fun. This one went too far.” Tom looked at his feet and simply nodded. Christie sighed, passing a weary hand across her forehead after a long day of meetings. “But you didn’t try to cover your ass. That counts for something, at least in my book. As long as people speak up about their mistakes, we’ve got a shot. If they don’t,” she grimaced, “that’s when epic fails like the Mars Climate Orbiter happen.” “Thank you,” Tom said, barely above a whisper. “You won’t regret this.” She picked up a pen from her blotter and pointed it at him. “You bet I won’t. You ever pull a stunt like this again, I will nail your balls to the wall and let the Administrator hang a frame around them as an example to others. Clear?” “Crystal.” She nodded. “Then make like Oppy. Shake it off and carry on.” Tom left the room, his shoulders slumped in a manner that only indicated he was carrying half the weight of the world. Christie’s cellphone buzzed, and she spared it a glance. For the first time that day, a small smile played across her lips. The PR types would be far too busy to go on a witch hunt for her best programmer. “Oh dear,” she muttered to herself, “wonder who could have spilled the beans early?” Now trending on Twitter: #OppyPhoneHome #OppyLives #PraiseTheSun #GoodMorningOppy #CarryOnOppy In an undisclosed location near the spot where the borders of the Changeling Federation, the Dragon Lands and the Griffonian Empire converged, a lone griffon walked along an overgrown logging path. “Psst.” He stopped, his head swiveling to make out where the sound had come from. His eyes narrowed at an unremarkable rock next to the road. “I have no name, I have no face, I have no voice,” the griffon said. “I have no past, I have no family, I have no friends,” came a voice seemingly out of nowhere. “Yet I have eyes, I have ears, I have hooves,” the griffon continued. “In Silentio Vigilo, In Umbris Confido,” the voice finished. Two flashes of green lit up the remote forest clearing briefly, and Tibia clapped her hooves together excitedly. “I always wanted to use that as a secret code phrase.” Pharynx frowned at her. “The ancient oath of the Shadow Patrol is not a gimmick from a spy novel,” he said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s a promise, the most solemn promise a Changeling can make. To serve the Hive by not being a part of the Hive, something that goes against our very nature, until the mission is complete. If we are discovered, Thorax will have no choice but to disavow any knowledge of our actions. You do understand this, don’t you?” The usually excitable youngster looked up at him. “I understand what I signed up for. I’m with you, sir.” She had a habit of disregarding rules and decorum, which made what came next all the more meaningful. “Leader of Patrols, Captain Pharynx, sir,” she said, saluting. Pharynx sighed, wondering if he should have just left her in the dark, protect her future if this went south by not involving her. But he’d made his call, and she’d made hers. “Are they here?” “Follow me, Captain.” Tibia led him deeper into the woods and towards a well-hidden cave. He noted with satisfaction that she’d taken steps to cover the entrance with additional foliage. As his eyes struggled to adjust to the dark within, he could make out two sets of eagle eyes shining in the dark and the glow from the nostrils of a serpentine snout. “Our mission,” he began, “is to find and, if possible, capture the entity known as the Red Shade, for the good of all our nations. What I’m about to say has only been uttered to non-changelings three times in recorded history.” Pharynx paused to let that statement sink in and drew himself up to his full height. “Welcome to Shadow Patrol.”