“I was not able to speak with her until this year. She knows now.”
Yol nodded. “She deserved the truth. Is Roen’s relationship serious?”
“It is. He worries his line of work will cause Jill grief. After what happened to Edward, I do not blame him. Little good comes from all this.”
The two spoke for several more hours. They had begun working together soon after the fall of Rome and the rise of the Italian city-states, and while they had lost touch during the Inquisition, they had resumed their friendship in the New World and worked closely together ever since. There was a lot of catching up to do. It was very therapeutic for Tao.
Brotherhood was something Tao understood, both in a human and Quasing sense. While he had known many other Quasing, Yol was his brother in every way through all those centuries. They had a unique relationship. The last Quasing he had this sort of close bond with was Chiyva. Tao felt a twinge of rage at that name. It was comforting that he knew where Yol stood. The two separated just before daybreak. Tao wanted to make sure that Roen had enough sleep before the mission.
“Listen, Yol, I need a favor,” Tao asked before he left.
“Anything,” Yol said.
“If anything happens to Roen or me, and I am returned to the Eternal Sea, please speak to them regarding his sacrifice. I promised him.”
“Of course. It is something we should all do right away. One more thing, Tao, lighten up a bit. You have an obsessive and depressing effect on your hosts.”
Tao turned to Yol before he left the room. “I will lighten up when I remove Jeo and Chiyva from this world.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: MONACO DECENNIAL
Inside the Chest of the Menagerie, Zoras found hundreds of small animals, each with a Genjix prisoner inside. It was there that he freed Chiyva. Enraged at the imprisonment of the Genjix, Zoras decided to teach the Prophus a hard lesson. And what happened next was a crime among the Quasing that echoes to this day.
Prior to the incident with the Chest of the Menagerie, we were content to wage war in a manner that delayed and inconvenienced the other side. Killing a Quasing’s host was enough to set that Quasing back for years. In an act of unspeakable horror, Zoras raised the stakes.
Roen was as nervous as a teenager about to ask a girl to prom as he stepped off the plane and blinked into the very bright sun that beat down on him. There was a different feel to attending the Decennial than any other mission. It felt significant. Like Stephen and Paula had said, being allowed to attend meant he was considered an agent worthy of a Quasing. It was almost like his Quasing bar mitzvah.
Being in Monte Carlo didn’t hurt either. It was the perfect blend of tropical weather, gorgeous old-world Europe, and glitzy Las Vegas, all wrapped up in a few square kilometers. But the conference wasn’t the reason he was nervous – what made him nervous was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
Sonya waved enthusiastically as she barreled into him with an embrace that nearly knocked him off his feet. They hadn’t seen each other since the Dublin assignment and he missed her like crazy. Command had pulled her off his training after the Yol assignment and had kept her in England to deal with the Labour Party’s precarious position. The last he heard of Sonya, she had just been promoted to command the Prophus security detail for the Decennial.
Roen often saw her name in the communiqués from Command. She was climbing fast through the ranks and becoming a star in the organization. He received an occasional email from her – with a reminder to stay in shape, and study up on this weapon or that world event – but nothing ever remotely personal. He had begun to think that all that time they spent together was nothing but business to her, a mission for her to complete and then forget.
For Roen, her absence had been a painful void in his life that slowly faded as the months passed. He had nearly stopped thinking about her, until Sonya emailed him telling him she’d pick him up. Their embrace was held a bit tighter and longer than appropriate. Roen felt a twinge of guilt about Jill.
He studied Sonya as they walked through the airport terminal. She looked a little tired and had a few gray strands in her otherwise luxurious black hair, but still looked gorgeous. Roen had to keep himself from gawking. Sonya would never be a Bond girl. She would just make James Bond look bad; could definitely kick his ass too.
The two walked very close and chatted as if no time had lapsed. Roen felt ashamed, but he missed being so close to her. As much as he didn’t like to admit it, his infatuation with her returned as strong as ever. Though they were and always would be good friends, there was something about that first crush, especially with someone who taught you how to shoot a target a hundred meters away at a full sprint. The window for anything past friendship had long passed, and he couldn’t help but feel regret for that lost possibility.
Hello? Jill? The girl you are ring-shopping for?
“I know! I’m just regretting. Can’t a guy do that?”
Depends on who you ask; I am sure Jill will say otherwise.
“Listen, Thought Police, I’m only reminiscing.”
Reminiscing is when one is thinking about the past. What you are dreaming about never happened. The word for that is fantasizing.
“Well, good thing you can’t tell on me.”
Technically, I could.
“Traitor. So what’s the history with this shindig, anyway? The briefs were vague on the history of this soiree. How did this Quasing convention come to be?”
As the name implied, it began in the 1800s, after the second American war, and was meant to be held every ten years. Our conflict with the Genjix changed from a war of control, to one of outright revenge. Entire host families were being massacred, and the violence spiraled out of control to humans not involved with the Quasing. It culminated with a group of Prophus causing the Boston Broad Street Riot in the 1830s, just to cover their escape from an attack on a Genjix safe house.
From that time on, both factions decided to sit down every ten years and hammer out rules of engagement. Guidelines, if you will. Thus, we now have the Peace Accords, a toothless yet constricting document that tells us how to not annihilate each other. However, ever since the 1871 Decennial, which caused the Chicago fire, they have been held only when both sides agreed to meet.
“So Mrs O’Leary’s cow didn’t kick over the lantern, huh. And isn’t not annihilating each other a good thing?”
Depends on which way you look at it.
Roen and Sonya got into the car and sped off toward the Metropole, their hotel. She wanted to know everything that had happened to him since Dublin. He was surprised to find out that she had kept detailed tabs on all his missions. And when he told her about his conflicts with being an agent, she admitted to him her own struggles with being one as well.
“Then why didn’t you call or visit?” he asked, a bit subdued. Her doubts would surely have helped give him perspective.
Sonya paused, and then looked away. “Stephen told me not to. After Dublin, he said you needed space to find yourself. I was told to keep my distance to see if you’d come back on your own. I’m sorry.”
Roen was speechless. It made sense, he supposed, but still, that’s why they lost touch? He knew he shouldn’t care; they were just friends, but he did care, and it made him furious. The two sat in silence until they reached the Metropole.
The Metropole was owned by Vinnick, a powerful Genjix on the Council that the Prophus trusted to be honorable. During the four-day conference, the two factions operated under a strict banner of truce. The regular staff was replaced by non-combat personnel from both factions and strict rules were put in place to deter violence. All agents were forbidden from open conflict under the penalty of being sent to the Eternal Sea.