(TPOR) Chapter 153: The Second Awakening (Patreon)

General Truman looked back at Tilda and his expression was passive, empty.

“Are you angry, Mage Tilda?” He took a step closer so that they stood toe to toe. “Have I drawn your ire? Are you feeling dangerous, now?”

Tilda bit down on her anger, any harder and her jaw would break. The general was right. She was the most dangerous person in the building. She knew it as a bird knows the wind. She merely said otherwise to remind her of the nice and kind woman she had been before the awakening. The psychologist who had helped people become better members of society. But it didn’t change the fact that she was dangerous.

And she knew what she would like to do to him with all that power. But she wouldn’t do anything. She wouldn’t even make an attempt. Perhaps the General didn’t know, but she could see the soft touch of black ink poking out of his collar. A tattoo that creeped into his neck. It was most likely a defensive rune tattooed into his skin. Considering he wasn’t a mage, it was the only explanation for why he could be so casual and unbothered in front of a Mind Mage such as herself. She could still bat him around physically, though. She was still a Rook Level Mage. Mind Magic was merely her specialty. She still had all the other perks that came with advancing three stages as a mage in thirteen years and could kill him with a simple slap.

But she couldn’t, and he knew that. It would bring down the wrath of the United States of America on her. If she wanted to punish him, it would be with mind magic since it was harder to prove. And considering how close to his head the tattoo was, there was no doubt it was a defensive rune against mind magic.

General Truman turned around suddenly in that way Military men know how to. His hands returned to being clasped behind his back and he walked back to his table, strolled around it, and returned to his black, leather swivel chair. He wasn’t even swiveling the damned thing even though he’d specifically requested for one that swivels.

“Alright,” he said. “Enough harassing. You can be at ease Instructor Tilda.”

Tilda felt her body relax at his words and she hated herself a little bit for it. It was in the way he’d done it, said it. A casual wave of his hand, a gentle yet stern fatherly voice. Just as easily as he’d brought the tension down on her he’d simply gestured it all away. It was like lifting a weight from her shoulder. She remembered how her father used to do that when she was a child and hated herself a bit more.

“How many times has Subject Twenty-seven been drafted into The Berserker persona?” the General asked.

“A total of twelve times,” she answered.

“That’s much.” He picked one of the folders on his table and thumbed through it. “From what I can see, he’s also been drafted into the persona of a loving father, a spiteful thug, a president,” he cocked a brow at that, “a soldier in the second world war, an army vet, and… that’s odd. I don’t remember an approval for an arm’s dealer’s underling going through my desk for approval.”

Tilda scratched an itch on her scalp. “We were—”

“Nope,” he cut her off. “We’ll get back to that discrepancy another time. For now, we stay on topic. Subject Twenty-seven has been with us for two months, that’s sixty days, and he’s been drafted into The Berserker twelve times out of how many sessions?”

“Forty sessions, General.”

“That leaves twenty-eight days for the remaining six personas. Doesn’t seem fair. Why is that?”

“That’s because he has the highest dreamscape completion rate of all the subjects. The Berserker was the only persona with missions he didn’t finish in the same session.”

Truman chuckled. “Won’t that arrogant oaf just be delighted to hear that.”

“Wait,” Tilda paused. “The Berserker is an actual person?”

“Of course he is, the only difference is he didn’t have magic. It’s all written in the files when you get your report.”

“No, no, no,” she held her forehead in a gentle hand, shaking it. “I mean the persona, the aggression, the decisive thinking, and all that. I know we have a skeletal structure we build muscles and tissues around before we draft the kids into them, but you sound as if The Berserker is a finished product. The complete man.”

Truman looked at her like she was foolish. “So was the loving father, and the war vet, and the soldier, and the president.”

“But the president was a tyrant and an asshole.”

“He was also a loving father with three kids. He was real. What’s your point, instructor Tilda?”

“Aren’t we worried these people might take legal actions if they find out about this?”

“Not really. For instance, The Berserker can’t take legal action. Oh! Before I forget. You can terminate his persona; we’ll be sending you a new one as his replacement for Subject Twenty-seven.”

“If I may ask, General. Why is that?”

“Because that was The Berserker’s last mission. The end I can see you were given is not the truth. I suspect the people upstairs chose that ending so the boy doesn’t feel bad when thinking about it. You see, the truth is that his team found him in the end but couldn’t save him because he’d lost too much blood from his injuries. The Berserker never left that tent alive.”

For some reason that dampened her mood.

“Now,” Truman dropped the file in his hand and picked up another. “Let’s talk about Subject one. Your son.”

…………………………………………..

“Arrrrrggh!”

Tilda shoved her hand in her hair and pulled.

She turned to Doctor Shequifa standing beside her and scowled. “The nerve of him,” she said. “How dare he tell me what I can and cannot do with my own son?!”

“In his defense, it’s technically government property,” Shequifa said.

Tilda removed her hand from her hair in shock and it came away with a few strands of sandy blonde. “That’s got to be a joke, right?”

Shequifa shook her head.

“Which one then?” Tilda shook the strands of hair from her hand and composed herself. “Which one is technically government property; my son or my skills?”

Shequifa cocked her head to the side. “Are you trying to intimidate me with the fact that you’re a powerful mage? Because that will do a lot for our friendship.”

Tilda sighed. Her friend was right, she’d been angry at the insinuation that her, her son, or both of them were nothing more than property and had… she didn’t really know what she’d tried to do. But she knew it wasn’t good.

She flicked her hair over one side of her shoulder and raised her jaw up. “I don’t like your tone.”

“And I don’t like your mascara,” Shequifa shot back jovially. “But you don’t see me complaining.”

There was a brief period of silence as they continued to walk down the long stretch of the hallway filled with white light before Tilda spoke again.

“Do you believe what Carl said?”

“About the Predator T-9s?” Shequifa was looking down at her tab.

“Yes. Do you think they’re almost ready?”

“No. Carl couldn’t screw a light bulb properly even if you gave him a manual and an engineer. But I don’t think that’s where your head should be at.”

“I know,” Tilda sighed. “We’re only six months into the experiment. We’ve still got two more years before the second awakening, and I know that’s more than enough time but we’re not where I thought we’d be after six months. If anything, there’s almost zero progress.”

“What of Peter? Is he showing any cognitive advancements?”

“It’s kind of hard to tell. We haven’t started training them in combat skills so I can’t test to see if there’s any change in his battle IQ. It’s a bit difficult to know from their shooting practice but he says he’s always been good at it, and he has. So I can’t tell on that one either.”

“What of his leadership skills; his interactions with Zed and the others. I assume it’s the reason you added the undercover CIA arms dealer to his dreamscapes and put the others as his subordinates.”

Tilde shook her head. “He’s always been the leader of the bunch because he was the first, I only did that to advance his leadership instincts and their follower instincts. I’d hoped it would incline them towards following him more. But the pain in my a—”

“Language.”

“Sorry. The boy just won’t branch out. He’s chosen those three and is sticking with them.”

“At least he leads them and they follow.”

“Yes, but it’s not the way I’d hoped for.”

“And what did you hope for?”

“I don’t know,” she made a vague gesture with her hand. “A bit more batman to their robin. You know. Yoda to their Luke?”

“Comic books and Star Trek references.” Shequifa shook her head. “Never a good sign.”

Tilda looked at her aghast. “You mean Star Wars, right?”

“Star Wars. Star Trek.” Shequifa shrugged but didn’t take her attention from her tab. “What’s the difference?”

“There’s a lot, but we’ll come to that later. Right now we have other things to worry about.”

“You know the research shows the next awakening will be in two to five years. It might be five years, or three. You don’t have to be so pessimistic about it, you know. If you try to rush things you might make a big mistake.”

“Yeah, and I’m supposed to take their word for it,” she scoffed. “Most of those researchers are just video game geeks who were more than happy to name a new energy they didn’t know anything about after a video game content that helps you cast spells. It’s almost like they’ve been waiting all their lives to officially name something ‘mana.’”

“Says the woman that knows the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.”

“Don’t sass me, Shequifa. I’m not in the mood for sass.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“For all we know,” she continued, moving on, “the next awakening could come tomorrow or next week. Or there could be no second awakening. It could just be the one. And—”

The building trembled softly and she staggered.

She stood upright and gathered her wits about her. “I swear these shakes have been coming more frequently. Didn’t we just have one last week. At this rate we’ll be having one every day.”

Shequifa tinkered with her tab before answering. “The focal points already have tremors every day. The researchers say it’s on account of being a focal point. There’s more mana signatures drawn to it. Those are where the activations begin. As at yesterday the closest one to us was relatively safe. Let me just—”

Another tremor went through the building and Tilda turned a panicked gaze to the Doctor. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, right?”

She was met with a panicked look far worse than hers on Shequifa’s face.

“This isn’t right,” the Doctor muttered, terrified.

“What’s wrong?”

“The mana readings inside the building.”

Tilda hurried over to her. “What do you mea—”

She looked at the screen of the tab and froze. Those readings weren’t right. She swiped the screen, tapped a few options that pulled up a diagram of the entire compound and spun it. This had to be a joke. The mana readings all over the compound was off the charts. It was far worse than the readings from the first awakening. Far worse than any reading, ever. Even the ones belonging to the focal points.

Shequifa swiped the screen aside and pulled up a new tab. The screen lit up with a single red button and she pushed it. The shriek of alarms filled the building with flashing warning lights of bright red.

She turned and grabbed Tilda by the arm. “We need to get down to the bunker.”

“You go,” Tilda refused. “I’ll catch up.”

“No.” Her hold tightened, though Tilda was too strong a mage to feel it. “You are the highest ranking Mind Mage in this institute. If this is what we think it is, we’ll need you to be here for what comes after.”

“And I will be, but I’ve got to get Peter.”

“Peter will be fine. You need to get to the bunker.”

“I have to be sure!” she snapped, removing her arm from Shequifa’s hold. “He’s my son!”

Shequifa leveled her with a glare. “And there is no staff alive in this facility that doesn’t know that.”

The sound of blaring alarms continued ringing through the compound, a steady siren in everyone’s ear. There would be no one in the compound who didn’t know what it meant.

“I’m willing to bet your boy is the first subject being evacuated to the bunker right now. He’s safe. Now you have to be safe so you’ll be there for him after all this.”

Tilda frowned. Her maternal instincts fought against Shequifa’s logic while her logic fought for it. She was a mother; it was her duty to make sure her son was safe. But she was also an engineer, and logic was a strong part of her life. In the end, logic won.

She turned and grabbed Shequifa by the arm. “If we want any hope of getting to the bunker on time, it will be with me leading you. Now brace yourself.”

She took a step forward and a rune-script activated on the ceiling above them. It shattered a moment after and the ceiling came down.

Tilda frowned as she pushed herself out of the rubble. This was a terrible way to start the second Awakening.