Logun watched on as the man before him crumpled down into a heap, then vaporising out of existence.
He sighed to himself, realising that Vanqis didn't even have the courtesy to travel to Potaan in person. Instead sending one of his clones.
The man exited the Beem to find Relik and Wyva taking their sweet time to find the exits.
"He's planning something isn't he?" Veech asked in a low growl.
Logun felt his face go sour, "do me a favour and keep them close. He doesn't look like it but if Vanqis wants someone dead..."
"No worries boss," the Hurc comforted with a chuckle, "all I want to know is why is this kid suddenly the most important person on the continent."
Logun paused to meet his former student's eyes.
"The only place I can tell you without making a scene is Rému. Now stay with them, I'll get us something to eat..."
He stalked off towards another exit, "and a drink!"
Veech narrowed his eyes, but ultimately followed after the two boys.
He caught up in no time as the nations hottest topic still had his hands glued to the side of his head. He quickly picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder as they found their way out into the courtyard.
Both him and Wyva came to a stop, with the Alven appearing more shocked than any of them felt comfortable with.
For one the city seemed to be a forest of white marble and polished glass, rising out of the desert like the sun bleached ribcage of a dead god.
Each of the summits were connected by wires that served to transport gondolas from one building to another.
In this sunset hue it still didn't capture the beauty of Rému, but after seeing what Potaan had to offer, he did not expect such craftsmanship.
He looked up behind himself to get the temple itself into view, as expected it was the tallest building in the city. However, instead of having arching bridges, it stood alone stretching towards the sky but allowing hollow coves in between. This in turn allowed for a low whistling sound as the desert wind blew.
Perhaps this is why the city was given such a strange nickname, Wyva thought.
"I know beautiful isn't she?" A familiar voice asked from the next end of the court. Quite a distance from where they had come from.
Once they saw him he bounded towards them, he brandished from his coat what appeared to be a miniature bolt-gun.
Veech instinctively stepped back and turned to shield the boy, an action to which Vanqis waved off.
"It's a painkiller not bullet," the Shiear remarked his tone bordering restrained annoyance.
He pressed it against Relik's pants and fired a shot into his left cheek, quickly returning it to a pocket and turning to leave.
"Alright bring him, I want this to be done by the next hour."
Veech and Wyva followed in silence taking note of the hallways and the complete almost lack of Hands present in the city. They had seen a usual number bellmen and priests, but if they had met more than four Hands then they would be lucky.
This was strange as Salaam would be a city operating without enough enforcers.
Vanqis lead them into a room where a table rose out of the floor upon their entry. Veech quickly tossed the boy onto the table.
Relik straightened his frame and let go off his left ear, then the right. The whistling had stopped.
"Am I at least getting an explanation as to why I've been deaf for the last fifteen minutes?"
Vanqis stopped at his desk to squint at Relik, before providing a resounding, "no. Now lie down."
Relik rolled his eyes not choice but to comply. He laid back on the table which glowed a pale orange upon contact with his skin.
A similar sized panel on the ceiling glowed to match then lowered itself until it pressed against the boy's chest.
Veech tossed a glance over at Wyva who was all too prepared for confrontation.
"Subject SR300773, Day 255/6 observation deck one, eighteen hundred twenty three minutes," Vanqis began talking to himself, "commencing scan."
Relik tensed every muscle in his body anticipating more pain than anything he had felt before, but no torture came.
The only change being two bars of white light that swept left to right on both panels. This was no more than a large copy machine.
Relik snorted at his own expectations and finally allowed himself to relax. He took in a breath and shook all the stiffness out of his joints. Then exhaled his fatigue onto the panel above.
That however seemed to be the last physical effort he had left in his body as he suddenly lost the feeling in his limbs.
He struggled to regain control, or at least alert Veech and Wyva to his distress.
It didn't take long for the Hurc to bound over to the machine and throw the upper panel back up to the ceiling. Gaining Vanqis' attention and confusion.
"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled tossing off his coat and leaping over his table to close the distance.
Veech ignored the question instead choosing to scoop up the boy and tossing him over his left shoulder. Just as he had assumed the boy had gone full limp. The only sign that he was still alive was the occassion laboured rising of a deep breath.
Wyva in turn slipped between the two adults with his arms outspread in a bid for peace.
Vanqis stopped to stare up at the Alven, "step aside elf!"
Wyva's head tilted, "that's a derogatory term."
"So is Shahari, but your race made it legal to call us that, Now move aside before I flatten you."
They all found out that this was not at all a threat but more a guaranteed consequence of their decision.
"If you think I'll let something like that walk it's way out of the city much less the temple, then Hands are dumber than I thought."
"Which raises the question," Wyva began as both him and Veech backed away, "where are your Hands?"
In the silence of the tank, Souki could feel Salaam's pulse against her skin. She was connected to every machine and by extension every home.
This meant that she was welcomed in every time someone flicked a switch. Which was why she had assumed that there was some form of damage to the grid when she felt her energy being torn away.
However, for a heartbeat, it changed and then made itself abundantly clear.
It had evolved from the earlier scream and found itself a language; forming a bridge. She felt a sudden, violent tether snap into place, connecting her core to another point on Salaam's power grid. It was as if another soul had been plugged into the same socket, a presence that felt raw, unrefined, and aggressively desperate in it's search for fulfilment.
The pressure was immense. For it she could do nothing as her Iké rushed towards the sudden vacuum of the other person; a spiritual hemorrhage that left her lightheaded even in the buoyancy of the fluid.
Then, as quickly as the connection had formed, it was severed.
It wasn't a gentle disconnect. It felt like a limb being ripped away. The sudden void left her gasping, her bubbles turning into a frantic storm as she realized the truth.
The hunger she had felt earlier wasn't a machine. It was a person. Someone who operated as the perfect sink for her energy.
Who are you? she thought, her body jolting with muscle spasms.
"Still caught in the afterglow, I see," the Vanqis clone remarked, not looking up from his console.
He seemed to sense her realization, or perhaps he simply enjoyed the sound of his own genius. He began to pace the length of the tank, his hands clasped behind his back in a way that felt entirely too human for a biological duplicate.
"You may still wondering how I managed it," he mused to his audience who went the extra mile to ensure that no interest was shown, "The cloning. The splitting of the self."
Souki watched him, for once her curiosity eclipsed by morbid hatred. Vanqis ignored it in favour of hearing his own voice.
"History is a repetitive teacher, Souki. The Hurc were the first to stumble upon the path of AdrInas. But they were primitives, savages with hammers. All they used it for was morphing. They spent centuries trying to wear the skins of the beasts around them, chasing the strength of the forest because they couldn't think to find their own."
He stopped, a mocking smile touching his lips, "then the Shahari took their techniques and trimmed it; made it efficient. We didn't want to be animals; we wanted to be better. We used AdrInas to 'Boost.' Strength, durability, endurance; the refinement of the existing machine. Eventually, that plateaued into self-healing, and for hundreds of years, that was our ceiling, and we were content."
He leaned closer to the glass, his eyes bright with a manic, singular light.
"That was until I arrived. I had not a content bone in my entire body. I wanted to multiply the output. I applied the principles of cellular division to the spiritual atom. I didn't just heal a wound; I created a second origin point."
He sighed, a sound of genuine, lonely arrogance, "unfortunately, I don't think I've come across anyone with the control necessary to replicate it. It requires a mind capable of holding two separate streams of consciousness without drowning in the noise. So, odds are... if I die, this ability dies with me. A tragedy for the Empire, wouldn't you say?"
The clone opened his mouth to continue, perhaps to explain the math behind his divinity, but the air in the lab suddenly turned to iron.
BOOM.
A massive, bone-shaking explosion rocked the Temple. The resulting shockwave rippled through Souki's tank like a physical blow. The lights flickered, turning a harsh, emergency red, and for the first time, the Vanqis clone looked genuinely surprised.
He then took to a neutral stance before vaporising.
For the first time since she was brought here, Souki was truly alone.