This was where the army lived. Over ten thousand Brotherhood warriors, housed in subterranean dormitories, trained in open-air arenas and underground combat simulators, and maintained in a state of perpetual readiness for deployment to missions around the globe. It was the engine of the Brotherhood's power, and it had operated like a well-oiled machine for millennia.
Dave had grown up here. Or rather, the eight boys who had become Dave had spent their adolescence here after being transferred out of the Dormant enclosure at thirteen. The training camp, the barracks, the combat drills, the brutality of instructors who believed that pain was the most efficient teacher, and boys who tried to distinguish themselves by bullying others.
It was the perfect breeding ground for the worst traits immortals and humans possessed, but the Eight of Dave hadn't seen it that way at the time. The transition was not just about their transformation from humans to immortals but also from boys to men.
It had been a rite of passage.
The memories were shared now, eight versions of the same experiences that had shaped them, honed them, turning them into killing machines long before the enhancement drugs had made them unstoppable. Visiting the training grounds was like stirring up sediment from the bottom of a swamp, bringing back memories of countless cruelties, big and small.
The training was designed to eliminate anything soft in them, to eradicate compassion, to destroy empathy, to blind them to beauty, make them indifferent to music, incapable of feeling love or any positive emotion other than devotion to the Brotherhood, Lord Navuh, and the teachings of Mortdh, their hateful god.
It had taken the merging of their consciousness to transcend the conditioning, the brainwashing, to recognize what had been done to them as such.
Number Seven parked the Humvee at the edge of one of the training fields, a vast rectangular arena bordered by concrete walls and observation towers. A company of young warriors was running combat drills, pairs sparring in hand-to-hand combat while a commander bellowed corrections from an elevated platform.
The Eight of Dave climbed out and stood in formation beside the vehicle.
The effect was immediate and predictable. A group of warriors who had been resting between drills straightened and went still. The commander on the platform noticed the change in atmosphere, stopped mid-shout, and turned to watch. Sparring pairs across the arena disengaged and looked toward the entrance.
Dave knew what they saw, what effect the eight bodies with eight identical expressions had on them. It must be disturbing to realize that one grand consciousness was looking at them through eight pairs of eyes.
But more than that, the harbor killings were still fresh enough in the collective memory to serve as an effective deterrent against disrespect.
"We are here to observe," Number One announced, his voice carrying across the arena with the authority that Dave had perfected by emulating the most respected commanders he'd observed. "Carry on. We're here to observe on behalf of Lord Losham."
The commander on the platform climbed down and walked over to them. He had the kind of face that looked like it had been carved from the same volcanic rock as the tunnel, and Dave remembered him from his time in the Brotherhood's army. His name was Othren, and he wasn't one of the worst.
Othren stopped at a respectful distance, his posture rigid. "I wasn't informed of a visit."
"We don't schedule visits," Number One said. "This is a random inspection. You should expect those at any time."
Othren's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Of course. You're welcome to observe."
"We don't need your welcome. Carry on, Commander."
Dave walked through the training ground, his eight bodies moving in the loose cluster that made warriors step aside and conversations die mid-sentence. Number One stopped to speak briefly with unit commanders, asking about this or that, to provide cover for what was actually happening beneath the surface.
The thralling was subtle. It wasn't the heavy, mind-bending compulsion that Lord Navuh had deployed through his loudspeaker devotions. In comparison, this was a nudge. A gentle pressure applied to the edges of consciousness, planting suggestions so delicate that the recipients would experience them as their own thoughts. Loyalty to Losham and his currentleadership. A vague but persistent sense that his authority was legitimate and worthy of their support. Confidence in the island's stability.
It was tedious.
Dave had to work in small groups, which worked well because the warriors were already divided into manageable clusters. The effect was temporary unless reinforced repeatedly, but it should hold for at least a month. Dave moved through groups of ten and twenty, with Number One engaging them in conversation while the hive mind worked beneath the words, laying down the neural pathways that would make the compulsion stick.
By the time they had covered the primary training ground and two of the underground barracks levels, two and a half hours had passed, and the collective was beginning to feel the strain. Compulsion on this scale was energy-intensive, and without Navuh's raw power, Dave had to compensate with precision and repetition.
"We should head back," Number Three said as they climbed into the Humvee. "We are late for our shots."
We don't have to be there precisely at two in the afternoon,the hive mind thought. Dimitri and Petrov work until six.
As Number Seven started the engine, a thought surfaced in the collective, not originating from any single mind but from the shared space where the eight minds overlapped. It arrived fully formed, the way the most important thoughts always did, as if it had been assembling itself in the background while the foreground was occupied with the compulsion rounds.
The Dormant enclosure is not far from here.
"We are already here," Number One said.
Number Four shifted on the jump seat. "We shouldn't. No immortals are allowed inside."
"We have Losham's authorization to inspect facilities."
