"We do not have Losham's authorization to inspect the Dormant enclosure."
"We can make the guards believe that we do."
A silence settled over the Humvee's interior, dense with the processing friction of an internal conflict. It wasn't a disagreement, because the collective didn't disagree with itself the way individuals disagreed with each other. It was more like a difficult problem that the hive mind was trying to resolve and arrive at the correct course of action.
"There was a girl who was my friend." Number One spoke first, because Number One always spoke first. "Her name was Sullha. We were the same age. She used to help me with homework. I used to let her win at the races in the yard even though I was faster."
The memory was vivid in the collective, pulled from Number One's individual past and now shared by all eight. A girl with shoulder-length dark hair. She'd cut it herself because long hair got tangled, and she had no patience for brushing it. A gap-toothed smile. A horrible laugh that sounded like an animal's call and had always made him laugh so hard he couldn't breathe.
"I had a sister," Number Four said. "Two years younger than me. Asira was her name."
"My mother," Number Eight said. He was the youngest of the Eight, eighteen now, which meant he had been taken only fiveyears ago. His memories of the enclosure were the freshest. "Her name is Vinnah. She hummed when she thought no one was listening. I want to see her."
"She won't recognize you," Number Three said.
"I know. I don't look anything like I did back then. But I would recognize her."
The collective processed the three requests in parallel. Sullha. Asira. Vinnah. Three threads connecting Dave to a place he had not visited since each of the eight boys had been marched out of it and into the training camp, where everything soft and human had been systematically beaten out of them.
Almost everything.
"We go," Number One said.
Number Seven put the Humvee in gear and turned onto the service road that led west, toward the coast. The Dormant enclosure was set back from the shoreline, shielded by a natural ridge and a perimeter wall that was designed less to keep threats out and more to keep the inhabitants in. The Eight had never approached it from the outside. They had only ever known it from within, and the memory of the communal dormitories, the shared kitchens, the yard where children played while their mothers watched from benches along the wall, carried a sentimental quality that was probably overblown.
It had been the closest thing to safety that any of the Eight had known, and the almost carefree environment was its own kind of refuge, even if it came with the absence of love.
It is good that there are no visitors on the island.
The thought arrived in the collective with an edge that was close to violence. Since the rebellion and the subsequent shutdown of the tourist facilities, no human guests had been brought to the island. The resort was closed, the brothel was operating only for the local population, and the Dormant enclosure had been spared the visits from selected males who were brought in to breed with the women.
If visitors had been present, Dave would have had a difficult time refraining from killing them.
Dave remembered what happened when the selected males came to the enclosure. The women were called by name over the compound's intercom. They left their dormitories and walked to a separate building that the children were forbidden to enter. They went silently, resigned to their fate. Some had to be escorted by the human guards who managed the enclosure's daily operations.
The children learned not to ask where their mothers went, and they learned not to ask why their mothers were different when they came back, quieter, or angrier, or simply absent.
They hadn't understood it as young children, but they did as teens, and the understanding sat in the collective consciousness like a lump of coal that still smoldered.
The perimeter wall came into view as Number Seven crested the ridge. It was three meters of reinforced concrete, unremarkable in construction but effective in purpose. A single gate served as the entrance, flanked by guard posts. Two immortal warriors stood at attention outside the gate, armed with standard sidearms and wearing the bored expressions of men assigned to a post they considered beneath them.
Number Seven brought the Humvee to a stop in front of the gate, and all eight of Dave climbed out.
The guards' bored expressions evaporated. They straightened, hands moving instinctively toward their weapons before stopping, because drawing a gun on Dave was not something they dared to do.
One of the guards stepped forward. "This area is restricted. No immortals are permitted beyond the gate." His voice was firm, but his heartbeat, which Dave could hear from three meters away, had nearly doubled in speed.
"We are here on Lord Losham's orders," Number One said. "He has authorized an inspection of all island facilities, including the Dormant enclosure."
The thrall was precise and economical. Eight minds focused on two targets, applying just enough pressure to reshape their understanding of the situation without leaving traces that could be examined later. The guards' memories of the next few minutes would be slightly blurred, unremarkable, the way memories of routine events always were. They had been visited by the Eight enhanced soldiers, who had authorization from Lord Losham. It had been checked and confirmed. Everything was in order.
On their way out, Dave would thrall the guards to forget that they had ever been there.
"Of course," the guard said, stepping aside and keying the gate's lock. "Please proceed."
The gate swung open, and Dave walked through.
18
