The ache in his bruised forearm was growing. So was the pain from being struck.
Nothing that had already happened to his body had disappeared.
The Taurus man was still standing several meters away. His Mark remained active.
"Try lifting something," Marek said.
The man stared at him. "What?"
"Something small."
"Why?"
"I need to know if your strength changed."
The detainee glanced around, then crouched beside one of the rear doors he had torn from the van. He lifted one end. The metal rose easily. He lowered it again immediately.
Marek nodded.
"What did you think was going to happen?"
"I didn’t know."
"Helpful."
"I’ve been told."
The officer stayed close enough to intervene. "What did you do?"
Marek checked his arm. "I stopped the transfer."
The Taurus man frowned. "I wasn’t transferring anything."
"I know."
That answer did not help him.
"I think my Mark started it," Marek said.
Henry turned his forearm over. Clara’s hand went to her shoulder.
Cooper stared at Marek. "Your Mark can just take things without you deciding to?"
"Apparently."
The officer turned to the Taurus man. "What was it taking?"
"I don’t know."
"Not his ability," Marek said. "He still has it."
The Taurus man lifted his hands. "Obviously."
Marek thought about the pressure again. "Something connected to what his ability was doing when he grabbed me. Maybe the force itself. Maybe the part his body isn’t controlling properly."
"That is a lot of maybes," Clara said.
"Yes."
She nodded once. "Good. Keep them as maybes."
Marek did not argue with that. Clara returned her attention to the unconscious woman.
The Taurus detainee turned his hands over. "Then that’s why they told us not to touch you."
"Then that’s why they told us not to touch you."
"Maybe."
The man stared at him. "You are difficult to talk to."
Marek ignored that.
"What exactly did you hear about Ophiuchus?" the officer asked.
The Taurus man hesitated.
The detainee who had first recognized the Marks answered from behind the van. "People were being told not to force contact with them."
"Anything else?"
"Don’t provoke them. Don’t place unstable Awakened close to them. There was something about containers as well."
"Containers?" Marek said.
"I don’t know. I heard it through a door."
"Who said it?"
"Someone in the hallway."
The officer was getting irritated. "That could have been anyone."
"You think we had name tags through the walls?"
The officer did not answer.
Marek checked the Ophiuchus Mark beneath his collarbone. The warning made more sense now. Not completely. Enough to be uncomfortable.
If an inexperienced Ophiuchus automatically tried to receive dangerous conditions from whatever was threatening them, provoking one could cause the exact problem Marek had just stopped.
He was already carrying the condition caused by Elia’s First Motion. Henry seemed to be carrying something electrical inside his blue scale. Clara’s green scale appeared to contain some form of chemical exposure. None of them knew how to release those conditions safely.
Giving them more was probably a bad idea.
Bang!
A gunshot came from farther down the street. The sound was different this time. More distant.
"Shooter moved," the officer said.
The Taurus man stayed behind the van. Nobody tried to chase the sound. Marek appreciated the improvement.
Henry grabbed his own forearm. The blue scale on his Mark became brighter.
"What happened?" Marek asked.
Henry stared at the scale. "Same feeling as earlier."
"Pain?"
"No."
"Heat?"
"A little."
The streetlight above them flickered again.
Several exposed cables were visible beneath the hood of the lead vehicle. A small spark jumped between two pieces of damaged metal.
"Move away from the front." Henry stepped back.
The blue scale gradually dimmed.
Marek waited for the interface to show him something. Nothing happened.
Of course. It could apparently tell Marek more about his own Mark than anyone else’s.
Clara noticed him staring. "You don’t see anything?"
"No."
Henry glanced between them. "See what?"
Marek paused. Cooper was waiting as well.
The question had been coming eventually.
"Words," Marek said.
Henry frowned. "What words?"
"Information. When my Mark reacts."
Clara stopped working for a moment. "What?"
"Yes."
"And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning?" Cooper said.
"There have been other things happening."
Cooper took in the damaged vehicles, the armed officer, the detainees, and the unconscious woman. "Fair."
Henry checked his blue scale again. "Can the words tell you what’s inside mine?"
"No."
"Then, they’re less useful than I was hoping."
"Yes."
The child started crying again when his mother moved.
Everyone near her turned. The woman opened her eyes. Clara supported her head immediately. "Don’t sit up."
The woman was confused. Her gaze moved until she found the boy beside her. She tried to lift one arm. The child grabbed her hand.
Marek crouched beside them and checked her pupils again. "Can you hear me?"
The woman nodded slightly.
"Do you know your name?"
She answered.
Marek asked where she was. The woman took in the damaged street and stopped.
"That’s fine. Do you remember the crash?"
"No."
"She needs proper evaluation," Marek said to Clara. "We shouldn’t move her more than necessary."
Clara considered the two damaged vehicles. "We may not have much choice."
The hiss from beneath the lead vehicle’s hood had become louder.
Henry moved closer without touching it. "Coolant line is damaged. I don’t see fire, but I wouldn’t stay beside the engine."
The officer understood. "We move everyone behind the other van."
The Taurus detainee stepped forward. "I’ll help."
The officer said nothing.
The detainee raised both hands immediately. "You want to carry everyone yourself?"
The officer’s Taurus Mark was still faintly visible beneath his damaged uniform.
"Both of you know you can lift too much now," Marek said. "So don’t."
The Taurus detainee turned to him. "That was almost insulting."
"It wasn’t meant to be."
"That somehow makes it worse."
Marek left them to decide. He helped Clara with the injured woman while Henry kept the child’s attention away from the damaged engine.
The Taurus man and the officer lifted her together. Both moved much more carefully than they had during the fight. The difference was obvious. The detainee adjusted his grip twice before applying any real force. The officer told him when to stop.
Neither damaged anything.
Marek stayed beside the boy while they carried his mother behind the van. Cooper walked beside them with one arm held close to his body.
Once everyone was behind cover, Marek checked Cooper’s shoulder again. There was more swelling now.
"Is it broken?" Cooper asked.
"I don’t know."
"You say that a lot too."
"Because I can’t see through your shoulder."
Cooper nodded at Marek’s Mark. "But you can see through other things."
"Apparently, not your shoulder."
"Unfortunate."
Marek tested the joint carefully without forcing it. "Don’t use this arm until someone can image it."
Cooper considered the fight-damaged van. "I wasn’t planning to do much lifting."
"Good."
The Taurus man sat several meters away. His breathing was still heavy. There was a bruise forming near his ribs where the officer had struck him.
The officer remained standing. One shoulder was lower than the other after taking the Taurus man’s hit.
Neither of them was interested in continuing.
Marek stood. "Why did you attack the convoy?"
The man rested his forearms over his knees. "We needed a vehicle."
"That’s not the answer you gave me earlier."
"You want a better reason?"
"I want the actual one."
The Taurus man turned toward the detention complex. "Well, apart from that, we got out. Roads were blocked. Some of us wanted to go south. Then the radio said Route Eight was secure."
"The same message we received."
"Yes."
"Did you know it was fake?"
"No."
"Who had the radio?" the officer asked.
"Gemini."
The officer’s face changed.
Marek caught it. "The one copying voices?"
"Probably." The Taurus man nodded at the pharmacy. "She took a radio from one of the transport officers when we got out."
"So, she could have heard the phrase first."
The detainee nodded. "Maybe."
The false message no longer required someone hacking a government network. Someone with Gemini could have heard the words, copied the voice, and used a stolen radio.
That was worse in a different way.
The officer checked his receiver. "Voice authentication is useless now."
"It became useless several hours ago," Marek said. "We just didn’t know."
The officer did not argue.
A burst of static came from the radio. Everyone nearby became quiet.
A familiar voice followed. "Convoy Three, Route Eight secure. Proceed through North Junction."
The officer stared at the receiver. The same voice repeated the message. There was no authentication tone.
The Taurus man turned toward the pharmacy. The Scorpius man did the same.
Nobody moved.
The radio went silent again.
"So we don’t trust voices anymore?" Cooper said.
"Not by themselves."
"That is going to be annoying."
"Yes."
The shooter had moved somewhere farther down Route Eight. The Gemini detainee was still somewhere nearby. The Aries man had disappeared.
They had injured people, two damaged vehicles, and no reliable communication with Control.
The situation had improved only because everyone had temporarily stopped hitting one another.
That could change.
"What happens if I touch you now?" the Taurus man said.
"Don’t."
The man frowned.
Marek checked the scale beside Elia’s. It remained empty. The transfer had stopped before another Case formed.
He could still feel the bruising around his forearm where the Taurus man had grabbed him. The pain in his shoulder and back had also become more noticeable now that the situation had slowed down.
Refusing the condition had not protected him from being injured.
That was useful to know.
The Taurus man’s ability had not weakened either.
Also useful.
The words were still in his sight.
[TRANSFER ATTEMPT HALTED.]
[VESSEL ACCEPTANCE: NOT ESTABLISHED.]
[CASE BOUNDARY INCOMPLETE.]
He understood the first two better now. The third remained something he could not fully grasp.
Marek considered the Taurus detainee, then the pharmacy and the damaged intersection beyond it.
Whatever counted as a complete Case Boundary, he still could not separate everything happening around Route Eight well enough to identify one.