Page 49 of Pandion

You got that?he asked, disconnected from the BCI, held on to the edge of the desk and closed his eyes for a moment.

I think so. Are you OK? You seem… disoriented.

Harumine didn’t have time to respond. As soon as he’d recovered enough, he hurried out of the room. When he closed the door and started walking down the corridor, a group of people appeared from behind a corner and walked towards him. He’d shaved it too close for comfort, but at least he’d made it out.

Harumine strained himself to act as casual as he could until he heard the group enter the room he’d exited. He slipped into the empty staircase and leaned against the wall, head still a reeling mess.

Hopefully, this had been worth it.

Chapter 19

Kagesawa sifted through the data, indexing and sorting the jumbled mess. He was a little disappointed with himself for zoning out for a moment two-thirds the way through, but he’d managed to repair and recover most of what he’d missed.

The haul seemed better than expected, but he needed a deeper analysis to confirm whether they’d obtained anything useful.

Whilst sipping his coffee, Kagesawa could feel a mild headache that wasn’t his own, so he instinctively dampened the link to concentrate on what he was doing.

Somewhere in this mess there could be the explanation for what was going on with the organisms in his head. The files Satoru had picked showed promise. He had a good eye for detail, certainly. With a little practice, he’d be excellent at data-mining and compiling stacks.

Kagesawa re-emerged from his intense concentration when he realised he’d tried to drink from an empty cup for the third time. It was getting late.

Are you home?he had to ask. He was embarrassed to not have noticed whether or when Satoru had returned. He released the dampening to check.

Mmm.Satoru was in the living room lying on the sofa. He took over the dampening when Kagesawa stopped, but he was uncharacteristically lousy at it. Kagesawa grabbed his cup and joined him in the living room to see what was up.

“I finished indexing everything. Most of it’s intact, but I did mess up a couple of times. Are you all right?”

Satoru shielded his face with his hand and opened one eye to look.

“I’m having a wonderful migraine, thank you,” he said.

“Ouch. Do you need anything?”

“No, it’s fine. I took my meds. They’re about to kick in, wait, I mean, blue, they did kick in a moment ago. I’m sorry, I can’t do the mouth thing.”Blue red. “I’ll just speak— sleep it off. 267.”

“You don’t have to dampen for my sake. I’m also heading to bed in a bit.”

“Could you turn off the light? I’m going to sleep here.”R-red.

“Wouldn’t your bed be more comfortable?”

“There’s a whirring noise coming from the street, annoying, loud.”Sixty-four.“And my sheets smell of detergent.”

“Do you want to switch with me? I can turn off my server for the night.”

“Thanks for the offer, but red 7—7—5,I’m fine here. Feeling a bit groggy from the meds.”

The organism was sensitive to some of the usual medications. That meant empaths were often forced to take unconventional combinations for the same effects, if an alternative existed at all. The alternatives tended to have more side-effects than their counterparts, but thankfully, in this case the medication was at least effective.

“All right.” Kagesawa turned off the light and fetched Satoru a blanket, a glass of water and something to throw up in as a precaution. “Sleep well,” he whispered, washed up to turn in and retreated back into his room.

Kagesawa woke up to someone banging on the door. He’d become so used to his super helpful wake up routine that it took him a while to drag himself out of bed. He’d spent half the night going through the data and only slept for a couple of hours, so he was extra cranky when he reached the door. It was Takazaki.

“I got your message. It’s insane!”

“I only just went to sleep,” Kagesawa grumbled but let Takazaki in.

“Sorry. You weren’t responding, and I had to talk to you. Where did you get that data? How accurate is it?”

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