1
DAVE
The basement smelled of dust, rust, and immortal sweat.
Standing in the reinforced corridor outside what had once been the glass enclosure, the Eight watched the night excavation crew wrap up their shift as the morning crew prepared to take over.
The soldiers were stepping around them without meeting their eyes, pretending that they weren't there, but the Eight who called themselves Dave were no longer bothered by that.
People were wary of them, and it wasn't because they were famous for their delivery of swift, execution-style justice. That wasn't what was making them uncomfortable because all these immortal soldiers were bloodthirsty savages, and killing was what they were all trained for. The Eight were more than them in every measurable way—stronger, faster, smarter—but even that wasn't why the others feared them.
They were an anomaly. Eight bodies that shared one mind that was more powerful than any on this island.
They had transcended.
They were different.
They were unpredictable.
One of the few who didn't fear them and sought out their company was Losham, but that was because Navuh's eldest son needed them to help him rule the island in his father's absence.
They had formed an alliance of convenience.
At first, the Eight had believed they could rule the island through Losham as their front man, but they had soon realized that they had no interest in doing that. Besides, they weren't as powerful as they had believed themselves to be right after discovering their unique compulsion ability.
It was an incredible gift, and it worked differently than Navuh's in that they could weave it through a thrall and didn't need to deliver it through speech. But their combined power wasn't all-encompassing like that of the former lord, who could blanket the island with his will.
Nevertheless, they needed Losham to provide them legitimacy, and he needed them to keep his throne. Without them, he wasn't going to survive his brothers, and they were leaving soon.
He's late, the collective thought.He's usually punctual.
They didn't kill him, Number Four contributed.Not yet.
The collective agreed with the assessment and regretted having to abandon Losham to the sharks. He'd been the one who had found the Russian scientists to take over Doctor Zhao's work and refine his protocol. Without them, the Eight would probably be dead by now, or insane.
As the collective thought about ways to save Losham, Number One thought about his own mother's death, and guilt washed over him.
He pulled his consciousness inward.
He hadn't known, and worse, he hadn't asked about her until yesterday, when Sullha delivered the devastating news.
His mother was dead.
The thought had been surfacing and sinking throughout the night and morning, refusing to stay submerged. He'd been trying to file it away, and the others had been doing their best to assist, but the sorrow and guilt were just too vast to absorb even when divided between eight minds. All the collective could do was to hold the grief, seven minds surrounding the eighth, not absorbing the pain, because grief couldn't be absorbed and diluted the way anger could, but providing a frame around it. Keeping it contained. Keeping Number One functional.
It would have to be enough because nothing could change the fact that his mother had passed beyond the veil. He just needed to wait for the bleeding to stop.
Eventually, it would.
For now, all he could do was lean on the others and keep going because collapsing was not going to do anyone any good.
We've got you, Number Two thought.Losham is coming.Don't let him see you hurting. We are supposed to be invincible.
We are.
Eight faces smoothed to the same neutral expression, eight spines aligned their postures, and eight heart rates modulatedback toward baseline. The grief didn't go anywhere, but it stopped leaking into their body language.
Losham came down the ramp with Rami by his side.
