Chapter 18:
Several days after returning to Aminus from Japan, Ripple approached Marcus with a request. Timber’s death was weighing rather heavily on her, and she felt very responsible for what had happened. She wanted nothing more than to give him a second chance to see that his mistakes were not as grave as he had originally thought, and wondered if Marcus would be able to bring him back from the dead. Marcus said he could not, but suggested that Christie’s mentor, Saelic, might be able to help (doing so reluctantly, since he seemed to rather dislike Saelic). It is also worth noting that, around this time, Ripple and Marcus decided to resume their romantic relationship.
Ripple spoke to Christie, and she agreed to arrange an audience with Saelic. Bria decided to tag along as well. Saelic’s magic shop turned out to be a huge four-story building in central Aminus, with the magic tricks on each floor progressing from simple to complicated and mundane to Awakened. Christie led the way to Saelic’s inner sanctum, an enormous room that contained, among other things, killer Venus flytraps and a combined fountain and Node being guarded by a dragon. Saelic seemed to take a liking to Ripple and agreed to resurrect Timber, which he did quite easily. Although Timber retained most knowledge of himself, he did not have his Avatar. Saelic said he would get it back “when you go to Scotland.” (Unfortunately, he didn’t say when or why Ripple would be going there…) In exchange, Saelic asked Ripple to, when she went to Scotland, bring back a certain stone for him. He would tell her nothing else about it, explaining, “You’ll know it when you see it.” With that, Bria, Christie, Ripple, and the newly resurrected Timber said their goodbyes to Saelic and headed for home.
Meanwhile, Jennifer, Michael, and Ra Lei decided to spend the day showing Takahashi around Aminus. They went to a Starbucks for coffee and conversation, where Takahashi told them as much as he knew about himself. It seemed he had been born in a lab very far away (context clues suggested another planet or an Umbral realm), where a lot of people (they sounded like Technocrats) had taught him about magic and more mundane subjects, then asked him to do research and other tasks for them. Eventually he got tired of working for them and started deliberately screwing up so they would give him easier work. When they caught on they would punish him by not feeding him. Then, one day, all the lights went out in the lab, and he got up and followed what seemed like a path out of the lab, taking Teddy and Mr. Bun (his stuffed animal and his imaginary friend) along with him. Then he had taken a long trip until he came out in the Kumo’s lair.
After the conversation, Ra Lei asked Takahashi where he was interested in going, and he requested that they visit the zoo and the science museum. At the museum, Michael bought him an enormous amount of Legos, with which the four spent several hours building a city that eventually encompassed the entire chantry. Takahashi used them to build a strange structure which he couldn’t explain, but knew was important somehow.
Then, Jennifer asked Takahashi if he had ever visited the Digital Web. He replied, “Yes, but it was kind of boring, because none of it was formatted.” Of course, Jennifer was fascinated by this, virgin Web being an incredibly rare commodity, and asked him if he could show her to that place. He said he wasn’t sure, but that he’d try. The four went into the Digital Web, but Takahashi couldn’t retrace his steps, so Jennifer just showed him a few major landmarks before everyone jacked out.
Later that day, Ripple spoke to Ome and asked him how everything was going in Japan. He wouldn’t go into particulars, but said there were some big things involving the Bone Court going on there. He didn’t specifically ask Ripple for help, but she got the sense that their intervention might be appreciated. She brought the matter before the rest of the cabal, but many people weren’t exactly thrilled at the idea of returning to Japan after so recently getting back. After a rather lengthy argument, nothing could be decided, so the cabal resolved to think about it more before making any decision.
That night, Jennifer, Michael, and Ra Lei met to discuss Takahashi. All of them were incredibly fascinated by him, Jennifer for his connection to Turing, Michael as a weapon against the Technocracy, and Ra Lei because of a bizarre motherly affection for him and a sudden burning desire to take down the Technocracy as well. They decided to dig deeper into his past, starting with the place he’d lived beforehand, a Technocratic realm which Gabriel thought sounded suspiciously like Autochtonia. All three of them re-entered the Digital Web only to find the place in utter chaos. It seemed that earlier that day, an enormous tract of unformatted Web had opened up, causing the virtual equivalent of a gold rush. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see a connection with Takahashi, which gave everyone yet another facet of the puzzle to ponder.
Several days later, the cabal received a phone call from Saxon. He and Sadira were settling in quite nicely at the Crombeys’ chantry, and he was inviting his former cabal to see his new home for themselves. The cabal, Jennifer and Ripple in particular, were eager to see how he was doing, so they accepted the invitation without hesitation. Several days later, everyone climbed in the car and set out to catch up with Saxon and Sadira. Things were going very well until, while everyone was washing the dishes from dinner, the cabal heard strange noises coming from the cornfield outside the house. “The menfolk” went to check it out while everyone else stayed in the house, worried.
Jennifer was standing on the front porch when she saw a strange man approaching from the other end of the driveway. She called out to him, and he asked, “May I speak to Allison Crombey, please?” “Who are you?” said Jennifer. “Tell her Samuel Haight is calling,” the man replied. She invited him into the house, where he spoke to Allison very calmly. The cabal couldn’t hear everything she was saying, but they understood enough to know that she was refusing to give Haight something that he wanted very badly. He became enraged and attacked her, killing her. The cabal was horrified, but before they could react he ran out the back door and toward the garden. Everyone pursued him.
At the same time, several werewolves burst out of the cornfield and also began running toward the garden. The two halves of the cabal met up and tried to keep them from gaining access to the garden, since it appeared they were trying to access the node that was there. However, their efforts proved fruitless. Haight reached the tree in the center of the garden, reached into it, and withdrew a golden stick. After he did this, the tree shriveled and died, and Haight vanished. However, Circe bit him first, then coughed up a stone that she said would allow the cabal to track his movements.
Confused, the cabal took some time to regroup. In particular, Jennifer did a lot of research into (among other things) Alan Turing, Takahashi, and any connection there might be between the two of them. Eventually, she determined that the first step to finding Turing lay somewhere in Scotland (of course)—the same place that, coincidentally, Ahreen and Haight could also both be found.