“Guess that’s my cue to leave the room. It’s nice to see everyone again and I’ll speak with y’all shortly.”
“Gray, a moment. We’d like you stay in the room with us, if you will.”
I was not expecting Chief Quanah to request I stay. My limited prior interaction with him demonstrated his impatience dealing with civilians. I look questioningly at Sheriff Helki, but he doesn’t give me any hint on how to handle this.
“Do you need me to take notes?” I have my tablet with me. Though, even with its detachable keyboard, it’s not as easy to take notes on as my laptop. But, it’s doable.
“That’s not necessary, we’re recording the interviews.” Well, okay.
“Sure, I’ll stay. Do you want to sit anywhere in particular?”
“You can sit by me, dear,” Nakan’oa replies. With that prompting, we take our seats around the oval conference table which is positioned perpendicular to the door. So, as you enter, you’re facing the long side. There are two seats designated as guest speaker seats, maybe they have the best recording angle. Mark knocks perfunctorily then opens the door to usher two people into the waiting seats.
“This is Malcolm Davies, a PsyPath, and Geneva Lincoln, a PsyKinetic. They are two of the new residents assigned to Still Waters and were with the group held hostage. Let me know when they are ready to be escorted out,” he says as he wiggles his phone and exits the room.
Mr. Davies and Ms. Lincoln alternate telling the story. Both confirm that all the hostage takers were part of their group for days in El Paso up through their arrival at the complex. The white female and Latinx male posed as a couple and the others were single. Of course, their applications and effects were pulled and scrutinized after the incident. Part of the application process is declaring any family that you want to bring with you as well as a request to affiliate with other applicants like an extended family or friend group. We tried to put the affiliated in the same complex or as close by as possible. The same questions were asked when I applied, so it wasn’t an issue before, as far as we know. This may cause us to revisit the process.
Mr. Davies and Ms. Lincoln were commended for psychically shielding their new neighbors, then Mark was contacted to escort them out. I was asked to take a seat and provide my recollection of the event. There are surprisingly few questions. Maybe the presence of Chief Quanah and others at the incident made the interviews cursory and just done as a matter of record.
After I spoke, Tiko and Libby enter and provide their part from that day. There was a little more excitement when they speak, and Chief Quanah arranges a separate meeting next week to explore the possibility of blood barriers in transporting living things. I can tell Libby’s cautious about the enthusiasm. I’ll speak with her on Sunday. She doesn’t have to agree to anything and I’m sure the fauna PsySapients may be interested in the possibility the military will likely experiment on animals first. But the interest indicates that Mental Guard Roberts and the other two most likely survived the psyportation. The PsyPorters and PsyKinetics from that day are with the military and were interviewed separately, so I don’t have to sit through their debriefs. I discreetly check my watch hoping that Sheriff Helki won’t be held too long after the conclusion. Maybe Sully can take me home if that’s the case.
“Thank you for putting this together, Chief Quanah. As discussed, the six mercenaries were flagged in CoCon for further monitoring, but there was nothing actionable to hold them in El Paso. The GT is revising the application and screening processes and I believe we will either be relocating Psycept intake to another conservatorship or getting additional help processing Psycept residency applicants. CoCon is expecting a large increase in Mexican citizens applying for humanitarian asylum due to drug and gang warfare in south Mexico and we believe we’ll be devoted to that.”
Interesting news from Coronel Kino. CoCon is the only conservatorship that borders all three of our neighboring countries. As such, it has the largest presence of military and El Paso is the biggest military base in the GT. They don’t have a Psycept settlement, but they handle diplomatic relations and requests from asylum seekers, including Psycepts. CoCon is the narrowest point between the US and Canada, but because of its incredibly strong border protection, CoCon does not allow for commerce transportation through its conservatorship. Instead, there are commercial transport points farther north in the GT which are of interest to SWACon because all ground commercial transportation passes through our conservatorship.
On the US side, one is in Wichita Falls bordering Lla-Esta, and the other is Tulsa which borders SoPlains. For Canada, two points directly border SWACon, Yuma outside of Hohokam and Good Springs which borders Mesa Verde. Canada and the US deposit or receive goods that have been transported through the GT, they’re not allowed to transport the goods themselves. We also charge them per mile inside the GT which so far is enough to prevent them asking for shipping lanes farther north as that is a much larger swath of GT land to traverse. If they don’t like it, they can fly the goods or ship them via water. The GT regulates its commercial airspace tightly and the Indigenous Peoples of South and Central Americas control the Isthmus of Panama, so expenses may limit the options.
“Sully and Lt. Setimika, thank you for your help today. Unless you have any questions, you’re free to leave. And if you can show Coronel Kino where he can grab a bite to eat, I would appreciate it.” I start to get a bad feeling when Chief Quanah doesn’t
