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Aminah nursed the girl back to consciousness.
There were black markings on her face.
Then Aminah came back to the artifacts.
There was a weak connection between them.
Under her hands the connection grew stronger.
The magic started shaping itself into the mirror of what she saw in the nine.
Her eyes were burning as she looked at it. When she closed them, there were ornaments burned on her retinas as a tattoo.
For a few moments, she could see all her creation could do.
"Well done, my dear," a voice spoke in her mind, breaking her focus. "Very well."

"I'm taking you and Racoon back with me," Wolf said.
"No," Aminah replied.
She waited to work on project like Synergy ever since the Professor first brought her here.
Going to the Agency was not going 'back'. She had nothing to go back to.
Wolf gave her a week, before being extracted anyway.
She didn't tell him about Synergy.
She couldn't refuse to finish it even if she wanted.
Professor would just find someone else.
Over dead bodies.
She realized that when she found her little apprentice unconscious in the lab, obviously magic stricken after tampering with the three artifacts.

Things didn't go well in the lab. Aminah knew she won't be able to join all the magic into one source – not immediately. Dividing it into three parts seemed reasonable.
Now to make them connect…
“Kurwa.”
She threw up her hands and walked out.
Eyal paged her.
Tearoom in town
She expected many things, but personal visit from Wolf was not one of them.
“You could have called.”
“You sent a person you barely know… he's not from the Agency! ...on a mission he is not qualified for. Without authorization. Without means of communication!”
“He's resourceful. And deniable. He'll manage.”

Two days after the message, Aminah hatched a plan.
“You're kidding! Sending me to Petra on some fool's errand, while mister No One here...” Thorne indicated newly arrived Racoon, “...tries to locate my father 'somehow'. And you'll do – what, exactly? - meanwhile?”
“That's need to know, mister Nobody,” Racoon's eyes glinted. “You don't.”
“I'm sick of 'alphabet soup types' pulling this shit every time. Keeping people in the dark only ever comes back to bite you.”
“Anything – anyone – can turn and bite you in the ass,” Aminah shrugged.
“You would know about that… but don't worry, Minnie. I keep my word.”

“I need this message sent, but I have to stay put now. I've been gone too long.”
She gave Thorne a device and quickly scribbled text.
“Magic comm?” he turned it in his fingers.
“Yes.”
“You are playing more than one side here.”
“And the sun rises in the East. Any more obvious statements we need to waste breath on?”
Your codename is Mouse. He didn't say that out loud.
She led him through to the back of the building.
It should be clear for another hour or so.
“I'll have your back, if you have mine. Don't fuck up."

"Magic... it's true," Thorne breathed when the door of one of the buildings closed behind them.
"Surprised?" Aminah asked coldly. "Didn't your father have magic?"
"No."
"We don't take Americans without magic."
"He... had a thing. Family heirloom. Artifact..."
"...that we might be interested in. But why would he still be alive?"
"Maybe he isn't. Either way uncertainty is high price to pay."
"Your life is higher."
"Everybody dies. We don't leave our people to rot in enemy camps."
They looked at each other.
"Help me."
She couldn't. She was on thin ice already. Unless...
"There will be a price."

Suddenly the voices outside fell silent.
She looked out and cursed in Arabic... and some eastern European language.
"Picturesque speech," he muttered.
"Silence. Follow my lead," she snapped.
She pulled stone out of her pocket, drew a worm of a word on it; handed it to him and pushed him deeper into the cave.
Invisible force lifted him off his feet, trapping him.
Guard came in a second later.
"Aminah, what is this?"
"Late night test, Basir. Sorry, Hamid, seems the amulet needs work," she deactivated the field, grabbed the stone back and held it up, unapologetically.
"Yes. Needs work."

They looked at each other across barrels of their guns.
"Now what?" she asked.
Outside the guards still argued.
"We both drop them. And talk," he offered.
"You start."
He looked into her cold eyes and then shrugged.
"I am looking for my father."
"He's not here."
"He must be somewhere. Couldn't just... vanish into thin air."
"It happens, in this land. Who do you think will find you, if I shoot you?"
She had a point.
"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already. Or turned me over to your buddies."
He had one too.

If there was anything positive in her situation, Aminah couldn't see it.
She walked out into the cold night - somewhere with no prying ears to make a call.
Suddenly there was commotion at the perimeter.
She headed over.
Three guards were arguing over a dead sheep.
A shadow crept almost unnoticed to the mouth of one of the caves.
Aminah followed it, pulling out her P228.
"Stop. Turn. Slowly."
The man complied.
"You!" they breathed in unison in two languages.
Then Aminah noticed his gun, pointed at her.
"Your day going as well as mine?" he asked.
"Better and better."

We regret to inform you, your son was killed in the line of duty.
If you can call an unsanctioned op in neutral territory that.
He has served well and made his country proud.
He was a decent officer, but he went off his rocker, chasing ghosts.
He will forever be remembered by those who had the honor of serving with him.
Just like his father no one in the military looked for.
He will posthumously receive medal of valor.
He didn't deserve it while alive.
"They will never know the whole story. Is that what you want?" she asked.

Thorne was finally within a shot of the enemy camp.
In Syria. Which meant he couldn't take a real shot.
Or, if he did, he better not get caught.
For now he was surveying.
The camp was by a mountain range.
A mix of caves, tents and concrete buildings.
His training said climb down the slopes, behind the backs of the guards.
His training did not include sheep.
Their bleeting would have been dangerous enough, but then a surprised ram jumped away from him and fell down, straight at the feet of one of the guards.
The guard looked up...

She went to the Professor ostensibly to discuss her next trip to Petra.
"I am bringing Eyal in," he responded, surprisingly. "I don't want you distracted from the Synergy project - with him here, you don't have to travel there."
She cursed.
The three father figures in her life didn't have much in common, but the one trait she shared with all of them was stubbornness.
She suspected that what ultimately drove her biological dad to disown her, was cunning - something the two others had in plenty, but he lacked.
She's going to need both to get out of this pickle.

Aminah's phone rang in the middle of the drive.
Her unofficial phone.
"We have a problem," Racoon's voice sounded level. "Professor is appointing new head of the Petra project. There are three candidates."
"I'll put in a word for you."
"I am not one of them, Mouse. It's not good."
That was stating the obvious.
She stopped the jeep, breathing and listening for a few moments, but he didn't go on.
"He doesn't trust you," she stated.
"We need our person on that list, Mouse. You're the only one who can try."
She ended the call and punched the wheel.

Considering he barely saw anything through the slit in the veil, things were going well.
Thorne kept distance, following the taillights.
She'll lead him where he needs to go, willingly or not.
The taillights suddenly disappeared. He slowed down to creeping pace.
He got just close enough to make out the silhouette of the jeep in front of him when its headlights flashed and it sped straight at him.
He barely had time to dive headfirst into the brambles on the wayside.
Cursing, he jumped up, covered in thistle heads, tore the headscarf off and glared after the disappearing jeep.

The hideout was more crowded than it should have been, when Aminah got there couple days later.
She pulled aside the two people she needed and set a time and place for pick up with them.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement in the back of the cave.
It was a woman in a niqab, fretting.
Something was off about her.
As Aminah left, the woman slowly followed.
She waited for Aminah to start her car, mounted a motorbike (growling and cursing at the fabric of the dress getting in the way) and tailed her.

[fire cracking, cicadas chirping, quiet talk in the background]
Thorne: Where did she take you?
Woman's voice: Can't tell.
Thorne: I just need help. For my family...
[coins clink]
Woman: It was dark. No light. Only crack, high up.
Thorne: A cave then.
[fabric rustling]
Thorne: [resigned] Which direction?
[wood snaps, scratches against sand]
Woman: That's how you go.
Thorne: Thank you.
[fabric rustles, steps walk away from the fire]
Thorne: Thanks for your services.
Guide: Desert dangerous at night, I guide!
[coins clinking]
Thorne: No need. Me and darkness are old friends.
[pistol magazine snaps, small motorbike starts up]

"No," the woman said icily. "You won't tell. And you're no use to me."
She gave her companions a quick succession of commands in Arabic, ignoring Thorne.
Five people got onto the jeep and they drove off, leaving him in the dust, defeated once again.
She was right.
He wasn't ready to put lives at risk - and talking wouldn't help his cause.
The dead end got deader.
In the evening, one of the hidden people, creeping back, flashed Thorne a quick, shy smile.
A ray of hope, a kick off towards the surface.
He offered them food and started asking.

This time Aminah was voluntold to lead the recruiting party. She scanned the crowd. The soldiers with her knew very little about magic. Still, there were some people she couldn't quite pass by.
She lifted her hand to point them out, eyes cold and hard.
"You want me," the man spoke broken Arabic with an accent. No magic.
"I am not your way to heaven from this purgatory, soldier," she declined in English.
"Oh, you're definitely not an angel, I know," his eyes were as hard as hers. "Take me. Or I'll tell your companions about your other activity here."

"Prime specimen, gents, really," Thorne's guide doubled as slave agent. "Strong. Fast. Good fighter."
Despite his efforts, the men were not interested in Thorne. Only people with magic. The guide made him hide from all the other crimps coming through.
"No intel, just guns. You need best. Magic one."
Various people hid from various groups. There was a young woman coming into the camp irregularly, usually before the magic seeking group came. She gathered a few people - mostly children and women - and took them away.
Where, nobody knew.
Sometimes those people came back after the crimps left - sometimes they didn't.

The artifact she was restoring gave Aminah some trouble as the original text on it was mostly illegible.
She traced the intricate lines with practiced precision.
As she finished the last one, there was a flash of magic.
It left a metallic aftertaste in her mouth, but she smiled.
Job well done.
Time to put it in the hold.
In the corridor she met a soldier leading a little girl.
"Ah, Mistress, new apprentice for you, Master said."
She had the sinking sensation of realizing you forgot something vital.
The sweet child shouldn't be here.
She could have stopped it.

"If my father isn't here, WHAT on Earth are we waiting for?" Thorne was pacing between the tents, drilling his guide with a glare.
"No worry, they come," the guide was unperturbed.
"Who?"
"People who find people."
"Why didn't we go to them directly?"
"You no come them, they come to you. They pick. Less danger face to face."
As the guide finished, a jeep drove into the camp and Thorne finally understood. The three men on it were - quite obviously - crimps for one of the paramilitary fractions.
This was their recruiting pool.
And they were not taking just men...

The magic was pulsating, beating, thrumming.
Much more than sum of nine parts.
In Aminah's mind it conjured images - drums of war, the beating of thousand feet in a military step, the clank of a disc magazine being clipped into a weapon.
Steady beat of an enormous heart.
One that made you want to follow - to become a part of it.
It was calming and disquieting at the same time.
The Professor watched her closely.
"Now that you understand... can you replicate it?" his voice broke through her trance.
With cold composure she dodged the answer.
"I need some air."

Thorne looked at the stars. For the last four hours they headed due west. Which should soon bring them to where the borders of Iraq met those of both Jordan and Syria.
It wasn't the shortest, or most comfortable route. But his guide insisted on it.
Rocks that weren't quite mountains rose around them.
It came as quite a shock, when their ledge-of-a-road turned sharply around a cliff and they found themselves in the middle of an uncharted refugee camp.
"Anyone can get lost in this land," the guide explained, unperturbed. "Here is where you get found."

It wasn't long before Wolf's question was validated.
As she returned home that night, she knocked on Professor's door.
"I have the things you wanted. I couldn't make the heads or tails of them, though."
"Ah, dear Aminah, you still have so much to learn. And so much curiosity..." his voice was the combination of amusement and condescension.
She smiled.
"Teach me."
He arranged the nine artifacts in equal groups on his desk carefully.
She could feel their magic interacting and changing.
"Constellation magic?" she wondered.
"Some things only work in synergy," he smirked. "Can you figure them out now?"

"Talk to me, Mouse," Wolf's voice came through the magical interface.
"Not much to tell. He's still turning up mostly useless artifacts," Aminah shrugged. "His grunts are tyrannizing everyone and there are rumours of possible connection in Iran."
"Iran?" Wolf sounded surprised.
"Do you want me to look into that?"
"No," the answer came too quick. "No, Mouse, I'll deal with that myself."
"Use me, Wolf. I can handle it. Don't baby me."
"Negative, Mouse."
"He trusts me."
"Does he tell you everything?"
"He tells me enough."
"And we need to keep it that way."
"Roger Wilco. Out."
She sighed.

Baksheesh was a lot of things in this part of the world.
An expression of appreciation for services rendered.
A way to grease the rusty wheels of bureaucracy into action.
Or a closing of a deal nobody wanted on paper for things you couldn't acquire any other way.
The military encouraged its people to show initiative.
As he offered money in a handshake to the person against him, he doubted this is what they would have in mind
Iraq was a warzone.
Everything around it was at fragile peace.
If his father is out there, he'll need a local guide.

"You look tired," Deirdre wasn't beating around the bush.
"I am."
He looked over his shoulder, making sure nobody was listening.
"You know dad's 'When tired, push harder' isn't always right..."
"...about that..."
He fell silent. He couldn't bring himself to tell her.
She probably read it in his eyes.
In the silence he heard voices.
"...SAPFU like you can't imagine. Dirties using magic, they say. Tango Bravo Sierra, if you ask me."
"Anyway, we're Oscar Mike at o'dark thirty. Better hope the cousins get that ASS back out of Syria..."
...
"Thorne, are you listening?"
"Sorry, time to push harder."

As Aminah stepped into the air conditioned lab she was greeted by her husband's smile. She stepped around the desk to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek.
Then she bent over one of the work benches, surveying the new artifacts.
"Another ancient performance-enhancing device?" she frowned.
With the obsession their employer had over these, he should have been a superman a long time ago.
"Not just 'another', the ultimate," he shrugged. "According to the inscription."
Roughly translated, the symbols read "Hero-maker".
They shared tight, unamused smile across the table.
Neither of them believed in heroes anymore.

Third deployment after his father disappeared Thorne felt like he's been down every single track in this God forsaken country.
Then he noticed a crack in the rocks for the first time, or got new piece of intel and off he went again. At first only in his spare time. Then he started cutting back sleep - nightmares didn't allow for rest anyway.
"Commander, ya better snap out of it, before ya get us all killed!" his Lieutenant growled, as he tackled him to the ground, bullets wheezing past. Because this time Thorne got distracted during assignment.
Something needed to change.

The jeep rattled down the dirt track of a road and stopped at the border shack.
Aminah turned to the patrolman without interest, adjusting her perfectly fitting headscarf. Her driver handed over their papers.
"Conjugal visit, eh?" the soldier leered, inviting the driver to respond. Instead the man looked away and the woman gave him the iciest glare over the rims of her sunglasses. The soldier shrugged and waved them through.
The monthly routine of the journey became almost comfortable.
She loved her destination - Petra - and always had much to see and do there.
Her husband was just a cover.

The letter came two days before deployment.
Missing, presumed dead
Which meant they stopped looking.
When his team was wheels down, he went to the forward staff's camp. Not even MPs dared put red tape in SEAL's face.
Torn tents flapped in the wind, glass from shot up jeeps glittered on the ground. Burned debris from exploded shed was strewn around on the blood-stained sand.
Twenty people died.
One got lost or taken.
Things'll be kept under wraps, because this was Army, the ground was hot and public opinion back home hotter.
Thorne had to find his father by himself.

The safety net of a family.
The conservative Christian upbringing.
The prism of her books, photographs and research.
Those bubbles burst when she deplaned in Damascus - in a different world.
The academic assignment.
The expectations of her new mentor.
The limitations set by her new culture and her youth.
She surpassed them all, burying herself in her work with artifacts.
The hope that it will be enough.
The belief that what they were doing was good.
The wide-eyed fascination with each new discovery.
He popped those, one by one. Not with cruelty or intent. With indifference.
That's why she turned.