Chapter 386: A Limit

The energy in Rahul’s hand grows too fast to be a decorative threat.

For an instant I assume he’s only trying to intimidate me. I’ve watched that man turn silence, money, position, and even courtesy into weapons before ever needing force. Rahul Sharma likes being in control enough that violence usually looks like a tool beneath him.

Then something crosses the space between us.

I don’t see the whole shape until it’s already closing around my neck.

Condensed OXI takes on a structure like a translucent hand, large enough to wrap my throat with room to spare. Five extensions close almost at once, and my feet leave the floor before I can even decide whether to react.

The pressure enters my windpipe.

I bring both hands to my neck out of pure reflex, but my fingers find only energy. There’s no wrist to twist, no skin to grab, no joint to break. The harder I pull, the more the structure tightens against my throat.

Rahul stays on the other side of the desk.

His physical hand is still open.

The other one holds me in the air.

’What the hell just happened?’

It isn’t the attack that surprises me.

It’s him.

Rahul has threatened me before. He’s written contracts where one failure could have turned me into practically his property. He’s bet on me, tried to buy me, tried to measure me, and watched while I destroyed plans involving too much money for an ordinary man to keep smiling through.

He never lost control like this.

I try to pull in air.

I get very little.

"I was... going to explain..."

The energy fingers tighten.

Rahul watches me with an expression I don’t recognize on him.

"Then explain."

The answer comes out worse than I’d like.

"Sorry. I was kind of... pressed for time."

Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words.

Rahul closes his hand.

The world changes direction.

The force on my neck disappears only to be replaced by a much larger one crossing my entire body. I’m thrown sideways like I weigh less than the papers on the desk.

The impact lands first in my shoulder, then my back.

The side of the room explodes around me as I go through two built-in cabinets. Wood breaks against my body, drawers fly open, papers scatter, and some metal fixture hits the floor with a sharp sound. My head strikes something before I finish falling among the broken pieces.

For a few seconds I don’t move.

The taste of blood shows up in my mouth.

I run my tongue along the inside of my lip and find a cut.

"Right..."

My voice comes out rough.

I brace a hand on the floor and start getting up.

"That felt personal."

Rahul doesn’t answer.

The energy still covers his hand, weaker now, but present.

I check my state quickly.

[OXI: 3,491/5,000]

The number drops while I watch.

[OXI: 3,003/5,000]

Almost five hundred from one throw.

And he doesn’t even seem to have considered that a serious attack.

A good reminder of where I still stand in the food chain.

I spit a little blood to the side and lean against one of the destroyed cabinets.

"She was following me."

Rahul keeps staring at me.

"Her and two others. They were behind me and Rhayne through most of Rusthaven. No message, no request to talk, no attempt at anything a reasonable person would recognize as an approach."

"Go on."

"When we noticed, we tried to lose all three. One of them literally chased us through buildings, fire escapes, and maintenance corridors. I didn’t know who they were, who sent them, or what they wanted. When we finally managed to isolate one, she was armed."

Rahul’s jaw moves.

"And when you were face to face?"

"What?"

"She didn’t explain?"

The tone changes. Still angry, but less explosive.

"I’m certain Anika explained why she was there."

I stop.

Not because of the question but because of the name.

’Anika.’

Rahul didn’t ask which of the three people I caught. He didn’t ask man or woman. He didn’t ask for a description.

He simply knows.

I look at him more carefully.

The energy still hovers around his hand, but what interests me now is his face. His posture. The way he waits for my answer.

I go back, in my head, to the images Memory of Lightwaves pulled out of the first timeline.

That woman working for Rahul. Reentry Pearls. Operations on Earth. Archives, hospitals, airports. An agent important enough to receive resources almost no Diver would spend on an ordinary subordinate.

Rank B.

Young.

Much younger than him.

Rahul lost his head before finding out whether she was even hurt.

A possibility starts taking shape.

"Ah."

His eyes narrow.

"What?"

I straighten up with some difficulty.

"I get it."

"Get what?"

I look at him and then at the hand still covered in OXI.

"She’s your daughter?"

The silence that follows is different from all the ones before it.

Rahul stops.

Not dramatically. He just loses motion for a moment.

The energy around his hand weakens.

The two people at the back of the room stay still, but now they look extremely interested in not existing.

Rahul stares at me.

"No."

The answer comes fast... too fast.

"Don’t talk nonsense, you spoiled brat."

I wipe the blood from the corner of my mouth with my thumb.

"You lost control."

"You told me you incapacitated one of my agents."

"You have a lot of agents."

He does nothing, so I keep going.

"I destroyed three people you hired at the Oathring and you didn’t throw me through a wall. I’ve provoked you, questioned your deals, cost you money, and I’ve never seen that face."

Rahul starts pulling the OXI back from around his hand.

"You’re inventing a story out of one reaction."

"I’m inferring."

"You have an irritating obsession with that word."

"It tends to work... like now."

I step out of the wreckage and stand up properly. My back complains, but nothing feels broken.

"You’re far too controlled to react like that over a random employee. So there’s a personal connection."

Rahul folds his arms.

"That doesn’t lead to ’daughter.’"

"She’s much too young to be some old relationship from your generation."

He raises an eyebrow.

I look him over.

"And with all due respect, you don’t really look like the cradle-robber type either."

One of the people at the back chokes on something they were trying not to breathe.

Rahul turns his head slowly in that direction.

The silence comes back as the person looks down.

I decide not to press the win.

"So that leaves family."

Rahul turns his back to me.

That draws more attention than any answer would.

He walks to the window and stands there looking at the Oathring grounds below. The hand that nearly strangled me disappears behind his back, next to the other one.

For a few seconds, he seems to be reorganizing his own head.

When he speaks, his voice has come almost completely back to normal.

"And you know this purely by inference?"

"Yes."

He turns his face enough to see me out of the corner of his eye.

"Tell me the truth."

There’s no surface irritation in the sentence.

It’s a threat. A clean one.

"If you’re hiding any information about my family, I’ll kill you."

That practically answers it by itself.

I smile despite the pain in my lip.

"You just confirmed it."

Rahul closes his eyes.

"Dryden Sands."

"I’m telling you the truth."

He turns around.

"Then explain your entire inference."

"You knew exactly who I’d run into before I said anything. You said ’Anika.’ You didn’t even ask which agent. Then you nearly tore my neck off for hearing she was unconscious."

I point at the destroyed side of the room.

"That helps quite a bit."

Rahul stays silent as I continue.

"And Anika comes from the same cultural roots as your name. On its own that would mean nothing. Alongside everything else, it helps."

He looks at me for a few seconds.

Then he lets the air out.

The change is small, but something finally gives.

"Everyone, get out now! Sands... You stay."

Once the room is empty, with just the two of us left, he continues.

"Yes."

Rahul runs a hand through his hair.

"Anika is my daughter."

Even having reached the conclusion beforehand, hearing it still lands strangely.

Rahul Sharma.

A father.

There’s something incompatible between the two images in my head, though that probably says more about how I know Rahul than about him.

"How many people know?"

The question closes his face again.

"Few."

He goes back to the desk.

"And it will stay that way."

The tone makes it clear that isn’t a request.

"The fact that Anika is my daughter does not leave this room. Not to your friends, your guild, Azurea, or anyone else."

’That makes sense but...’

"Why hide it so hard?"

He looks at me as if the answer were obvious.

"Because anyone who finds out there’s someone whose safety I place above my own interests has just found a weapon to use against me."

There’s no emotion in the way he says it now.

Maybe precisely because there’s too much.

"Anika works in terrestrial operations because she’s good at it. Not because she’s my daughter. Her position depends on that distinction staying clear."

"I have no reason to tell anyone."

"Make sure you keep having none."

"You have a very warm way of talking about family."

Rahul looks at me.

"You should have learned by now when to stop."

"I was just thrown into a cabinet. My sense of limits took damage with the rest of me."

He doesn’t find that funny.

I check my OXI again.

[OXI: 3,000/5,000]

Still steady.

I run my fingers across my lip and find fresh blood.

"And to be clear, I didn’t know who she was."

Rahul picks up the cane from where he left it.

"Evidently."

"I didn’t know the name. I didn’t know she was your daughter. To me, Anika was an armed woman who spent hours following me and Rhayne."

"She was following orders."

"Bad orders."

"Efficient orders."

"Come on... We lost all three of them."

"What matters?"

"And I put the tracker to sleep."

Rahul tightens his grip on the cane.

"Don’t test the improvement in my mood."

I raise a hand.

"I’m getting to the important part."

He waits.

"We’re even."

Rahul looks at me as if I’d just switched languages.

"Excuse me?"

"Your daughter knew where I live."

Some of the irritation leaves his face.

"And?"

"She knew I have a family. She knew about the WaterStrand transaction, where I made Reentry, where I live, and she used all of it as an argument to show that you could have done something if you’d wanted to."

Rahul doesn’t interrupt.

"You just about strangled me because you thought I’d hurt your daughter. So I imagine you can understand why I also don’t like it when someone pulls up an address, a routine, and a family to prove operational capability."

The cane touches the floor once.

"Nobody received an order to touch your family."

"I know."

"Then don’t say they were threatened."

"If you bring that information to the table, it almost sounds like ’Now if I wanted to...’"

I come a little closer to the desk.

"I’m saying that’s a thing you don’t do, Rahul."

He watches me.

There’s a full second where I expect another argument.

Then he shrugs.

"Fair."

I smile.

"Look at that. Personal growth."

"Don’t ruin it."

The tension in the room finally starts coming down.

Rahul sits.

For a few seconds he moves some papers around without really looking at them. I recognize the gesture because Rae does something similar when he needs to rebuild the appearance of control.

Then Rahul asks:

"Is she all right?"

The question comes out differently.

No title. No negotiation. No defense.

It’s probably the first thing he wanted to ask from the moment I walked in.

It’s also the first answer I have no reason to make into a jab.

"She is."

He waits.

"I used her own weapon. One dart in the neck. She was out in about three seconds and breathing normally when we left."

His shoulders ease slightly.

"Where?"

"An alley in Rusthaven."

"You left my daughter unconscious in an alley."

"Your other two agents were coming for her."

Rahul pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Is that supposed to improve it?"

"Considerably."

He stares at me.

"Dryden."

"If that weapon wasn’t meant to kill me, I imagine your daughter is simply having an excellent night’s sleep."

A long breath comes out of him.

Rahul runs a hand through his hair again and leans back in the chair.

"I should have sent someone else."

"Probably."

"Not because Anika did anything wrong."

"Yeah... Yeah..."

"Because you apparently turn any simple contact into a war operation."

"You followed me across half a city with a Rank B tracker."

"To talk."

"There might be a major technological innovation called the telephone."

Rahul closes his eyes.

"Would you have answered?"

I think about it.

"Depends."

He opens his eyes.

"You’d have run."

"There’s a possibility."

"That’s why we did it that way."

"And that’s why your daughter took the dart."

Neither of us says anything.

Unfortunately, the logic closes on both sides. And this talk wouldn’t bring any results.

Rahul picks up the cane and rests both hands on top of it. The irritation hasn’t fully gone, but it’s back to the kind of irritation I know from him. Calculated. Manageable. The man who nearly strangled me a few minutes ago is being pushed somewhere behind the usual posture.

I let the conversation die too.

I came here because I needed to talk to him before Garen to make sure he stays away from my family.

The Deep Asylum mission still exists.

And the larger counter isn’t on Earth or in my HUD.

It’s on the calendar. Less than two weeks.

Rahul seems to reach the same thought.

He looks at the remains of the cabinets along the side of the room, then at my cut lip.

"You should sit."

"Is the chair going to attack me too?"

"Don’t give me ideas."

I pull out one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Before I sit, Rahul speaks again.

"We have a problem."

The change in tone is enough.

My attention closes immediately.

"What kind?"

He turns the cane slowly between his hands.

"One related to your entry."

I go still.

"Into the Deep Asylum?"

"Where else?"

I sit.

Rahul looks at the window for a moment before continuing.

"The window still exists. That hasn’t changed. The security reduction will happen roughly in the period I indicated."

"Then what’s the problem?"

He brings his eyes back to me.

Now there’s nothing left of the worried father, the angry man, or the person who threw me into a wall.

Only Rahul Sharma.

"The plan we had for putting you inside isn’t going to work the way it should."

My body goes still.

"Why not?"

Rahul rests both hands on the cane.

"Because something changed inside the Deep Asylum."

I wait.

He doesn’t continue right away.

"How much?"

"Enough that I won’t let you go in before we talk."

I look at him.

"There’s less than two weeks left."

"I know."

"My father is in there."

"Come on, Dryden, stop saying obvious things. It’s annoying."

Rahul leans forward slightly.

"So... which is exactly why you need to listen before you decide anything."

The room feels smaller now.

The broken cabinets, the blood in my mouth, Anika, and all the rest lose importance almost instantly.

Rahul taps the tip of the cane once against the floor.

"Sit up straight, Dryden."

I straighten my back.

He holds my eyes.

"You can’t enter there alone anymore."