Chapter 42: The Map

Zoe led him a few doors down and into a large bright space with rows of white desks—all of them empty except one.

"Kai," Zoe called to a mess of black hair and headphones bowed behind a computer screen. Black eyes rose behind the illumination of artificial light and promptly went wide upon seeing Graeme. The male lycan jolted up awkwardly behind his desk before pulling his headphones down.

"Graeme, this is Kai. He handles the tech side of everything we do," Zoe chirped.

Kai gave a stiff, unsure bow as if he didn't know what greeting was expected of him. Graeme responded with a silent nod.

"Kai is responsible for this beautiful live display," Zoe explained, gesturing to the side wall behind her. "It's what Andreas is most proud of."

At first glance, the black wall appeared to be a display of a starry night sky. But then Graeme noticed dark gray outlines that traced a splayed map of the globe with a side row of squares—each a magnified section of a different area.

Graeme's feet carried him forward as he recognized the United States in one large square, the state of Maine in another, and then an even tighter zoom of the area covering Eliade, the Grimm, and the pack's land.

On the large map of the globe, sharp pin-sized points of light burned brightly in various areas before blinking out while other areas had diffuse mists of light that remained hazy against the black.

Compared to the global map, Maine was quite dark aside from a few diffuse areas. One of those areas looked very familiar. Graeme's eyes narrowed in recognition. It was right over his pack's land.

"What is this?" He asked, biting back a growl.

"The project was initially called the 'alyko files,'" Zoe chirped again. "Well, the elders had some kind of stupid witchy name for it, but officially, that's what it was called when sharing between packs. A physicist…"

"Sharing between packs?" Graeme interrupted.

"Mhmm," Zoe answered with her hands folded behind her back. "Our allied packs in the U.S. wanted this data as much as we did. A way of keeping an eye on the alyko."

Graeme's stomach dropped. When had this started? And how had he had no idea? He swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling dry as he realized how much had changed since he left. Nothing good could come from this kind of data collection.

"As you can see from the larger map of the U.S., every lycan pack has their own vaguely visible glow," Zoe explained. "The bright points that light up and burn out are known alyko…"

"You did all this?" Graeme asked, emphasizing the first word as he stared at Zoe and then at Kai.

"Well…" Kai started.

"We adapted theories from a physicist in Norway, and it's really been a widespread collaboration between packs to tag everyone and set up corresponding sensors to monitor them. But then Kai was able to convert the information into the visual display you see here." Zoe approached the area of the wall that included Eliade.

"You don't see her now, because the alyko only become visible when they are actually using their abilities, but Penelope shows up in this area where Eliade is. And she has consistently been there or in the surrounding area since early this year."

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"How do you know it's her?" Graeme asked, his eyes squinting at the black area Zoe was gesturing toward.

"We followed up by sending someone out. We have a special person for that," Zoe replied.

Graeme looked back at the nearly empty room.

"Most of our team members have other responsibilities or jobs and are rarely here now that everything has been running smoothly on its own. But there have been exciting times when the room is full. I miss it," Zoe sighed.

"One of my dear friends is actually studying genetics at a University off of pack land. I guess she was inspired by our work here and wanted to expand her knowledge to help in different ways," the young girl beamed.

"And what is your role exactly, Zoe?" Graeme asked.

"Well as the team leader, I dabble in everything and require a widespread understanding of all facets of the project, but biochemistry is my first love."

"Biochemistry?" Graeme repeated. "You're how old?"

"Oh, well, I'm almost 15," Zoe looked down at her feet shyly.

"You were a stray who stumbled upon this pack with advanced knowledge in biochemistry?" Graeme asked.

"Oh no," Zoe laughed. "I didn't know much about it then at all, but Marius and the elders realized I'm a fast learner, and they wanted to see how well I could apply myself to something like this. I told them the areas of expertise I would need on the team, and they provided me with people. We got the job done. But there are still so many ways we want to improve it. One obvious example is being able to identify an alyko's biographical information from the map alone. We're not set up for that yet, and we don't have the data. When the tagging began, it was quite sloppy, but we're looking to change that."

"So just the alyko are tagged like this? Or all lycans?"

"Just alyko or suspected alyko. Normal lycans wouldn't show up."

"What is the dim light in the pack lands then?"

Kai raised a hand, "Uh, that is just a visual indication put in manually," he offered. Graeme stared at him without responding. "In—in order to more easily see if a suspected alyko uses abilities within a pack."

"Yes. As a precaution of course—to prevent history from repeating itself," Zoe added. "For other packs who still have alyko members, this is a way of keeping an eye on them as well."

"How does this tagging work? How are you sure of the reliability of this?" Graeme asked.

"That is a great question. And it's super fascinating," Zoe replied. "Let me show you the research."

She led him out of the room and back into the hallway. "Thank you Kai," she called over her shoulder before turning back to Graeme with a sparkle of excitement in her eyes.. "I hope you enjoy our amazing private library as much as I do."

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