Darkweb

by Lia Laserre

  As a kid I was always making up stories of good versus evil, in my head mostly, and sometimes sketching out images, weird stuff, like a talking tree or a magic dog. My talking tree could give advice to people, tell their fortunes or read the future. My mom was delighted by it. She pinned my crayon drawings, like the one with the yellow and green tree and the giant brown dog, on the fridge with magnets. She would ask me questions about them. What does Rusty have to say? How did the tree guide the little girl out of the forest?

  No lie that presentation has stirred up some smoldering fire within me. They use words like destiny, serendipity, kismet, stuff like that, but how is that I feel an almost boiling feeling in my gut when I recall those pics of Ignatia being scorched? Why do I feel such a delicious righteousness when I’m stirring up the pot, calling people on their lies, misdirection, long-buried truths? Maybe I was always cut out to be ‘truth-digger’, or a reporter like Ignatia.

  Dream on, Ellan. When I realize how silly that sounds, I shake my head in disgust and huff out a breath. People around me turn again, think I’m crazy. Perhaps I am. Yet I can’t deny that this recurring sense of déjà vu, somewhat scary and forbidding, still strikes deep chords somewhere in an old part of myself.

  My brows crease in a frown as my mind grows reflective. Today is much too serious a day.

  The principal seems to agree as she calls me down to the detention center in between classes. Ms. Moira Hent’s middle-aged monkey face is plastered with too much makeup, like a cadaver at a morgue, as she sits before me at the head desk. My heart quickens and I start to think that Peters didn’t shut down Nelly fast enough. “Ellan Weis.” She beckons me with a finger. Her appearance and tone of voice says it all. “First request is to delete all the offending material from your wristlet.”

  “Sure.” I shrug. “But what about it is offensive?”

  She clears her throat. “Obvious, isn’t it? The past is just that, the past. No one knows what actually happened in the cataclysmic years. That video footage, I don’t know where you got it, but it’s fake. A lot of images circulated around the time of the Cataclysm. C-Sec warned us to be on the lookout for such misleading material being disseminated around the school. We don’t need old hates and civil strife broadcast and twisted by anarchist media sources to confuse and undermine the state.”

  “You mean perpetuate lies by giving us a void instead.”

  Her eyes flash and she slaps her hand on the table. “Watch it, Miss Weis. You do yourself no service to criticize us and tell us what we should or should not do. There are school rules. You’ll have to follow them or get out. You’re lucky I don’t report you to C-Sec headquarters myself. But I see too much potential in you. So do Mr. Peters and Mrs. Sandford. So far you’re an A student and both teachers have put in a good word for you. They say you have a sharp mind and the tenacity to ‘dig’. A rare quality in students.”

  I nod. That makes sense. However there’s no use arguing with these people. They can’t see the importance of knowing the truth above else. What good are straight A’s and a sharp mind if you don’t have any truthful ground to stand on? I’m ready to tell her but I desist. I was wasting my time here. “Can I go now?”

  “Yes, see that it doesn’t happen again.” She levels me a crisp stare. Yet I can see the outward relief masking the anxiety under the cover. In the shaky way she smooths out her papers and wipes the sweat from her brow.

  I’d riled her. So too, Peters and the kids in my class.

  Maybe that’s my path in life. To stir the pot, wake the complacent sheep up from their dream. No, I’ll not stop delving in the darkweb. It is a vehicle to the truth. I knew it!

  I feel a hot thrill brew in my chest, and yet a horrible fear at the same time. It’s like standing on the edge of cliff, looking down upon the rocks poking above the foam in a roiling sea. It was one thing to dream about being a truthsayer like Ignatia, being one was another thing altogether.

  * * *

  Mom messages me and says she’ll pick me up after school. I tell her not to bother as I need some time for jogging and my kickboxing class’s been moved up.

  Her forwarded message is curt. She hates the sport. Thinks I’m going to get seriously injured one day. There’s no real answer to that, outside of, ‘well, life’s full of risks’. Yes, it could happen, but I could be developing skills that save my life.

  I see Joey trying to corral me off at the front steps. Damn. Probably to offer me a ride to practice tonight, but I need some time to myself and some air, so I pretend not to see him.

  Callous, maybe, but sometimes one needs to look out for #1.

  I take the tram to Wellington station and get out, sucking in a breath of fresher air. Few people live this far out. Only some low rise tenements with big aerials on top, a public square and a few shops. The dipping sun struggles between hazy banks of cloud while a thin line of yellow grey hangs on the skyline. Old veils of pollution from long back before the Cataclysm. The tops of trees yellowed and scorched brown by solar radiation and a thinning ozone layer.

  I put on my headband, roll up my jeans to the knees and start jogging, taking the pavement in long, leggy strides. I take the long way home, via Tydon Park, a maze of wooded pathways and long tracts of greenery, well yellowery, considering the heat wave and the drooping leaves and sagging branches of the reconstituted oaks. I pass a small pool where a school of three orange koi huddle in the murky water. These ones have enlarged gills, as if to compensate for the lack of oxygen in the acidity of the pool. They look like lubberly submarines. I pluck off some yellow cedar buds from the nearest low-lying branch and toss them in. The fish are grateful at first, as they come over to investigate, but ignore the offering, flicking their tails ever so perceptibly.

  This spring is hotter than ever. Stifling. Already we’d had our usual battery of storms, heavy winds and rain. Now, in late afternoon, there are hazy skies but a scorching hot sun which, even low, beats down on my head like an angry god.

  I pick up the pace and my legs burn for oxygen. My double-soled, lightweight, blue and white Roxy runners are getting into a rhythm, as I feel the tension ease out of my joints. The park relaxes my jangled nerves. No one really knows how the trees grew five-foot diameters. We’d just accepted their breadth as normal. But those darkweb headlines give me more clues…make me start thinking that maybe it was true that secret gene research experiments had gone awry and cross pollination had sent off a series of unfortunate mutations across the nation. The truth has gotten hushed up somehow. Or lost through time, probably the former.

  Crazy! Look at these trees. I always stare in wonder at the transplanted GMO-seeded birches and pine I pass. Some trees are over a hundred and fifty feet high with four-foot-thick trunks and giant ferns and shrubs at their bases that grow seven feet high in one season only to get drowned in floods or uprooted in high winds. Nothing seems to escape persecution by the weird weather patterns of the day. Times where it can snow in the middle of summer or be eighty degrees F for a day in the middle of winter.

  I’m cruising full on, knowing this strenuous workout is perfect conditioning for my upcoming kickboxing session. New sweat pours off my skin despite my rolled-up jeans and sleeves.

  Passersby think I’m crazy when they see me shadow boxing one of the big trees. But screw them. I’m the one who has to keep my body fit and immune system strong to survive in this noxious world, not to mention repel attackers should they leap out at me.

  I make it as far as the periphery. Tydon’s a vast, welcome sanctuary. I visualize the sprawling map on our kitchen wall. To the west, the forest continues for a few hundred acres. To the east, I pass a small field of experimental wheat with long, spiky shoots, shivering in the wind, engineered to be resistant to the storms and climate fluctuations.

  I go the full stretch, take the Haberdack Loop back to the trailhead. I break out of the trees. It’s a straight haul down Forrester’s Ave where I make it back home an hour later, sweaty and feeling energized f
rom a brisk jaunt, ready to jump into the shower.

  Chapter 7

  Dad’s home in his study, a gloomy scowl on his face and drink in his hand as he scans his reports. Mom’s out. I bypass the family room, padding quietly over the carpet to hit the kitchen where I slap some leftover homemade pizza in the toaster oven. I head upstairs to my room, triple cheese slice in hand with a tall glass of lemon juice in the other. Bram is still geeking out in his room. His door’s slightly ajar and through the gap I see him wearing one of those crazy HBs. His head’s nodding and he’s making small cooing noises. I smile and shake my head. Geek. There’s a different flavor of geekdom every day. This pair has a different color, bright red, so I’m guessing the Starcom managers must have given him a special pair from work.

  A quick shower and change of clothes—cut-off jean shorts and light, hooded sweatshirt—and I’m wolfing my food at my desk. My cluttered room is well-equipped with pinups of hunks and some goofy old teddy bears on the bed which I cast only a casual glance before I’m out before Mom can intercept me if she gets back early.

  Mission accomplished. I move past a bakery and some hair salons. Past the mini mall, though there’s an area where the old brick buildings are crumbling and deserted with broken windows where squirrels nest and the few birds native to the city can fly in and out. Gives me the creeps, this neighborhood, as if old memories and ghosts still linger there. They tell a secret of a past I’m only slowly becoming privy to. It’s almost as if I can feel the lost souls there, the ones who died in pandemics, revolutions or uprising, or EMF or GMO poisoning. Another shiver. Sometimes I think I might be psychic—then other times I think I’m just full of B.S. or have too vivid an imagination.

  As I pass the old united Church off Brundles, and across the street, the Order of St. Bartholomew’s Tabernacle, a new age Christian sect, I gaze at the powerful 6G+ towers that spike our beleaguered city like porcupine quills. If what the darkweb says is true, I cannot fathom the absolute madness that keeps them standing there so proud and tall in our insular community. Especially while everyone goes about his business, as if blissfully unaware of their capacity for harming our bodies.

  I imagine the transmitters and their invisible electro-magnetic rays, what havoc they must be doing to our cells over time. I am young, and have not felt the full effects. At least not yet, but what of the elderly sequestered in clinics, dying of chronic illnesses? And my parents who are older, and burdened with chronic fatigue, have trouble sleeping and drink away their troubles every night? Even they know something is wrong but have not tapped into the information I have, except my mom recently.

  It’s a twenty minute jog from our place to the kickboxing club off Adelain. A light rain patters down, leaving an acid stench over the city. Gusts of delinquent wind tuft the draggled hair tucked under my headband. It is good there is wind. It blows some of the toxins away, but more often than not, blows them right back the next day. If I dare to stay out too long under the tickling drizzle, a redness will come under my skin, even blisters, and I’ll itch all night. So for that reason, I hope the weather doesn’t turn ugly. My feet follow my brain’s command. I keep a slow and steady stride after the earlier workout, then pick up the pace, good prep for the grueling ordeal to come.

  People ask me why I kickbox. Well, aside from there being a certain art to the moves, there’s the thrill of the fight and the feeling of power and victory. Violent, yes, bruises and sprains and sometimes worse, but it gets the lead out of my body. Brings out the bottled emotions, pent up frustrations, rage, grief…There’s also a degree of satisfaction. If I am honest, I can take my frustrations out on a punching bag—or a sparring partner—if I was having boy trouble, or parent/teacher trouble.

  The added bonus I can defend myself in case someone tries to rob me or a guy tries to get too frisky with his hands. I don’t like being touched without my permission. And then there’s anger management. What am I angry about? Everything. School. Hormones. Benny Gilsen, the cutie he is, doesn’t even look at me. What is it with guys these days? A good-looking girl gives them all the hints and they just blink and stare in a vacuous daze. Not like I haven’t given him any hints.

  Plus something isn’t right at home. Mom and Dad aren’t seeing eye to eye. Something eating at them, ever since that Lois thing. Sometimes I’d see Mom look at Dad, as if it’s daggers she’s hurling. And not as if it was just that time of month because I know she doesn’t get angry for no reason. My mom isn’t that type of person.

  The club’s a single cinderblock one-story unit. We’ve a 19’ x 19’ ring raised three feet above the ground. To the side, padded walls and mats laid down under four punching bags for students to work out on. Long rectangular windows at the top to let in light. Today only a grey light. I hear the beginnings of brisk rain pattering on the tiled roof even as I walk in.

  There’s already the bustle of training going on. Jabs, hooks, knees to thigh, feet squeeching on the mats. A healthy dose of locker room smell of sweat and aggressive energy to go.

  A couple of guys going fast with jab, cross, hook, uppercut and roundhouse combos. Another crushing it against the wall. Two girls with good abs doing high kicks with medicine balls. Conn, another motivated trainee, getting in tight, right cross punches and left hooks to Max’s arm pads while Illie does his basic hop with cross swing on the jump ropes.

  I lift my hand in greeting to other members of the club: Rack, Hue, Joey, Jenie and Fret. Nods and waves. I’m late as usual. There’re twelve of us here today, though there’re about eighteen of us altogether. It’s a coed club where we spar with each other as equals, since the tournaments are always mixed.

  Angelos, our trainer, is there by the ring checking everybody out. He’s a stickler for discipline and a taskmaster, a man whose wiry 5’ 8” frame belies his impressive strength. He can move like a lynx and come at you like a bull from all angles, outfox you anytime and land three jabs on the sides of your head before you can blink. His Asian eyes fix on you, like a big cat. But deep down, there’s gentleness. A straight shooter. Always know exactly where you stand with him, whether your technique sucks or whether the training and your self-discipline are actually getting you somewhere. That’s why I like and trust the guy. Otherwise I’d be hoofing it out of here, because this club is pretty hardcore, yet one of the best. I’ve had my share of criticism from the man, as well as words of encouragement. He gets us to spar with one another while he watches and dissects, picks apart our weaknesses, praises our progress and strengths. Sometimes he jumps into the ring to demonstrate what he preaches. When he does, it’s always an educational experience. Angelos was some champion in his day. In Levenbrook at least. He must be forty now. An old man, by fighters’ standards, but still a skilled trainer.

  “Joey, you up for some bag practice?” I level him a challenging look.

  Joey nods and holds one of the unused bags while I put on gloves, a nice bright red pair, and start punching the bejeesus out of the bag, getting the odd switch kick in. Before long my olive-colored skin is shining with sweat and my breath ragged.

  I motion to Joey. “Your turn.” He grins and opens up into the bag. I hold it tight. He’s got a strong punch and a half decent roundhouse I can feel myself pushed back by his staccato blows, even as I dig in both feet. Cross-eyed Huey’s sparring with Jenie, a stocky blonde, right next to us on the mats while Rack’s got arm guards on and drilling with Fret.

  After waiting my turn, I hear my name called. This time it’s Jenie up with me. She’s built solidly, got short, bleached spiky hair, square-shoulders, narrow hips, making her look somewhat mannish, though she’s anything but. All the guys are eyeing her. We trade grins, insert our mouthguards and don leather-padded headgear—mine deep brown and hers white—and duck under the ropes.

  I warm up with an exaggerated show of shadow box jab and high roundhouse kick, landing in my shuffler’s stance. Just for show, but hey, it feels good and gets us both chuckling. I put my fists up in front of my face
and I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet, moving in a wide circle around her. By all means, she is no meek opponent. If her powerful right connects full on, look out. She’s got a year on me, maybe twenty five pounds and more strength. But what I lack in power, I make up for in speed. I keep my feet moving, doing my rocker shuffle. I convince myself I have a better than good chance to feint her out and avoid her hardest blows. My ability to anticipate an opponent’s next move has saved my ass multiple times. Anticipation. That’s the key to winning or losing a match. I’m more the outboxer. I like to keep a healthy distance from my opponent, waiting my chance, especially with the heavier, more powerful opponents, like the guys. I do less well with sluggers or swarmers who can hit hard and knock me off balance, or down, particularly the swarmers who get an early advantage by coming in fast and hard, psyching me out and punishing me hard against the ropes.

  I can anticipate a lot of opponents’ moves, but that doesn’t always save me. Many times I’ve had stars twinkle in my head before I start to waver and feel myself tumbling even after a few glancing hits. But it does help me stay in the ring longer—at least before the ref calls the round.

  Left, left, right. My left leg back-roundhouses out at Jenie’s thick right thigh.

  She grunts, takes it well. Then counters with a left leg snap and I move in to block her right fist coming at my cheek. I duck, lifting my elbow to block. She anticipates. Catches my next move but gets knocked back to the ropes on my follow up, a sneaky left. Her grey eyes pinch into a grin. Angelos jumps into the ring and pushes us apart.

  “You ladies are just toying with each other. Like a bunch of playful pups. Ellan, you’ve got to do better than that. Move faster.”

  “I’m already moving faster!” I protest.

  He ignores me. “Jenie, you should have tried out for tiny tots. You keep going left instead of right. That last kick was pathetic. Hollow, like a kettle drum. Boom, boom. You’re not feinting enough. Quicker punches, less time trying to figure out a next move and look pretty. Kickboxing’s not pretty. Move in with all your weight. Like this—” he does a quick left jab that turns into a right combo that has me staggering back before I can block his second hit. “See?”