by K. C. Finn
“So Raja, this is how it ends. You, me and a pistol.”
They push her forward to stand alone, fanning out behind her as if I might actually fire right away. I suppose it’s not an unfounded theory, since I’ve tried twice before to kill the woman who now stands waiting for her own death.
Third time lucky.
Malcolm’s silver bullet, the one intended for this woman, waits in the chamber in my grip. I take my aim, but pause. There’s no luck about this. No sudden chance to destroy the System from the inside by taking out its centre. So I lower the gun, shaking my head.
“You’re not the King, Caitlynne. You’re just another monkey, like us.”
Prudell’s cruel lip opens, her face cracked for perhaps the first time since her wife was murdered. Reuben laughs beside me.
“My clever little sister,” he says, a hand on my shoulder.
Apryl makes a face. “Say what?”
“Oh!” I look between Reuben and I. “Yeah. There’s a lot to explain.”
I turn to make a step back around the columns, but that’s when I find my legs aren’t obeying me anymore. I want to show my crew Bhadrak and Malcolm, but all that happens is my body collapses into the nearest bank. That wash of wooziness hits my brain again, and I feel hands around my body, though I can no longer see them. My vision turns black at the edges, the world closing in.
There’s a face near my face. A voice I recognise. A pair of eyes deep as oceans.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Reuben says from my left.
“Raja, I’m so sorry. He told me to. I didn’t want to-”
“Shut up and help me lift her, den!”
Goddie’s there too, shouting and heaving. I reach up, but my hand doesn’t seem to want to do what I’m after. It’s a struggle to speak too, my words coming out in a mangle until I’ve tried a couple of times with them.
“Bhadrak,” I call. “My brother…”
Reuben’s voice answers, though my eyes are closed tight against my will.
“We’re fixing you. You need sedation and blood. I can do it. Just give me a second. When you wake up, it’ll all be all right. I’ll save you, Mari.”
“And I’ll save you,” I whisper back.
There’s a hitch in Reuben’s breathing, and I keep talking.
“When the Eatons turned Malcolm away… you kept him here for a reason.” It’s not a question, but a realisation.
“He’d be perfect for this, in his condition,” my brother replies. “But…”
I can hear it all in his voice, even though the voice is not his own. The dilemma. The choice. The weight of guilt at the prospect of exchange.
“Do it.” I hope he can still hear me, because my own voice echoes in my head like it’s miles away now. “Knock me out. Patch me up. And make the switch. That’s an order.”
And, even if it’s my last order, I know it’s the right one.
Twenty-Six
Epilogue: October 5th
I could have died in that chamber quite easily. Not everyone can recover from that amount of blood loss, but I’m strong, I guess. Stronger than I know, according to my brother. They operated on me properly to cure the wound Stirling had given me, and I was fortunate to be deep below the earth in a facility that had every medical measure known to man on hand. A decision was made to keep me under for two days, when my world went black in the chamber, and it took quite some time to understand everything that had happened whilst I was out for the count.
We are in control now.
It’s a testy peace, the world kept in balance because we have control over how it works, much in the way that Prudell did before. But unlike her, we have opened all the doors to her precious System. People are free to come and go as they please, the Unfortunate Few mixing with the System-dwellers and the remaining rebels as the crowds flock to the cities. There have been riots, fights and an uprising or two, but everything and everyone is slowly finding its place in this new world.
I sit at the top of one of Prudell’s habitation blocks, in an apartment that used to belong to someone who has gone to find their family out in the Westlands. He was a researcher for Prudell, a man whose name I didn’t know, and he just put the keys in my hand and thanked me. Now, I sit in his armchair and watch the city around me being rebuilt. We’re putting everything we can into restoring the destruction we – and the System – caused at Tania, to show the nation that this new life of ours is about freedom and progress for all, not some.
Watching the System’s construction crews working with our own forces in harmony gives me hope that the message is getting across.
“Raja, Cornell’s here.”
Goddie’s in the doorway behind me, reflected in the window glass. He’s been staying here at the apartment with me, and it was just the two of us until the visitors began to arrive. He’s not been much more than a doorman over the last couple of weeks, whilst negotiations about the future of the nation take place. I’m the one with my finger on the button. The one who could still turn the Reborn loose on anyone who disagreed with me. For now, they’re holed up at the Heart with Reuben, the Reavers, and a few new additions.
“Ya family are here too.”
I wave a hand. “Send them all in together. I don’t mind.”
Turning in the chair is still difficult. The operation for full repairs was much more intense than the quick fix of the Reavers. Though it’s been six weeks, I feel like I’m still walking with Stirling’s blade in my side. I shuffle forwards in my armchair, trying to sit tall and strong as the group enters the spacious room. Cornell leads the pack, spanning the room at once to turn on a television set that faces the sofas. He keeps his head low, not meeting my eyes, settling on the floor cross-legged. Like a child waiting for his favourite show to appear.
Mumma rushes past everyone to pat me and kiss my head like a baby. Dad guides Vinesh over to the sofa, both of them smiling and giving their greetings to me and Goddie. And then, saying a polite ‘excuse me’ to get Mumma to shift out of the way a little, Pranjal brings the wheelchair through. It sinks deep into the plush carpet of this strange apartment, and the chair comes close to my side. It carries a withered body in its frame. He smiles at me, the owner of that body, and he’s able to move a skinny arm up to his throat to push a button there that helps him speak.
“Look, Mari. I can move my toes. It’s all going to come back to me.”
Bhadrak demonstrates, though his too-thin legs are under a blanket. I watch the tiny, wasted appendages move, and I wish I believed his words more. My brother looks like he’s been ravaged by disease, so that’s what we’re telling people. No-one knows that he was the body at the Heart of the System. No-one knows how Reuben took him out of the wires and replaced his body with another. No-one except for my family, and those so close to me that they may as well be family too.
“That’s great Bhad.” I pat his knee, holding back a wince. Compared to his state, my wounds are pretty meagre.
“Oh look, it’s almost done,” Pranjal says, pointing at the screen beyond Cornell’s hunched form.
It was arranged that my family would come here to watch the Election Results tonight. Cornell was a late addition, a surprising one, but nobody said no. The young man might have ended up watching alone otherwise, and I understand that it must be a confusing time for him. When the feed switches to the live broadcast, I see none other than Ivana Van Hope presiding over the incoming results. How quick she was to switch sides, to suddenly hail democracy for the people with her heavily-made lips and coiffured hair. But it’s what we need. Familiar faces like hers leading the opinion of the nation in a new direction.
Cornell’s parents stand on the platform not far beyond Ivana. We are down to just two candidates who might have a chance to become the new Governor, for a test period of two years. On the left side is Marjorie Eaton, a small, plump woman with a winning smile and an easy sort of stance. Her husband is a taller version of Cornell himself, standing with his hands on his
wife’s shoulders and speaking close into her ear. She is the one who hopes to take the reins from Prudell. The husband and wife who turned Malcolm Stryker from their door.
I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve met Cornell’s parents a few times in the last month or so, and by and large they seem pretty sensible about the future of the nation. But I haven’t breathed a word to them about the Heart in the chamber, or the ways in which I am now able to control the sleeping Reborn deep beneath the rubble of Tania’s central tower. They know I have the power, and it’s kept them civil and pleasant. However much I want to believe that they’d be good for this new world, I can’t let go.
On the right side of the platform stands a man I know better, with two supporters handing him water and speaking with smiles. He is Deacon, former President of the Murder Club, and a rebel who has finally been able to fully come out of hiding. He helped us once, more than we ever could have hoped, and I know where his loyalties lie when it comes to how to run our collective futures. He would never have turned Malcolm Stryker away, left for dead. Behind him, the newly-married Kip and Apryl Llewellyn stand as his supporters. The sight of their hopeful grins makes me clutch the arms of my chair harder.
There’s a nudge at my shoulder, a glass of water coming into view.
“Meds,” Goddie says, his voice low.
Painkillers, mostly. I swallow them down, but Goddie doesn’t retreat when I hand him back the glass. He sets it down and perches on the arm of my chair, sliding his hand around until it rests on my shoulder. He squeezes gently, and I lean into the warmth of his body as Ivana begins her excitable countdown on the screen before us.
“We have confirmation, ladies and gentlemen, that the new Governor takes fifty-four percent of the vote. Please welcome to the speaker’s platform, your new Governor…”
“Fifty-four,” Goddie breathes. “Dat’s not exactly convincing.”
I nod, just as the name leaves Ivana’s lips.
“Marjorie Eaton!”
Cornell gives a fist-bump to the air, turning to the room with a smile. Mumma smiles back at him, but the rest of my family may as well be made of stone. They were Deacon voters, I know, and it’s a sore loss with such a small percentage in it.
“Congrats, Cornell,” I say, giving the guy a nod. “You just became the Governor’s son.”
Whoever had won, the numbers are what matters. The figures show that we are still the same divided nation, and it’s now the job of the Eatons and their supporters to try and change that for the better. I’m supposed to meet with them tonight, after the celebrations and the interviews that are being broadcast through the Eatons’ own network out into the whole nation. I’m supposed to say ‘well done’ and hand over the key to the System’s Heart. But instead I turn to Goddie, planting a tiny kiss on his cheek as I cup it in my hand.
“Make my excuses when they get here, will you?”
He nods. “Of course. You’re da boss.”
He grins, though it’s a little empty. But we both know why, and that’s okay. Goddie helps me out of my chair until I’m steady, and I let him hold me for just a moment. He won’t see me for the rest of the night, now, and the heavy weight in his dark eyes is too much on top of everything else. I kiss him again, on the lips this time, then turn away to start my slow, painful journey to the other side of town.
The property system is a mess right now, with people just upping and leaving to find those loved ones they left behind when the System closed its gates and put up its ivory walls years ago. All of us are living in borrowed places, until the economy and the market is all worked out. Those are Marjorie Eaton’s problems now, and I’ll abide by whatever she says is best. I’ll obey my Governor, for the good of the people.
But I won’t give her the key to anything. Perhaps I always knew I wouldn’t be able to. I doubt I’d have handed it over to Deacon, either. But that’s a difficult conversation for another day, because now I’m being driven across the busy city centre towards another habitation block. Within it, there’s a small apartment with two bedrooms. And within one of those bedrooms, is Stirling.
It’s almost ten by the time I arrive, leaving just a few precious hours until October 5th is over, never to happen again. Sheila is the one who answers the door when I knock. I am alone here. No aides, no family. Just me and her in the brightly-lit doorway.
“Raja. I’m so glad you came.”
She knows now. Knows everything there is to know about the numbers on her son’s neck and the truth of what’s going on inside him. Having spent four furious weeks doing her scientist thing, now Sheila’s face is tied up in a tight smile. She’s talked to Reuben, and any other doctors and scientists she could find in Tania. She’s read books and consulted computers. She’s examined Stirling again and again for some way out of what those numbers mean.
And then, perhaps only a few days ago, she stopped.
She accepted, like I have.
But when Sheila shows me through to Stirling’s room, it’s harder than ever to know that his time has come. Stirling is sitting in bed, the covers up over his blade legs, and a thick bandage around the place where the hidden knife slashed his arm open yet again for my sake. When he turns his head, his face is calm and somehow bright. I can’t believe the strength of him, to just sit there so serenely. He grins at me, and the lump in my throat is too big to speak. I just go to him, taking a hold of his hand as I clamber up to sit beside him on his bed.
“I’ll be back soon,” Sheila says softly to us both. “With your favourite foods, laddie.”
Stirling licks his lips, nodding.
A last meal. It’s torture to see the way he leans towards me once she’s gone, that conspiratorial glint in his oceanic eyes.
“I haven’t got the heart to tell her I’m not hungry.”
Kind and mischievous, even to the end. He makes me want to laugh, but when that bursts out, the crying comes too. I guess I’ve been holding it in for weeks. Stirling pulls me to his chest, patting my head gently.
“Come on now. You’re here with me, and that’s all that matters, Raja. We knew it was coming. And this is the best way it could have been.”
Two hours. Maybe less. There’s no clock in the room, and that hardly surprises me. But Stirling does have a laptop open at the foot of the bed. When I’ve managed to stop sniffling, he stretches for the computer and brings it onto his knees. I don’t talk about the Eatons here. There’s no time to waste on nonsense like tomorrow, when all we have left is today.
“Look at what I found on the old drives from the Highlands.” Stirling taps at the buttons and the screen.
An old video comes up, the quality a little duller than the feeds I’ve been watching the last few days. There is a glorious place in the background, with buildings in real earthy colours and people actually walking the streets. A young woman with long, dark hair and gleaming dark eyes laughs on the screen. She points at buildings and then beckons with her hands as the camera jiggles. Stirling hits the volume, raising it as she laughs again.
“Come on…. Have you set it up yet? You’re bloody useless, you know.”
“I’m trying, woman. You’re not so great yourself, by the way.”
I know the voices. I look to Stirling, their names on the tip of my tongue, and he just nods with a massive grin.
“Delilah and Malcolm. Two decades ago.”
Sure enough, a young man soon joins the woman on the screen. Malcolm looks more alive than I’ve ever seen him, his slick dark hair blowing out of place in the city’s fine breeze. The two of them pose together, as if for a photograph, but then Malcolm returns to the camera. He peers closely at the lens, his dark brow quirked.
“Oh shit. I’ve got it on record, not self-timer.”
The footage cuts to black. A stolen moment from their lives, before either Stirling or I were born.
“They’re both lost now,” I say, pushing another tear back.
“But that’s the point, Raja. We all have to go some
time.” Stirling turns to me, holding my cheek in his warm hand. “But what we did with the time we had, and the people we spent that time with. That’s life. That’s what it’s all about.”
He’s still smiling, even now.
“I love you, Stir,” I whisper.
“I know,” he replies. “And I love you. I always have.”
I throw myself back into his embrace, but the motion knocks the computer. There’s a flash on the screen, then I hear a different voice that I also recognise. I pull back, a gasp escaping my lips as I see the screen anew.
“What is this?” I ask.
“A webcam,” Stirling answers. “Livitka set it up for me, in the lab.”
Malcolm Stryker is once again on screen, but as he is right now. Live, deep beneath the surface of the world we’re trying to build again, Malcolm’s half-body has taken its place on the cross. Thanks to Reuben’s handiwork, I got Bhadrak back, but a stable mind had to take his place to stop the Reborn from going berserk. And that’s where Malcolm came in. His final duty to the world he so badly wanted to save, is to be wired into the centre of it, keeping it as peaceful as his own comatose mind.
Livitka is there, writing things down and talking to someone in a white coat. Part of our team, no doubt, the select few permitted to control the weapons and systems that are now my only bargaining chip for a safe and stable future. Malcolm looks calm on the cross, his smoothed-out face left clear because of the breathing tube already inserted lower on his throat, and Reuben did a more tasteful job with the wires this time, hiding them in his locks of silver hair.
“He’s with me, Raja,” Stirling says. “I can feel it. It’s not a voice in my head, but it’s a warmth. A strength. He’s here now.”