An arbiter pulls out his sidearm and shoots her in the head, allowing her body to fall to the tracks below.
Enraged, I start to run for her, but another set of strong hands seize me around the arms, jerking me backwards off my feet, and dragging me away from the platform and to a secluded area, while a familiar voice warns me to calm down. I can’t. I refuse to. There was no reason to murder that woman. I don’t think she believed in the voice on the train, but that whoever had orchestrated it had used the desperation and the fear of those on the shuttlecraft to do its dirty work. The hands whirl me around and slam my back into an exterior wall, and I stop struggling when bits of brick poke me through my uniform jacket and, for the first time, I recognize Renal’s voice.
“Calm yourself!” he hisses at me, and I stop struggling.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, confused. I don’t think I made it to the eastern sector, but I am so turned around right now, that I have no idea where I am within the city.
“I need you to get a hold of yourself,” Renal says, ignoring my question.
“But they killed her,” I say, and for the first time I lose my composure in front of him, and tears escape my eyes as a wall of emotions I have tried to keep suppressed burst forth, refusing to be imprisoned any longer. “It wasn’t her. It wasn’t all her. It was the voice, and something he said that caused everyone to—”
“What voice?”
“There was a voice over the loud speaker and it told them to rise up and revolt.”
Renal mulls over my words, and I sense that he knows something, something that he is not telling me.
“What is happening? We are arbiters. We are supposed to protect Arel. Lawbreakers go to the detention center. They aren’t to be executed in the public like this. They’re…”
“What do you think happens to the people you send to the detention center, Noni?”
I stop speaking. I never thought about it much. The detention center is where people are to be tried for the crimes they commit, but now… now I am not so sure.
“A lot has happened since we were sent outside the wall. Much of the rules have changed. You need to keep it together, and stay in control of yourself.”
Renal’s gaze holds mine, and I am unable to turn away.
“Can you do that?”
I nod my head.
“I’m taking you back to the manor.”
Renal releases me and starts to walk off, but I stop him.
“Are we not supposed to protect the innocent?” I ask him, still holding on to the idealized vision of what being an arbiter means.
“I protect the ones I can.”
He stalks off, and I know better than to wait for an order to follow to be issued, so I hurry after him, wiping the tears from my face, and doing my best to keep an impassive expression on it. As we turn a corner, I glance back at the platform, spotting the place where the woman once stood, promising my rage that its time will come, but that now is not it.
Chapter 27
Answers
A slow drip plops over and over into an overflowing bucket of murky water as Chase and I creep through the alley and to Luther’s door as our shoes release splashy plops on the broken pavement the closer we get, doing our best to be quiet, but not succeeding. After the events of today, after the voice on the railcar that caused people to attack me, I need answers. There are too many questions and the only person I can think of who might have what I need is Luther, though I know he will be less than thrilled to see me; but something tells me that I can trust him more than anyone else at the moment. We reach the hole in the fence, and I motion for Chase to go through first. He does, and holds the loose board up for me to crawl through, while looking around for prying eyes, nosy busybodies looking to garner favor with the arbiters by informing on anyone who is out after curfew. Chase had insisted on coming with me when he caught me trying to sneak out on my own again, so I relented. Too many times in the past I had gone out on my own, but this time… this time I accepted his help.
We reach the small open courtyard, if you want to call it that, and the two doors, both dark, both rotting, both reminding me of how there is no turning back. Chase glances at me, but I point at Luther’s door in answer to his unspoken question and he goes first, being careful to not make any noise as he steps on the stairs leading to the door. Giving him a nervous smile, I rap on the door, soft but loud enough to gain the attention of anyone inside, hoping that he answers it. Nothing. Afraid that he might not be asleep, or worse, ignoring me, I knock a little louder, but not too loud so as not to attract unwanted attention.
“Luther!” I hiss at the door while trying to keep my voice low. “It’s me!”
Seconds later the door opens just a crack and the brown iris of an eye peeks through it followed by a disappointed voice. “I should have known.”
He opens the door wide enough for Chase and me to squeeze through before locking it shut. “Make sure those drapes are pulled tight.”
Chase and I run to the windows, double checking the drapes and their three extra thick layers of material, perfect for not letting any light escape, cover every inch of the glass so that no one will know that someone is up at a time when most are asleep. It is not uncommon for a passing arbiter to burst into the home of someone whose light is still on so late at night.
Once done, we meet back in the main room where Luther awaits us.
“I see you brought a friend,” he says, looking at Chase as I pull the hood covering my head off and pretending that he’s never seen him before. “A plebeian. How interesting.”
“Why’s that?” asks Chase.
“Or, perhaps, he is just a means to an end. Someone to distract any arbiters that might catch you out after hours.” Luther raises his hand to backhand Chase, and I stop him, gripping his wrist so tight that his fingers begin to turn purple, but instead of showing fear, Luther grins.
“So, not a means to an end after all,” he muses. “Why are you here?” he says to me.
The soft pads of little feet touch the stairs up above, and we all look up at the boy I had Chase bring, at what seems like a long time now. He looks healthy and cared for, even if he still doesn’t seem to be speaking.
“Go back to bed, boy,” Luther says in a stern, but gentle voice.
“Doesn’t he have a name?” asks Chase.
“He won’t tell me his name,” replies Luther.
“He’s okay though?” I ask, having not seen him since the day I took him out of that wretched place.
“I know you didn’t come here to talk about the boy, but, yes, he’s fine.”
“I was hoping you could help me answer a few questions,” I say, looking around at some of the stacks of books, real books with actual pages, not the simulated ones like what the manor has, though he doesn’t seem to have as many as before, telling me that the raid on his place has forced him to be a bit more cautious.
“Why would I answer your questions? I’m not here to be used whenever you have need of me.”
“Why did you help me the day of the terror attack?” I demand, answering his question with a question.
Luther extends his arm, inviting me to sit at a table with papers and books covering its rusted turquoise surface and the geometric designs decorating it. “So, what would you like to know?”
“Why is Arel the way it is?”
Luther snorts and a few droplets of spittle escape his lips as he tries to not laugh too hard. “That’s a broad question. What makes you think I know the answer? I may be older than you, but I’m not that old.”
I look around at all the books. “I know none of these are on the approved reading list.”
“You have me there. The truth is, I only know what I have managed to gleam from these books.”
“And?”
Luther leans back in his chair, clasping his hands together as his intelligent gaze settle on me, sizing me up and deciding whether I am worthy of such knowledge. “There was a time when peopl
e of different backgrounds lived in relative peace together. They had massive cities with towering buildings of glass, much like what Arel has, modes of transportation, and various businesses all trying convince you to be their loyal customer. It wasn’t perfect—no society is—but they had this ideal that they strove for: the idea that all people possess certain rights that cannot be taken away no matter the circumstance.”
“So, what happened?”
“What always happens to a peaceful society: war and division destroyed it. It could have been a multitude of things culminating together. A viral outbreak, forcing people to be locked in their homes, brewing discontent, and opportunists using a crisis to their advantage, stirring the pot until civil unrest reigns supreme—puppet masters, if you will, pulling everyone’s strings, manipulating them, until they were able to gain power.”
“What do you mean?” I think back to the railcar and how that voice managed to get otherwise peaceful people to do its bidding.
“It started as an idea, like most things, and grew into a plague. Some thought that because one group of people had wronged another in the past, that their descendants were forever branded sinners and would never be able to atone for the misdeeds of their ancestors, while the ones who were descended from the people who had been mistreated were forever owed atonement. Those seeking power feasted off of this discontent and fueled it, until it grew to the point where riots broke out, innocent people were killed, and the very history of the country they lived in was no longer acceptable as it was deemed too oppressive, too divisive, and not worthy of remembrance.”
“But maybe that was a good thing,” I say, “if they were being oppressed, why was it wrong for them stand up to it?”
“But were they oppressed?” Luther asks me.
I don’t say anything. I have no idea what happened in the past other than what I was told at the training facility, and any who questioned the accepted narrative was chastised, until they stopped questioning it and just accepted it, or they just disappeared.
“You tell me what happened,” says Luther.
Unsure of where he is going with this, I recite the accepted history of Arel. “There was a time when the fair-skinned had enslaved the dark-skinned, but the dark-skinned rebelled and rose up against their oppressor, bringing about true equality and freedom.”
“And who are the slaves now?” asks Luther.
I say nothing as I look at Chase.
“Freedom from what: choices?”
“But we all have jobs,” I say.
“Jobs none of us get to choose. Did you choose to be an arbiter? You were ripped away from your mother’s arms upon your birth and taken to the training facility, just like I was taken to be an engineer. None of us chose our stations in life, that was chosen for us, and if any dare to change it, they are executed. Don’t you see? There was a time when the two got along, for the most part, and accepted each other as human beings, but there are always those who desire power and wealth above all else, and they knew that if they could turn people against each other, they could create their own society where they are in charge. And so they did. They turned rich and poor against one another, light and dark against one another, religious and atheist against one another, until the mob reigned supreme and there was so much chaos that the puppet masters swooped in, promising order, and out of desperation, the people accepted it, without questioning the sort of order that was being mandated. If you stood against it, you were attacked, called unfeeling, a tyrant—anything, until you accepted the new order. “
“But were they right?” I ask.
“Excuse me?” says Luther.
“Did the one group mistreat the other? Perhaps they should pay for the wrongs they committed.”
“Even after several generations have passed?”
“Well,” I say, repeating what I have always been taught, “it’s inherent. Such wrongs surpass generations and can be felt for years to come, perhaps they should atone for it.”
Luther presses his lips together for a moment, before speaking to Chase. “Will you go into the kitchen and grab me some water? My throat is a little dry.”
Chase glances at both of us before standing up and walking to the kitchen, pointing at a door and going through it when Luther nods his head. Once alone, Luther looks at me, and in a flurry of movement, snatches a book off the table and strikes me in the face, catching me unawares, and knocking me to the floor, and before I can stand up, he places a chair over me, pinning me.
“You are an arbiter!” he yells, showing a fury I have never seen on him before. “Arbiters took my daughter and murdered her! Arbiters murdered my wife! They invaded my home in the middle of the night and destroyed my property because they thought I had contraband items! They have taken everything from me! Perhaps I should kill you for justice—for retribution! After all, all arbiters are mindless drones doing as they are told. Their evil is inherent, their lust for power is in their DNA, it’s a part of who they are, and you are part of that system. Unfeeling. Unemotional. Uncaring. So, perhaps, I should kill you and take my revenge.”
“But…” I say, pressing my palms against the chair in an effort to get it off my neck, “I had nothing to do with that. I warned you about the raid. I’ve tried to stop the abuses. I…”
“Oh,” Luther releases some of the pressure form my neck, “so, now individual action is more important than collective guilt and punishment. It’s no fun being thought of as evil just because a few people around you have made terrible decisions.”
My feet kick just a little as I beg to be released, while Chase appears in the doorway of the kitchen, desperate to find out what the commotion is all about, but before he can react, Luther pulls the chair off me, releasing me, and I sit up coughing and spitting up some mucus.
Luther places the chair back by the table. “You are no more guilty of what another arbiter does, than he”—he points as Chase—“is guilty of what his ancestors did to yours. But instead of learning from the past, instead of learning to forgive, your ancestors chose to destroy his and set up a new society, and we are living in the end result: a place where if you dare speak out, if you dare go against anything Arel says, you disappear as though you never existed. This is the justice your ancestors achieved, or I should say injustice, because no revolution, no amount of change built upon anger and envy ever brings about anything good. It just breeds more anger, more hatred, and more division while forcing everyone to conform to a set of rigid standards from which there is no deviance. Comply or die, that is the true motto of Arel, the motto of those who established Arel in the name of inclusivity and freedom.”
“But, promising liberty just to gain control seems counterproductive,” I say.
“If you live long enough, you will learn that tyranny always uses the promise of liberty and justice to sink its claws into you, but it also gets you to do its bidding by sowing seeds of discontent, discord, and envy. This person has more than you. That means you are oppressed and he is privileged. That sort of thinking will destroy you, but puppet masters are very good using envy and division as a way of manipulating people.”
I pick myself off the floor and sit back in a chair. “You have a strange way of making your point.”
“And you have a way of being hard-headed.”
“But I don’t understand,” Chase says, placing a glass of water on the table, “if the people who lived back then were the freest in the world, why did they give it away?”
Luther laughs. “Freedom once gained is easily lost. It is not difficult to convince people that they have been wronged, nor is it difficult to work them up into a mob, and once the mob’s usefulness has been used up, it is disposed of. Master manipulators have been doing this for ages: tap into some sort of grievance that people have; use it to make them envious and hateful toward others; let them create a mob, use the mob to tear down the society they want to control; then, step in as though they are the people’s savior, and once put in power, dispose of the mob.
This is as old as the world itself. Of course, once their ends are achieved, they have to keep the population itself under control.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Have you ever wondered about the yearly vaccines and how a certain number always fall ill and die while others are just fine? The number that dies always matches the same number we are told will ruin us if the population is not kept in check. Resources are limited, you know.”
Luther says that last part with sarcasm.
“But…” I begin.
“Some of the vials are just the vaccine, while others hide something else: a form of population control,” finishes Luther.
“So,” begins Chase, “the people who lived here first just allowed themselves to be manipulated?”
“If you want to put it in simple terms,” replies Luther, “yes. Divide and conquer has always been a useful strategy in war.”
He’s not wrong. At the training facility we were taught how a divided enemy cannot resist being overrun because they are too preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves. Or as Molers put it once: let your enemy destroy himself before you eliminate what is left. Strategy. It always comes down to strategy.
“They allowed themselves to be divided, but there seems to be more to this story,” I say.
Luther grins. “How perceptive of you. Yes, there is more. There is always more. Dividing people based on physical appearance, wealth, and sex is superficial and will only work for so long, requiring the addition of two remaining ingredients: fear and anger. Fear and anger are powerful emotions and excellent manipulators. Once a people are divided into separate groups, each hating the other, they need to be kept separate before they realize that they are not so different after all. So, enters fear and anger. There was an event that happened, whether planned or happy circumstance is unknown, but those who desired control seized it and used it to their advantage.
“A virus appeared, like they always do from time to time, and it spread quickly, causing people to fall ill and die. The exploiters seized the opportunity. First, their media spent everyday talking about how the virus is deadly and what people should do to avoid it, causing people to panic. Then, enters the politicians, the bureaucrats, and anyone who has an agenda; they used that panic to implement rules and mandates, banning social gatherings of any kind, closing down businesses, and imposing the use of face coverings and gloves so that no one could see the faces of those around them, and so they would be detached from the world around them.”
Ensnared (Enchained Trilogy Book 2) Page 43