by T. C. Edge
“One day, I found exactly what I was looking for. I watched it play out again, reliving the memory, the night that changed my life. I saw it all from his perspective. The creeping shadows. The gun in his hand. The lost child wandering the streets, and the woman who came to fetch him.
“I saw him trailing them as they wandered through the dark alleys, just trying to find their way home. I saw him draw out his gun and pounce from the darkness. I felt the excitement in him as he pointed the weapon and demanded the woman’s purse. How his joy surged as he pulled the trigger, and saw the blood splatter across the boy’s face.
“I saw the death of Linda again that night as I rooted through that man’s mind. I saw my guardian’s life snuffed out by this soulless murderer, and saw the fear and pain in my own eyes as I wept by her body. I felt the rage in me soar, and when I withdrew from the man’s mind, I looked at his face with a smile on mine.
“I was only a boy, Brie. Just 13. But I killed that man that night. I tore through his mind and paralysed his body with nothing but a thought, and took my time as I sent a knife right into his heart. I did it for Linda, and I did it for revenge. But did I enjoy it? Did I enjoy the sensation of taking a life? Even a life as worthless as his?”
He shakes his head.
“I don’t enjoy killing. I kill because I have to. Some people in this world deserve life, and others don’t. This man didn’t deserve to take another breath, and I rid the world of him forever.”
He leans forwards, and his eyes begin to soften.
“Director Cromwell deserves to die more than anyone in this city. Thousands have been slaughtered under his command. And tens of thousands will soon follow. Don’t think of it as murder, Brie. It isn’t. To be a murderer, the victim has to be human. This man isn’t human…”
His words stop flowing, and the cave falls to silence. I watch him recover from the memory, see the reflection of pain in his eyes. And the anger that still lives there, simmering in the depths.
“And did it help?” I ask him quietly. “Killing the man who killed Linda. Did it get rid of your anger?”
He stands up and steps towards me.
“No,” he answers calmly. “And I know now…that nothing ever will.”
46
The days and nights appear to be drawing together now. My world, once so rigid and organised, is unrecognisable. All I’ve ever known is order and structure. Wake, work, sleep, repeat. That has been my existence.
Not anymore.
Each day brings a new challenge. Each day I learn something new. Things about me. Things about others. Things about this city that I call home.
The thought of going back to what I was, back to my simple life, no longer registers in me. I’ve turned down a path that I cannot leave, one that is drawing me further and further into the unknown with each passing day, each passing hour.
Zander’s tale of his past cracks a fissure in my heart. Yet it says so much about my new life that it doesn’t shock me. I think of what I’d have done in the same situation. If I’d witnessed the death of Mrs Carmichael before my eyes, would I have wished for revenge? Would I have gone in search of it?
I know the answers to those questions. I’d have done just the same as my brother. I’d have hunted that man down and taken his life. I’d have made him suffer in the way he made me suffer. In the end, I know he had no choice.
And perhaps, now, neither do I.
I don’t stay down in the underlands too long that night. The last two days have been too much, too draining to try to train my new mental powers. Zander, too, appears to have become a little withdrawn, the terrible memories of his past now excavated from the depths of his mind.
His eyes fall into shadow and his words become limited to a few. Tonight isn’t the night to make progress. We both know that.
We leave each other with the promise to meet down here the following night.
“Take time to think things through, Brie,” he says solemnly. “Tomorrow, we’ll get back to your training…if that’s what you want.”
He turns and disappears into the darkness, and I do the same. When I reach the safety of the academy once more, slipping silent as a ghost through the night, I waste no time in finding my bed.
Across the room, I hear Tess tossing and turning, deep in the throes of some nightmare. I spend a little time watching her, the darkness no longer a barrier to my sight, and see the creased pain flashing on her face, her lips curling and eyes twitching as she battles with her subconscious.
When I finally fall into dreams myself, I also get assaulted. I’d imagine the same is happening across the three floors of the academy, the whole place swamped in grief and fear, the same as the entire city.
When morning blooms, I’m awoken by the sound of bells ringing across Outer Haven. The many hundreds killed in the attack on the market are beginning to be laid to rest, the morgues overflowing with the dead and the crematoriums working to a tight schedule.
The atmosphere in the canteen that morning is sombre. Appetites appear to have been lost in recent days, eyes growing hollow. Even the younger kids, usually so unbowed by such worries, have seen their energies defeated. No one laughs or plays. Few of them even talk.
Instead, it’s tears that have become so prominent, the older kids now tasked with comforting the younger. And today, especially, with Fred and Ziggy’s funeral so near, the flood of grief has grown.
But still, life goes on. Those living on the top floor move off to work. The youngsters continue to do their chores. Above all, it’s the transitioners who have been most affected, close as they were to the two deceased. Their lives are already filled with enough concern as it is. Having to deal with death is an additional burden they could do without.
As midday approaches, Mrs Carmichael gathers a small troop of Fred and Ziggy’s closest cohorts to take to the crematorium. I find Drum absent from the throng, and ask Mrs Carmichael if she’s seen him.
She appears as confused as I am.
“No. He must have gone to work I suppose…”
“Really? Today? Does he know about the funeral?”
“Yes, I told him yesterday morning before he left for work. He seemed a little…well, he was distracted, as you would be. Perhaps the grief is too near for him.”
It could well be. Or maybe he’s too frightened to lose his job. After all, he’d gone straight off to the eastern quarter yesterday, despite only just learning of his friends’ deaths. The same could be true of today.
For many – most, even – laying the dead to rest is a short and simple affair. Cremation is the only method, and for the most part, services take no longer than five or ten minutes.
The tradition of gathering ashes and keeping them in urns, or scattering them in places of sentimental value to the departed, have long since faded away. Only a very few keep to that custom. Most simply attend the service in silent reflection, before turning the deceased into nothing but a memory.
Keeping the residue of their bodies is no longer a common practice.
For the children of Carmichael’s, the concept of death is ever present. It’s what binds us, what has brought us all here in the first place. We are all defined by it, named orphans after our parents saw their lives taken from them, whether through natural or unnatural causes.
Most have attended funerals in the past. Many of their first memories will be of seeing one or both of their parents laid to rest. So today, as we prepare to do the same to Fred and Ziggy, it’s not just their deaths that are drawing tears from eyes, and filling stomachs with cement.
Old wounds are being opened that these kids have worked so hard to close. Hearts are breaking open all over again, afflictions that Mrs Carmichael, for all her proficiency with a needle, is unable to sew up.
We attend the funeral in district 3 of the western quarter, a little way eastwards of Brick Lane. Walking in a troupe of about a dozen, we move along like a cold gust of wind, dressed in black or whatever dark clothes we can find.
All over the streets, similar groups appear, their heads bowed and eyes stained red. As we near the crematorium, we find the area awash with black, the funerals so short that queues have formed as the mourners gather to pay their respects.
We line up at the back, gradually moving closer to the entrance as little groups move in and out, barely staying there for more than five minutes. Some are like we are, with perhaps a dozen or more attendees. Others have only one or two grievers to see them off.
As the clock ticks towards midday, we find that we’re still behind several others. I see the funeral director come out and call for the mourners of a Mr Arnold Thompson.
No one responds. The man will be burnt alone, with not a single soul as witness.
It’s a depressing thought amid a depressing day. But the same will be true all over. Many will die with no one to love them, no one to say goodbye. At least you can say that Fred and Ziggy are leaving behind many who’ll remember them.
It’s a small note of solace for two boys who died so young.
Eventually, after a few delays, we find ourselves at the front of the queue, more than half an hour past our time. I have one final look around to see if Drum has appeared around a street corner. There’s no sign of his gargantuan frame.
In we go, through towards one of many rooms assigned to the task of sending on the dead. It’s small inside, and silent, a couple of rows of tightly packed seats waiting ahead of a stage.
Upon the stage lie two metal tables. And on them, two bodies covered in crimson sheets.
“Can we take a final look at them?” asks Mrs Carmichael.
The funeral director shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Their bodies are not how you’d remember. You wouldn’t like what you see.”
He doesn’t need to say any more. Caught right in the market, it’s a wonder there’s anything left of them. The undulating shape of the sheets suggests that the remains below are not intact. Most probably, they’ve already been partially cremated by the blast.
We take our seats, lining up on the two rows, and the funeral director says a few words, speaking the basic funeral rites. Once he’s done, he invites Mrs Carmichael to speak, if she should wish.
She declines.
The director moves to the wall and presses a button, and a clear protective screen rises up at the front of the stage. As soon as it reaches its summit, another button is pushed, and the two metal tables begin to glow orange and red around the edges.
Moments later, a furious storm of flames have risen, engulfing the bodies and sheets and quickly turning them black. A few sniffs sound behind and around me as the bodies burn and are quickly eaten away. After a few short minutes, the flames die down, leaving nothing but a scattering of black ash across the surface of the tables.
The funeral director calls an end to the service. We stand and silently make our way outside, passing other rooms performing the same truncated ceremony. Unfortunately, the luxury of lengthy funerals isn’t something anyone of us can afford here.
We walk back home as we came, trailing the streets like ghosts. I find myself at the back with Mrs Carmichael, her eyes wandering to mine. I always know when someone’s looking at me now, even if they think I can’t see.
“Are you OK?” she asks. “You seem…lost.”
“No more than anyone else,” I lie.
“You have cause to be, though, Brie. What they’re asking you to do. You know you don’t have to? You can still turn away from all of this if you want.”
I slowly shake my head.
“How can I? I couldn’t live with myself if I stood back and let people die. I’m going to fight one way or another. I have no choice in that.”
“And you believe them?” she asks. “You believe everything they’re telling you, even after all the lies?”
“Not lies,” I correct her. “Just…hidden truths. Honestly, I don’t really know what to believe at the moment.”
“And you trust them? You barely know them, Brie.”
“I trust Zander,” I say. “He’s my twin brother.”
“And you’re sure about that?”
She continues to peer at me, her distrust of anything she doesn’t understand serving to warp her opinion. My eyes don’t get drawn in. They stick to the street ahead, at the plodding children carving their way back to the academy.
“I’m sure,” I say after a brief silence, which no doubt to her will confirm my uncertainty.
She remains unconvinced, that much is clear. For her to truly believe something, she needs to feel it with her own fingers, see it with her own eyes. She trusts so little and so few. Even my word doesn’t seem enough for her.
When we reach the top of Brick Lane, the kids begin to speed their step towards the academy half way down. No longer needing to keep her eyes on them, Mrs Carmichael stops me with a hand on the arm.
I turn to her properly for the first time since we left the crematorium. Her old blue eyes look upon me, murky and cloudy and covered in little crinkled webs of red. It’s obvious she hasn’t been sleeping well.
“I don’t think you should do it,” she says. “None of it. You should come home for good. I can find you better work, maybe…or you could help me run the academy full time. All of this is too dangerous, Brie. You’re going to get killed if you keep this up…”
“And I might just get killed anyway. Or Tess might. Or you or Drum or Abby. Or any of the kids. You know what’s going on, Brenda. You’ve been saying it all along, speaking out against the Savants. Why are you changing your mind now?”
“I’m not changing my mind. Not about that. But why do you have to be involved? Yes, I know you have these powers now. But surely there’s another way…”
I shrug and turn my eyes back down the street.
“I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. But one way or another, none of us are safe anymore. There’s nowhere to hide from this.”
We continue on, reaching the academy and turning in through the entrance. In the hall, the others who joined us at the funeral are removing their coats and hanging them in the closet, traipsing in mud and grime from the streets.
As we enter, an unbroken voice calls through the little crowd, and we see Nate tumbling towards us from behind the reception desk. He holds an electronic letter in his small hands, and my thoughts immediately turn to Adryan.
Another letter from the Council of Matrimony no doubt, inviting me along for my second date…
There’s a rush to Nate’s voice, however, and a look of concern in his eyes. My suspicion is proven wrong when he reaches us and spreads his hands forward to Mrs Carmichael and not me.
She takes the letter and her eyes crease too.
“What is it?” I ask, looking over.
Above the seal, a distinctive stamp is visible.
“The Department of Corrections,” I whisper.
I share a look with my guardian before she hastily removes the seal. I huddle next to her and watch as the writing on the letter glows to life.
As I read the words, my chest compresses, and my breathing speeds. I feel like I’m being crushed by some invisible force.
Dear Mrs Carmichael,
It is our understanding that you are the guardian of one
Joshua Brent, a resident of your academy on Brick
Lane in district 5 of the western quarter.
Unfortunately, we have to inform you that Joshua has been
taken to the holding cells on the western boundary of
Outer Haven, where he will await sentencing, to be
determined this evening.
The charge is murder.
Please do not respond to this message.
Sincerely,
Christopher Lipton,
The Department of Corrections
I stare at the words and so does my guardian. Neither of us speak.
Then, Nate’s little voice rises, standing on his tiptoes to read the letter.
/> “Who’s Joshua Brent?” he asks.
Mrs Carmichael’s hands drop down, taking the letter with them. She lets out a breath of air.
“Drum,” she whispers quietly. “Josh is his real name…”
47
I tear the letter from Mrs Carmichael’s hand and read it again.
“There’s got to be some mistake,” I say, my voice rising in panic. “This can’t be right. We need to call them.”
“We can’t,” says Mrs Carmichael. “They say it explicitly, and there’s no way for us to get in contact…”
“Well…we have to do something!”
My breathing is reaching fever pitch. I might just hyperventilate.
Mrs Carmichael takes me by the shoulders.
“Breathe, Brie...just breathe.”
She begins taking several long, deep breaths, urging me to follow.
“It’ll be OK,” she says. “Drum will be OK. Look, I’ll call the supervisor where he’s been working and find out if he knows anything. Wait here, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She rushes back out of the door, most likely heading down the street to the nearest video communication interface planted at the bottom of Brick Lane.
I find myself pacing from side to side, trying to calm my intake of air as Nate takes over from Mrs Carmichael in coaxing me through a few breathing exercises. I barely notice his presence as my eyes scan the letter again and again.
It can’t be right. It just can’t. Drum wouldn’t hurt a fly…
My mind churns with thoughts of what could have happened. Thoughts of what will happen to him now, if all this is true.
Murder…no, it can’t be true…
But what if it is?
Such a thing carries with it only two possible sentences: execution or reconditioning. If the latter, that likely means being turned into a slave.
A Con-Cop.
A mindless, emotionless drone for the Consortium to use as they see fit.
It may sound odd to say, but the former sentence is preferable. Better death that falling under the dark wing of the High Tower.