by T. C. Edge
My stern words force him to refocus. He stares past me again, nodding slowly. And as he does, I begin removing his binds, satisfied that all remnants of the order have been expunged.
“OK…you’re right. I remember hearing a commotion, and coming in here. We…we tied her up, but there’s nothing else. My memory…it’s…”
“Faded,” I finish for him. “I know. You won’t remember the order she gave. But that doesn’t matter now. I managed to knock you off…”
I gesture to his head, and his now unbound hands reach up and feel the sensitive cut with a grimace.
“I put some lotion on it. It’s not deep, and should heal up fast. Please, Adryan, don’t try to remember what happened. It’s best you don’t.”
He nods in muted fashion and takes a breath. Still, there’s an apology in his eyes that won’t go away.
I need it to go away.
I need him to think of a way out of this mess!
Slowly, however, he turns his mind back to the task, doing just what he was doing before Woolf set him on me. He begins pacing again, more groggily this time, scratching his chin and letting his brain work its way to some conclusion.
As he does so, my own mind begins working on full steam once more, searching for its own way out.
And yet, in the end, nothing sticks, nothing makes sense, except one single thought.
We have to kill her.
As Adryan continues to pace across the room, I vocalise the thought. He turns to me with a look that suggests he’s thinking along similar lines, but would rather not resort to such a thing.
“Do we have any other choice?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he breathes, shaking his head. “But if we kill her, someone’s sure to come looking. And it won’t take them long to track her here.”
“Then what? What else is there?”
He looks to the windows, arching his eyes towards the northern quarter way into the distance.
“We need to get her down there somehow. Somehow…we have to get her to your brother.”
“But what good will that do? They’ll still come looking for her if she’s missing…”
“But not here, Brie. I’m thinking, still thinking. Give me a few minutes, OK.”
He seems to be onto something, a plan of sorts formulating in his mind. My own thoughts, meanwhile, are running wild.
Could we somehow get Titus involved? He helped me once before, and maybe he could again. Maybe Magnus too, seeing as they’re brothers. They could smuggle her out, couldn’t they?
The thought rushes through my head and out of my mouth. Adryan listens but immediately shuts it down as he always does. And he’s right to. It was a stupid idea.
He returns to his own thinking. Thinking and pacing, up and down. Then he stops, and looks out of the window for a moment, and I wait for him to speak in hope that he’s figured something out. And then, off he goes again, pacing and thinking. Back and forward, spinning on his heels, the motion driving me mad.
I turn away, burying my head in my hands, and rack my brain for something else.
Could I manipulate the people downstairs? Could I somehow fashion some path for us to sneak Woolf through?
No, surely not. Not with all the tension around the place, the heightened security.
I dismiss that idea without verbalising it, and return to my thoughts as Adryan continues his endless march.
And then, just when I’m reaching the far reaches of my creativity, he stops. The sudden change in motion draws my eyes, and I lift my head to look at him. He swivels on the spot, his visage now set with a firm plan.
“Can you manipulate her?” he asks.
I’m disappointed. I’d thought of something similar but decided it wasn’t even worth discussing. I really hoped he’d come up with something better.
I shake my head.
“She’s too strong. Even if I could set an order into her mind, it would never stick for long. She’d break free, and then…game over.”
I see no disappointment across his face. It’s as though he expected the answer.
“And…if she wasn’t so strong?” he asks. “What about then?”
“I…I guess so. But how would that happen?”
Now his face does change, and a smile begins to rise on his lips.
“Drugs, Brie,” he says. “I can get drugs that will relax her mind and weaken her for a short time. It should allow you to manipulate her as if she was just a regular woman.”
I begin nodding quickly, standing up.
“OK…that might work. But what order would I set?”
“One that gets her over to Outer Haven. If people see her leaving the High Tower, then there will be no suspicion that she’s gone missing, at least not here. You have to make her go over to somewhere in Outer Haven where your brother can have her taken in. No one will suspect you, or us, then. And…it will give Zander a chance to extract information from her too. Two birds, one stone, Brie.”
He smiles, although it’s more of a wince, and lifts his hand to the gash on his head once more. I step forward and inspect it again to see that it’s trickling blood.
“I’m sorry…if it hurts,” I say. “Do you have any plasters or bandages for it? I couldn’t find anything to use.”
“It’s OK,” he says, shaking his head. “The lotion should close it up soon. Any dressings will just raise questions.”
He takes my hands softly, and removes the wince of pain from his face.
“And don’t you ever apologise,” he whispers. “It should be me…”
I reach forward and place my fingers to his lips, stopping his words from flowing. “Don’t, Adryan. Let’s just forget it, OK?”
We turn our attention back to his plan, which sounds like it might just work. Naturally, however, I’ll need to get in touch with Zander first, drawing him back into this mess when he’s probably got a whole load of things to be worrying about.
Yet, in my head the question of our parents remains.
Does Woolf know them? At least one if not the other.
And if she does, then Zander may well be able to find that information in her head…
With the hour now growing late, Adryan leaves me to work in silence. Shutting my eyes, I try to contact my brother, praying that he answers. Yet there’s no reply, something that could well be due to a problem on my end, and not his.
Because with my neck still throbbing, and my head aching, I find it difficult to project the words, to maintain any constant connection with him.
All I get is his faded voice, shouting from the depths.
Brie…are…you…there…
He sounds tense and anxious, and yet it still gives me at least some solace that he’s OK, and that Sophie and Rycard, therefore, will have been deposited safely into the underlands.
My failure to connect properly, however, isn’t the end of it. Moving to his room, Adryan tries as well, withdrawing his private communicator and attempting to make contact with Lady Orlando. That, too, proves to be a failure, leaving us with little to do but wait.
And as we do, something draws my eyes over at the window. I move towards the transparent walls and spread my gaze down towards the far reaches of the northern quarter. Zooming in as far as my Hawk-eyes will go, my irises dilate, sucking in all the available light as they search through the lingering storm, the rain still falling and the sky occasionally cracking with lightning.
As I stand there like a statue, Adryan hovers over to me.
“What is it? What do you see?” he whispers.
Light. That’s what I see. Little flashes of yellow and blue and red. But it’s not the lightning that I speak of. It’s something else.
“Brie…” says Adryan softly.
I blink and retract my eyes, and turn them to his.
“Gunfire,” I say. “I see gunfire.”
101
Standing side by side, just as we did when we first arrived here, I look out towards the city with my husband,
the world dark and the skies heavy with a black swamp of stormy clouds.
And in my heart, the same black clouds gather.
Behind us, still unconscious on the sofa, Agent Woolf lies bound and gagged. In some ways, I’m glad this all happened. I’m glad she came here this evening and found out the truth. I’m glad I was forced to act and take her down, even if it’s just another problem we have to solve.
Because really, I’ve had enough of her shadow. I’ve had enough of her black eyes, always watching, always creeping around and following my step. Eventually, this was always going to happen.
But now, it’s all on my terms.
Yet everything is in more of a rush as well. Every time I think we might be getting somewhere, that I might just have dodged some deadly bullet, another problem arises that I have to figure out.
And by the looks of the firefight currently happening down in the northern quarter, time is certainly running short.
“It’s a retaliation,” says Adryan, looking down as a loud boom of thunder rumbles through the sky. “For Commander Fenby. They’re stepping up their efforts to hunt down the assassins.”
He’s right, and that’s probably why Zander can’t talk at the moment. He’s probably down there right now, engaging in the fight, protecting his people from the Con-Cops and Stalkers who relentlessly hunt them down.
My mind swirls with thoughts of the great caverns below the ground, of the people there huddled around their fires, hoping that they remain hidden away. I think of Drum, and pray that he’s still there and hasn’t seen through his ambition to become a soldier. Pray that he’s not up there now as well, trying to atone for the life he took, trying to shed that guilt that now weighs heavily on his shoulders.
I think of Sophie, too, down in the dirt with Maddox crying in her arms. Her first night in this strange world, the war beginning to rage up above. She must be wondering just why she went there, if this is the life she’s going to lead.
And I, too, feel guilty for sending her to the city beneath the streets. To the very place where the servants of the High Tower are continually searching.
Did I make the right choice? Did they?
In the end, perhaps no one had a choice at all. It was either they’d be shipped off to live in Outer Haven without their son, or they’d have to flee and take him with them. Really, that was no choice at all.
Rycard, though, will be keeping them safe, and keeping them strong. A half-Hawk he may now be, but he’s keen of mind too, and will be an asset to the Nameless when they need him. But for now, all I want is for him to be comforting his wife, protecting his son. That’s his duty now.
Looking upon the world, I know this is just the start of it. And as the rumbling sounds of thunder come, reverberating through the High Tower and streets below, I hear a different sound enter my ears. Another loud boom, though this time carrying a different tone.
A tone I recognise.
Adryan looks at me with hooded eyes. He heard it too.
An explosion. Somewhere behind us, not visible from our apartment. Over in the eastern quarter on the other side of the building, so powerful it sends a shockwave through the calm air, setting my insides on fire and my teeth on edge.
“Another attack,” whispers Adryan. “Another attack by the Fanatics.”
I don’t say a word. Things are escalating fast.
And standing there, I know that we can’t wait around. We can’t wait to get in contact with Zander, or Lady Orlando, and form a plan to get Agent Woolf the hell out of this apartment.
No, not with so much else to do. Because the mission is still on, clinging on by its fingertips. And I can’t delay.
I look to my watch and see that it’s growing late, the hour creeping up on 3AM. I step away from the window, and glance again at Agent Woolf, still held fast by her restraints and lying silently on the sofa, her breathing steady.
I move towards my bedroom, and open up the wardrobe, searching through my items for something suitable. Adryan follows me, watching as I scramble around.
“What are you doing, Brie?” he asks.
Without looking at him, I answer.
“I need to get into Rebecca’s mind. I can’t wait, Adryan. I’ll just have to go down in my normal Unenhanced clothes…but I need a collar to hide my neck.”
I’m still wearing the same clothes that I had on out in the storm. They’ve had plenty of time to dry, but my sweater has a splash of blood on it from Adryan’s head, and is a little frayed from the fight.
I pull it off and toss it onto the bed, wearing a t-shirt underneath. I set about removing that too, but feel Adryan’s hand stopping me. I don’t think it’s to spare my blushes of undressing in front of him. He has other concerns.
“You should rest, Brie. We need to get Agent Woolf out of here before we do anything else…”
“No, Adryan! There is no time to just rest! Rebecca will be finishing work soon, and we need to find out what she knows. If she has no knowledge of Cromwell’s schedule, then we need to figure something else out. Look at what’s happening out there. We have no choice. I have no choice…”
I pull his arm away, and begin dragging my t-shirt over my body, leaving me in only a bra. I toss the t-shirt to the bed, and continue my search for a shirt with a collar large enough to hide the bruising on my neck.
Adryan stands there for a moment in silence, and as I reach forward, he takes my arm once more.
I turn to him.
“Adryan, I have to…”
“I know,” he says, nodding. “You’re right. But if you’re going to go down there, you’d best do it in disguise as we discussed.”
“But I don’t have any grey clothes. It’s all blue.”
He turns to the door.
“Follow me.”
Frowning, I start following as he leads me into his room. With the storm continuing to rage outside, I see him opening up a drawer at the base of his wardrobe. His hands reach in, pulling out a set of grey garments. Women’s garments.
He lays them onto his bed, and begins sorting through the half dozen or so items. He withdraws a shirt and passes it to me. I quickly snap it up and put it on, buttoning it up as he selects a pair of pants.
“Where did you get these?” I ask, confused as to why he’d have a set of women’s clothing in his room.
He takes a moment to answer. It’s long enough for me to realise the truth before he shares it.
“They were Amelia’s,” he whispers. “I kept them...I don’t know why. You’re about the same size.”
He hands me the pants, and turns to put the rest of the items back into the drawer. Then he comes out with a pair of flat grey shoes, handing them to me too.
I just stand in silence, an awkwardness pervading me.
“These were your wife’s? I…I can’t.”
“It’s fine, Brie. Go ahead, put them on. I’ll give you some privacy.”
He leaves the room, and I begin changing my pants and sliding into the shoes. They all fit well, the shoes requiring minimal adjustment.
Then, stepping back into the living room, he looks upon me with a smile.
“You see…they fit just fine.”
“Yeah,” I say. “They, um…they do.”
“Well good,” he says hastily. “If you’re going to pretend to be a Savant, then you have to look the part, right?”
I nod silently.
“So come on,” he continues, “give me your best impression.”
There’s a strange note to his voice. He’s trying to lighten the mood.
I look at him blankly.
“Good,” he says with an awkward smile. “You’ve got the look down perfectly.”
His eyes flash to the clock, the time hurrying past 3AM.
“You’d better get going,” he says. “As you say, we don’t have much time to lose. I’ll keep trying Lady Orlando, and I’ll keep an eye on that one over there,” he adds, glancing at Agent Woolf’s bundle of limbs.
�
��Um…any ideas where I should start?”
He takes a breath, still looking at me slightly awkwardly, all dressed up in his dead wife’s clothes.
And as uncomfortable as he looks, I feel ten times worse.
“I’d say level 8…”
“The fitness level?” I ask.
“Yeah. With all the tension of the last couple of days, I’m thinking she’ll want to let off some steam. It should be quiet right now. Go there, and have a look around. If not, maybe she’ll want to grab some food, but I’d assume she’d do that after her workout…”
“Right. Good idea.”
Now it’s my turn to take a long breath, opening my eyes nice and wide and holding back any burgeoning feelings of fatigue.
“Wish me luck then,” I say.
He smiles and nods.
“Good luck.”
And with that, I turn to the door, fill my lungs, and set off towards the lifts.
102
The High Tower is different at night.
It’s a little darker, the bright fluorescent lights dimmed along the corridors. It’s a lot emptier, the number of Savants whose duties keep them up late limited. And it’s far more eerie, a deep silence spreading across almost every floor, only broken by the occasional bout of thunder as the storm continues its strop.
From the lifts up on level 51, I journey straight for level 8, hoping that the numbers of City Guards on duty are equally sparse as the current waking population.
I haven’t yet spent much time on the fitness level, save the brief tour given by Adryan when I arrived, and yet am largely familiar with the layout. I have a decent memory for such things, and my examination of the schematics has certainly helped.
As such, I know just where the swimming pools are, where the gyms are, where the running tracks are. I know the location of all the exercise facilities spread about the vast level, and will be able to quickly check them for my latest target.
What I don’t know, however, is what Rebecca’s exercise preference is. Walking out onto the floor, I take a wild guess that swimming will be her thing, and so begin working my way towards the appropriate part of the level on its northern side.