by T. C. Edge
Deep in my head, I hear a fluttering voice, and turn away from it. I can’t be distracted now, not now.
I reach the northernmost side, now directly beneath Director Cromwell’s residence 50 floors above me, and stand before the lift. I check my watch a final time and know that Humbert will be arriving in moments only, her timekeeping precise enough to have her arrive at the exact instant I specified in her office.
When I hear the whirring of the motors, my pulse gallops harder. She’ll be here in seconds, and I’ll step in. And only half a minute or so later, the doors will open on level 99, and I’ll be face-to-face with Cromwell.
In a single minute, or maybe two, all of this will be done.
It hardly seems real.
The whirring grows a little louder, and then I hear the mechanism that controls the doors click, and they slide right open. The interior appears, and before me I see Ingrid W. Humbert, standing in the centre, barely registering my arrival.
I step inside. Humbert’s voice issues a new command.
“Level 99,” comes her soft but empty voice.
The doors close, shutting me off. A part of me wants to tell her to stop, to let me out, but I say nothing. The lift begins to rise, and my lungs start to fill and spill with a renewed ferocity.
And in my head, that fluttering voice sounds again, this time harder, louder, but still indistinct.
It’s Zander. I can’t hear him, my mind all over the place.
Report! I think I hear him say, his voice blurred. Brie…report!
It makes no sense. He knows the plan. There’s nothing to report yet…
I shut my eyes and picture his face, and the pathway between our minds opens up. And suddenly, surging into my head, his words come out loud and clear, clattering into my mind.
And I realise, in that moment, he wasn’t saying report.
He was saying abort.
ABORT, BRIE, ABORT! he shouts, his words clear and deafening now. HE KNOWS YOU’RE COMING. IT’S A TRAP!
A panic surges through every part of me. I turn to Humbert and my mouth opens and prepares to call for her to stop.
But it’s too late. The lift is already slowing, stopping.
And the door is opening.
110
All goes suddenly quiet. Ahead of me, the doors reveal darkness, a darkness even my Hawk-eyes have trouble seeing through.
I blink hard and the room begins to grow in focus, a wide expanse ahead. My heart attempts to climb up my throat as Zander’s voice echoes in my ears, and into the silence, I whisper: “Take me down.”
Humbert doesn’t react. Because she doesn’t have time to.
From nowhere, two figures materialise, pouring inside the lift from the left and right. My instincts take over and I activate my Dasher powers, ready to defend myself as the shapes loom.
But they loom too fast, my powers doing nothing to slow them. And as they come into view, and I see the dark cloaks and shining eyes, I know that they’re very much like me.
Hybrids. Stalkers. The agents of Artemis Cromwell.
In a flash of speed they scoop me up, each taking an arm. I kick out with my legs, thrashing and twisting and coiling my spare limbs, but it has no effect at all.
Not on these warriors, these hunters.
Not on these men designed to kill.
I’m dragged from the lift and into the wide room, and see that it’s filled with nothing but a large table and chairs, the rest of it silver and chrome and lifeless like everywhere else here.
My voice surges from out of me, calling hopelessly for help, pouring forward to issue some aimless command at the old lady in the lift to give me some aid. It has no effect at all, my mouth quickly gagged by a mask and my arms forcefully dragged behind my back and locked in restraints.
As my body is contorted, I turn my gaze on one of the Stalkers and find his otherworldly eyes staring back. I flash an order inside him as quickly as I can.
ATTACK YOUR PARTNER. KILL YOUR PARTNER. SET ME FREE!
A slashing palm ends my attempt, the man’s open hand connecting with devastating force on my cheek. A stab of pain cuts through the skin and flesh, leaving a terrible sting as a set of blacked-out goggles are quickly fixed over my eyes, blocking my ability to use my powers.
I’m forcefully shoved forward, and hear a chair being moved. I’m pushed down into it, and then, suddenly, the four hands leave me and I hear the two men step off to one side.
Silence falls, my gasping breath blocked by the gag. I turn left and right and attempt to stand. A rush of air blows from the right and I’m dragged straight down again, my legs tied and wrist restraints fixed to the chair.
I struggle for a few more moments, screaming at the top of my lungs through the mask that covers my mouth. No sound escapes, only my heartbeat and the struggling sounds of my limbs giving any voice to the room.
But soon, my thrashing ends, my limbs locked tight. The logical side of me calls for me to stop, but it’s not really reason or logic that directs it.
It’s defeat. It’s failure.
I’m about to be killed.
I go still, and wait for the inevitable. A bullet to the head, most likely. Quick and easy and clean, that’s the way these people like to do things.
Nothing happens. Only silence reigns.
And then, it’s brief reign ends.
Footsteps sound, tapping gently against the cold floor. They come from afar, ticking like a slow clock, creeping nearer, growing louder.
They’re measured, slow, one following the other with total precision. I feel a presence growing near, a hand drifting towards my face, old fingers taking hold of the mask that covers my eyes.
Then it lifts, pulled up onto my forehead, and I’m greeted by a flash of purest white, the shining shape of a man standing before me. Draped in the finest of white suits, and with hair of the same tone, and ghostly skin so pale it gleams, I look upon the man I’ve been yearning to see for so long.
Finally, I’m face-to-face with Director Artemis Cromwell. Only, it’s him holding the gun, and not me.
I stare right at the man, and he stares right back at me. In his hand, he holds my weapon, passed to him by one of his slaves. He inspects it briefly, before swaying the end of the barrel in my direction as a cold and distant smile inches onto his lips.
“So this is what you were going to kill me with?” comes his voice, deep and detached and glacial-cold.
He sways it across me again, his finger hovering on the trigger, and I flinch as the muzzle slows as it points to my heart. Then, he tosses it to the side, and it’s caught by one of his agents.
“It’s a crude weapon really, isn’t it Brie?” he says. “And hardly efficient.”
I look up into his clear blue eyes, like frozen circles of ice, and make an attempt to infiltrate his mind. I dip in and see a staggering world before me, but am immediately cast out.
“That won’t work on me,” he says calmly.
His long fingers approach once more, and drag down the mask over my mouth. I gasp in a long breath, spraying a cough into the room.
“You’re…you’re a Mind-Manipulator?” I splutter.
He begins to circle me, his feet tapping once more.
“Oh no, nothing like that,” comes his voice from behind me. “I’m just immune to such things.”
He completes the loop, returning in front of me, his body a strange mix of old age and relative youth. His hands are heavily wrinkled, deep lines spreading from the corners of his eyes and mouth. And yet, there’s a strange youth to his cheeks, his skin less afflicted there than on the other features of his face.
His eyes, though, carry a depth, staring at me and barely blinking as he hovers.
It’s a disconcerting look, and one that has me turning away. And shutting my eyes, I think of Zander, and Adryan waiting for me below, and all those I care about across Outer Haven.
And when I open them again, their corners are wet.
I can’t help it
. I don’t want to cry, to show weakness. Even though I’m going to die, I don’t want to give this man any satisfaction. I don’t want to go out, pleading for my life, my cheeks stained and eyes red and mind lost to thoughts of fear and failure.
So I squeeze my eyes shut again, blocking the flow before it starts, and grit my teeth as hard as I can. And then, with my eyelids still locked tight, I simply whisper: “How?”
The ruler of this building, of this city, of this world, doesn’t need anything more. He knows what I’m asking. And when he speaks, I know it’s my fault. I know that all of this is my failure, my doing.
“Romelia Woolf,” he says quietly. “You think you got her, but she’d already figured you out, Brie. She’s been reporting to me for some time now. And now, she’s completed her task. She’s brought you to my door…”
I open my eyes, and let my body fill with hate. And instead of a soft expression of fear and sorrow, I let my visage reshape with a grimace of fire.
Zander must have found the truth in her mind, excavated it from the depths. But it was too late. Much too late…
“Ah yes, that’s it, Brie,” continues Cromwell, looking upon my expression with some glee. “You have a lot of hate in you, that much is clear. I wonder what else we’ll find in there, what secrets your mind holds…”
“No…” comes my voice.
I cut it off, bite my tongue, and turn away. He can’t find out what I know. If he does, they’ll all be doomed.
“Just do what you have to do, Director Cromwell,” I say, looking to the floor. “Please…don’t drag this out. If there’s a shred of empathy in you, you’ll let me die quickly.”
I keep my head low, but through my Hawk-vision, scan the men to the left and right. One stands, his hands behind his back, staring right at me. The other does the same, but his hands are in front of him, gripping the gun they took from me.
He’s only a few metres away. Near enough…is he near enough?
I have no choice. I have to try.
With a sudden twist of my neck, I swing my head up to him and draw his eye. I dart straight in, charging into his mind and calling out the order to kill.
But not the other guard. Not himself. Not Cromwell.
Me.
I deliver the command with such clarity and focus that it fuses immediately. The glaze spreads across his eyes and the order takes hold. And suddenly, abruptly, his hand swings up, points the gun right at my head, and pulls the trigger.
I shut my eyes as the room explodes with a single bullet. But the endless darkness doesn’t come.
Instead, a flow of air sweeps from the other side, and I hear a heavy thud. And creaking open my lids, I look to see the other Stalker standing in my path, blood seeping from his body and onto the cold metal floor.
And on the floor, amid the blood, I see the shape of the shooter, the gun still in his hand, his body knocked out cold.
“Good, very good,” comes Cromwell’s voice.
I turn forwards again and see him standing just where he was before, no fright imbuing him, no alarm spreading through his face at the sight he just witnessed.
He merely looks at me, and smiles an awkward, alien grin.
“Oh, you truly are gifted, Brie, and brave too,” he muses. “Just a look, and nothing more, and you nearly had my man killing you. But, you’re not the only one with gifts, as you can see,” he says, nodding towards the standing Stalker.
I look at the man as he turns back to me, a bullet hole cut into his side, blood spewing to the floor. But there’s no pain on his face, no fear that he might die. He just stands there, his body emptying of blood, waiting for further orders.
“Do you see that, Brie,” crackles Cromwell. “Total and utter loyalty. If I so wish, he will stand there until his body gives out. You may be able to control minds, Brie, but I can control an entire people.”
I stare at him, horrified at his words, and then turn back to the Stalker. Something in me feels sorry for the man, bred to be what he is. He has no choice in the matter, no more than anyone else. And here, right here, his life will end unless his master says otherwise.
“But,” continues Cromwell, “ I’d never waste such a useful resource.” He turns to the Stalker. “Bind his arms until we can have the kill order removed. Then get yourself to the infirmary.”
The man nods, bends down to his unconscious comrade, binds his arms, and then begins walking towards the lift, leaving a trail of crimson in his wake.
And alone now with Cromwell, I know I’m totally helpless. And he does too.
I fix him with a stare, my heart freezing as I look upon him, and a growl issues from my throat.
“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” I ask.
That horrible smile rises once more, and his old neck twists from side to side.
“Oh no, Brie…I have another purpose for you.”
And with those words, I shut my eyes, and think of my brother’s face. And from my mind to his, I simply say…
Forgive me, Zander.
I’ve failed.
THE END
The Enhanced will continue in the next book, Captive.
Part V
CAPTIVE
111
There’s a darkness here that not even my Hawk-eyes can penetrate. An unremitting gloom that gives so little shape to where I am.
All I can make out are the blank features of the walls, surrounding me on each side. It’s a small space, a silent space. A space that could be anywhere.
I don’t know where I am. In the High Tower? Somewhere else in Inner Haven? Outside of the city, perhaps at the REEF, waiting to have my fate revealed?
I just don’t know…
All I do know is that I’ve failed.
Cromwell saw me coming, my plot discovered and revealed to him by Agent Woolf long before I’d managed to get her to my brother. And when I stepped out into that room on level 99, I walked straight into a trap.
And now, everyone in the city is going to pay the penalty.
I search my memories, and find them faded. There’s an ache to my head, a fatigue spreading through my limbs. They’re bound tight, my wrists fastened to the arms of a chair, my ankles to its legs.
I can’t move. I can barely think. Everything in my body and head is dulled and blurred.
The last waking moments I can remember are of Cromwell’s eyes, icy blue, searching me as a needle was jabbed into my arm, drugs sent through my blood. I’d lost consciousness immediately, tied to that chair up on level 99, my mind going blank and heart slowing to a crawl.
And now, here I am, waking in this dark place, with no knowledge of how long I’ve been out, of where I am, of what truly lies in wait for me now.
All I can do is consider the extent of my failure, a failure that will lead to so much death, so much suffering. I should have seen it coming, should have spent a bit of time searching through Woolf’s mind for the truth. I should have realised that it was too easy, that the path had been laid out before me, luring me into Cromwell’s lair.
But then, there are others to blame here too. Others who made my job so difficult, set me this impossible task.
Perhaps, in the end, this was always going to be the result. After all, how could I possibly contend with a man like Cromwell, a woman like Woolf? I’m just a girl of 18, new to all of this.
I was always going to fail.
Sitting there, stewing weakly on my fate, I think of Adryan. He’d have been waiting for my return in our apartment, nervously counting the seconds and minutes until the door knocked and we could escape this place together.
But the door won’t have knocked. It will have been battered down, a force of Stalkers surging in to take him into custody. He’d have known then of my utter failure, of the failure of this plot, so long in the making.
And now, what will become of him? This traitor to his people, this spy within their midst. Of all of us, he’ll be most vilified, a terrible fate of torture and death awaiting him
.
It’s a thought I can’t bear. I screw up my eyes and turn my mind from it, and more memories come, further details of my final moments before that needle punctured my skin.
I’d managed to get one of the Stalkers to try to shoot me dead. I’d done so purely to protect the information in my head from those who will now extract it. To keep that secret path to the underlands hidden, and all those complicit in this plot.
He, like me, had failed. The other Stalker had dashed ahead of me to block the path of the bullet, taking it for himself. Bleeding to death, he’d only left us under the orders of his master. Without Cromwell’s command to get attention, he’d have stood there and let his body empty of blood.
That is the extent to which the Director controls his people.
Once the Stalker had left, I was left alone with the man I’d attempted to assassinate. He’d oozed out a few more details, told me about his huntress, Agent Woolf. How she’d been manipulating Adryan all along, mining his mind for details of what we were up to, before simply covering her tracks afterwards and deleting the memory of her presence.
It was she who removed knowledge of the new gene testing directive from my husband’s mind. I’d been baffled as to why he didn’t know about it, why he hadn’t told me. Now, it makes so much sense. She’d merely eliminated it, forcing me into a situation where my powers would be tested.
All along, she’d been toying with me, with us. She’d let it all play out, let me believe the mission would work, let us both get in so deep that we’d walk right into their trap.
I think of the voice in my head, whispering the name of Rebecca to me, guiding me along the path. Was that her too? Had she fashioned some pathway into my mind, some manner of manipulating me from afar?
Did she allow me this free rein of the High Tower so that I’d be lured into this false sense of security, give myself over to them willingly so that my mind can now be searched for all knowledge I have of the Nameless?