by T. C. Edge
She takes a breath and looks down the alley. I see her ears quickly prick, her nostrils sniff, her eyes narrow as if conducting a swift check of her surroundings.
Then, she looks at the Brute again, and simply says: “Yes, we killed people in the High Tower, we can’t deny that. But in doing so, we wished to save countless more. It will weigh heavy on all of us forever. That is the price we pay, and we pay it gladly.”
A silence falls. It seems to last an age as the wind whips through the alley, fluttering some loose bits of trash. I cast my gaze to the sky, and see some wispy white clouds gliding by, storming overhead on a strong wind. And behind, the sun peeks through, only just starting to take its bow on this long, long day.
One, like so many others, that I’ll never forget.
But always wish to.
Once more, as the silence swamps us all, I see Kira react to something. Her eyes drop into a frown, and she cocks her head a little to one side.
And then, a few seconds after, I hear it too. A sound of electronic static, buzzing around ahead of the concert hall, and away off through the streets all over the city. We all look to each other, and then begin moving as one down the alley, drawn by the sound.
Reaching the end, I look out and see the large screens across the square beginning to glow to life. There are a number of them, just outside the hall, and others off down the street too, fixed to tall buildings at major intersections.
The screens glow blue for a moment, fizzing and crackling, before a figure starts to materialise. And as it comes into focus, I see a face that will be being beamed all over the city, all across the public screens and advertising boards, the old archaic TVs and modern holograms, watched by the people in their homes and houses.
It’s a face that every man, woman, and child in the city needs to see.
It’s the face of Lady Orlando.
184
We all stand at the edge of the alley, looking up in silence.
For a moment, Lady Orlando stares ahead, her greying eyes unblinking. Then, as if playing to the camera and the thousands she knows are watching, a small, closed smile lifts the corners of her mouth, and she sets a twinkle to her eye.
Her first words boom out from the speakers all across the street. And all other streets too, stretching from this district to the next, all over the city of Haven.
“Good afternoon to you all,” she begins, her voice practiced and precise. “To the men, women, and children of Haven. To the civilians and soldiers, to all those fighting for their survival, and the survival of those they love. My name is Lady Orlando, and I am the leader of the Nameless…”
She stops for a moment, as if letting her words settle. As if giving everyone not in front of a screen a chance to find one.
Then, she goes on.
“The last few days have seen this city reduced to war. It is a state that we, the Nameless, have been fighting to avoid for many years. And through those years, you have been lied to, manipulated, turned into slaves. We have come to free you all. We have come to save you.”
I glance up at Titus as she speaks. He does the same to me, and then Kira, our leader’s words mimicking our own.
I look back to the screen, and wonder where Lady Orlando is. By the sounds of her voice, she’s in an enclosed space, the background bland. Most likely it’s her new office at the summit of the City Guard HQ.
“Many of you listening to me will have your doubts. I would be disappointed if you didn’t. To doubt something is natural. It keeps us safe from harm, makes us wary of things we don’t yet trust or fully understand. So let me tell you exactly who I am.”
She takes a breath, and shuts her eyes very briefly. When they open, the smile slides away, and some pain appears behind them, the network of wrinkles spreading for their corners seeming to deepen and multiply.
“I was once of Inner Haven,” she says quietly. “I was once of the High Tower. I lived there at a time when all Savants did. It may surprise you to know that I am one of them myself.”
Titus and Magnus’ eyes widen. They stare, transfixed to the screen.
“When I was a younger woman, I had a child, a daughter. She was taken from me. This is the custom of the High Tower. To take children from their parents when they’re born. To raise them in communal nurseries so their parents can be free of the burden of love, of caring. Free to continue their work without distraction, while their children are raised elsewhere. It is a custom that most of you will find repellent, yet one that few in the High Tower ever questioned. That is our nature, to lack emotion, to see only logic. It is a nature that we cannot change or escape.”
She goes silent for a moment, letting the truth dawn for all those who aren’t aware of it. I look again at the two Brutes to see if they knew, and wonder just how many of the Enhanced are aware of the realities of the High Tower and the lives of the Savants within.
As I inspect them, noting the sympathy in their eyes, Lady Orlando continues her tale.
“Some, however,” she says, “do fight back against such immorality and injustice. I was one of them. For so many years, I stayed quiet, conforming as I was supposed to, as I was bred to. But, eventually, something changed in me, and I found myself unable to keep from speaking out against the doctrines of my own people. For that, I was banished to the REEF, sent for execution, purely for loving the daughter I never really knew.”
I watch and listen with bated breath, wondering if she’ll reveal who her husband was, who it was who sent her to the REEF in the first place. Cromwell, rising to the summit of the City Guard, was the very man to sign the execution order.
She continues to maintain her composure, recounting the brief history of her life with a calm assurance. Even though I’ve heard it already, I feel gripped.
“I was sent to the REEF,” she repeats, “for loving my child, and it was Director Cromwell himself who sent me there. Back then, he was Deputy Commander of the City Guard. Back then, he was my husband…”
I feel the recoil across the streets. Magnus, Titus, Kira, they all stand, mouths agape as she drops the bomb. I even hear a gasp off-camera, the person operating it clearly shocked by the reveal.
And though I already know it, I am too. I never expected it, but realise now that it humanises her greatly, while serving to spell out Cromwell as the awful villain he is.
“He was my husband,” she says again, drumming it in. “And he was the father of the child I loved. Yet still, he sent me to my death without a second thought. He followed the dogma of the High Tower with no caring at all. He sent me on the path I now stand on, one that had me escape from the clutches of death and sit here before you today.
“I am a Savant, and yet here I am, telling you all it doesn’t have to be this way. Telling you that the future Director Cromwell was building would lead only to your destruction. It was he who devised and created the Fanatics, he who masterminded the terrible terrorist plots around the city, he who forced you all to live in fear and willingly give yourself up for reconditioning.
“He has strangled the life from this city, turning normal people into slaves. And if he were allowed to continue, all of you, from the far reaches of the outer quarters, to all of the Enhanced living in Inner Haven, would be eliminated from his world.”
Her words end abruptly. I hear a collective intake of breath from the three companions beside me. I stare, heart pounding, wondering just how anyone could continue to deny us after this. Wondering how anyone, barring the most fervent of Cromwell’s supporters, could not be convinced by Lady Orlando’s honesty and passion.
She fills her lungs and speaks again, her words speeding with more purpose than ever.
“Director Cromwell promised all of you that your fears would be supressed. In doing so, those who submitted to his will were merely added to his army of servants. But right now, right here, I offer you the same. We have taken Inner Haven, and will make sure it lives up to its name.
“For anyone who wishes to be free of fear,
Inner Haven will become your sanctuary. Come to us, and we will protect you, feed you, give you water. We will show you that we do not discriminate, we do not hate. We only wish to see all the people in this city given the equal right to live, and to live free.
“And now, I speak directly to the many City Guards still occupying the streets of Outer Haven. We are not your enemy, but your friend. Our ranks are filled with people like you, good people who wish only to protect this city. We have hybrids, forced to live in secret and fear should they be discovered and destroyed. We have Enhanced defectors who have seen the light, been shown the true nature of those they once served. We have some of your own, City Guards who have blazed the trail for you to follow. Truly, we are one and the same, and there is no further need for senseless death.
“I invite you, too, to come and join us. To break free from the spell Director Cromwell and the Consortium have put you under. To mend the ties that have divided us, and come together for the common good. Inner Haven is your home, and you are welcome to return.”
As she speaks, I look to the Brute brothers, still hypnotised by the huge face of Lady Orlando up on the screen across the street. If this doesn’t convince Titus, I don’t have a clue what will…
A few final words come, a final push from the Lady of the Nameless to mend this fractured city, or at least begin that process.
“I hope,” she says, “I have shown many of you something that, perhaps, you’ve refused to believe, or been in denial about. But I understand, too, that my words can only do so much, and many of you will continue to distrust me. So let me show you just what Director Cromwell and the Consortium are capable of. Let me show you their future…”
As her final words come, the screen changes. Her face disappears, replaced by what looks like security footage from drones and other cameras, footage mined, most likely, from the archives of the City Guard HQ.
I see images of things I know and have heard about, but never seen. Video of people sitting in large metal chairs surrounded by equipment, arms and legs locked tight and strange helmets on their heads. I see the process of reconditioning playing out in real time, normal people having their minds scooped clean and filled with the single directive the Consortium wish them to see through.
I see the creation of Con-Cops and other slaves. I see the pain that such a process entails, the fear in the faces of those about to go through the procedure, realising that they’ve made a terrible mistake. I see footage of executions too, and other awful experiments conducted on innocent people, and the mass graves that result, filled with the dead that are yet to be burned.
I see such terrible things that, even after what I’ve witnessed, what I’ve done, force me to grimace and squint through tight eyes. And to my side, the Brutes do the same, looking on in horror and shame, the images having more of an impact than Lady Orlando’s words ever could.
It lasts for a couple of minutes, before the screens fade out once more to black, and the city falls back into a desperate silence. I look at Kira and see that she, like me, is inspecting the faces of the Brutes, eager to see what impact all this has had on them, a barometer perhaps for many other City Guards across Outer Haven.
I look into their faces and see more than just what my eyes take in. I feel it exuding from them both; a disgust, a terrible anger at the high Savants who command them.
And then, burgeoning from within the brief silence, I hear a noise begin to build, footsteps and voices and a heavy murmuring spreading from the concert hall down the road.
I turn, and see the double doors opening up, and a crowd of people begin to spread out onto street.
Normal men and women, and children with them, come pouring, a few City Guards among them trying to maintain control, maintain order. And I know, as I look at them, that they’ve all seen what I have, that the large screens inside the hall will have played out what we’ve just witnessed.
I stare forward, ready to move, my heartbeat heaving as my Hawk-eyes scan the scene. And then, within the thrashing throng, I pick out the very people I came here to find.
Mrs Carmichael, with Tess and the kids of the academy alongside, comes hobbling out into the road.
And I rush straight for them.
185
It’s a great mess outside the hall as the bodies come rushing. A fire has been lit, one the City Guards are unable to quench. I burst straight forward, battling through the horde, calling out for my guardian as I go.
She hears me immediately, stopping on her old legs. One looks injured, wrapped up in a bandage, her already weakened old frame forced to work that little bit harder.
“Brie!” she calls.
The mention of my name has the rest seeing me too. Tess is the first to react, my best friend hunting me straight down, her own stab wound looking as though it’s well on the mend by the way she moves. She coils me up into her arms as we clash right there in the crowd.
“Brie, what the hell are you doing here?!” she shouts over the din.
“I’m here for you, to take you all to safety. We have a van…”
“We?”
I turn to see that Kira is hovering nearby, watching proceedings closely. Amid the rush, the City Guards appear to have completely ignored us both, many of them coming to terms with what they’ve just seen.
“That’s my friend, Kira,” I say, pointing out the fiery redhead. “She’s a hybrid like me. We’re taking you to Inner Haven.”
“Yeah, we all just saw the film. Looks like we’ll have plenty of company,” she shouts.
As she speaks, I feel a set of tiny arms wrap around my waist. I look down and see Abby clutched tight to my trunk, nuzzling her head right between my gun holster and immobiliser baton.
Mrs Carmichael, meanwhile, continues to hobble over, flanked by the rest of the kids, big and small, and making sure none are being swept away by the tide.
“You saw the footage?” she calls out to me. “So that’s Lady Orlando, is it? Quite the woman.”
“I think you’d get along great,” I call, moving closer to her. I draw her into a hug and look down to her leg. “What happened?”
She brushes it off in typical fashion.
“Ah, nothing really. Chunk of shrapnel got me when we made our way here. Nothing to worry about.”
“Right, well we’ve got transport so it’s all good. How’s everyone else? They all here?”
I look up, from one face I recognise to the next. Some are friends, living at the academy for years. Other I know less intimately, more recent additions to the gang. Then there are a few who draw a completely blank in my mind, most probably stragglers Mrs Carmichael has taken under her wing. It’s just the sort of thing she’d do.
Yet, whether old or new, they all gaze at me like they never have before. Now, they all know just what I am, something that’s very much backed up by my appearance, draped in my dark grey and black uniform, weaponised and militarised and armed to the teeth.
I’m hardly the girl I was.
Mrs Carmichael confirms that we have everyone, doing a quick check once more, her lips mumbling away as she runs through the names. Once she’s done, I unclasp Abby from my hip, take her little hand, and begin moving us away down the street to where Kira waits.
And right there with her, the Brute brothers stand, drawing the amazed eyes of each and every child.
“This must be the famous Brenda Carmichael,” says Kira. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”
“Why…thank you very much young lady,” says Mrs Carmichael. “And your name is?”
“Kira, and I’m here with Brie to escort you to Inner Haven.”
“Well, isn’t that efficient,” says Mrs Carmichael, nodding around to the kids. “How did you know we were here?”
My mind switches back only a few hours, and the sight of Nate lying dead on that cold slab. Now isn’t the time to tell her.
“We have our spies,” I say, before Kira can speak. “The van’s just around the corner...”
“You boys coming then?” I ask.
Magnus looks to his big brother. Titus nods, half reluctantly, half vacantly.
“Great,” I smile. “If one of you could carry Brenda here, that would be great.”
“Allow me,” booms Magnus, striding forward.
The kids scatter like frightened mice as he comes, reaching down to scoop Mrs Carmichael up into his arms.
“Oooo,” she exclaims, “it’s been a long time since I was whisked off my feet.”
“Well, aren’t I the lucky one,” grins Magnus. “Now, Brie, lead on.”
In actual fact, it’s Kira who leads on, bustling away as Mrs Carmichael shouts orders to the kids from Magnus’ muscular arms, and Tess does her best to corral them into position like a rancher with a herd of cattle.
Titus, meanwhile, seems to still be caught in two minds. A call from one of his colleagues, another City Guard over amid the throng, seems to be the catalyst he needs.
“Titus, where are you going with those kids?!” the man shouts.
I look at the Brute as the rest bustle off.
He heaves in a mighty breath and then calls out: “I’m going to Inner Haven, and I suggest you all come too…”
His voice is so loud, his lungs so vast, that it’s as though he’s connected to one of the huge speakers up above us. His words ring out across the street, and many others, besides the intended target, hear him.
Or maybe that was the plan, to show his stance, to be a man for the others to follow, so mighty as he is.
I look at him and smile.