by T. C. Edge
I find him splashed with dried blood and painted in soot and grit, his eyes hidden behind a dark covering of dust. That grimace he wore when he left early this morning doesn’t appear to have lightened, and his usually bright hazel eyes continue to creep out from narrow, weary slits.
I sit with him for a while, happy to see him back safely but still slightly concerned by his demeanour. He slumps wearily against one of the pillars outside the HQ, staring out at the centre of the city that he never saw up close in all its glory, and tells me he returned to the site of Kira’s disappearance looking for clues.
I ask if he found any. He shakes his head, still seeming a little lost.
“Nothing. No trace at all…”
He doesn’t mention what else he got up to that day. But, judging by the state of his clothing, and the mere fact that he said earlier he needed to ‘let off some steam’, I can only assume it involved lots of dead Con-Cops.
He clearly needs to rest, something that’s been lacking for all of us recently, but perhaps him most of all.
“You’ll need it,” I say. “We’re meeting with our…with Cromwell tomorrow.”
I almost said grandfather. It’s right there at the front of my mind. I draw it back in case he should survey my thoughts through instinct and find the truth. In some ways, I wish he would. I promised our grandmother I wouldn’t reveal it, but this wouldn’t be that. This wouldn’t be my fault. It would be nothing but an accident, an unfortunate turn of events.
But, not so unfortunate from my point of view. I still think he should know, sooner rather than later.
He appears too tired to offer much reaction, or even look into my eyes to try to gauge more than I’m revealing in just my words.
“When? Where?” is all he says, still leaning back on that large grey pillar, his eyes staring forward.
“Erm, tomorrow at 4 PM, just outside the western gate. You should speak with Lady Orlando about it.”
He nods, takes a breath, and begins to stand.
“And then get some rest, Zander,” I say as he gets set to trundle off. “Please, for me.”
He draws up a weak smile, and nothing more.
That was a little while ago, before the sun began to settle for the night. Now, with my brother’s safety no longer an immediate concern, I stand and wait for Adryan to return, a straight swap for Alfred by all accounts.
“I prefer working with Adryan,” lady Orlando told me after the meeting earlier.
She did so with a sufficiently bright glint in her eye to make me think that she did it for me as well, perhaps as a means of compensating me for keeping my mouth shut about her true identity, and that of Director Cromwell.
Either way, I can’t deny my delight at the thought of having him back. I still consider the church to be under threat out there, and would much prefer to see Adryan right here with me.
Pacing from side to side, I watch the streets carefully for his return, and eventually catch sight of an armoured vehicle rumbling on through from the northern side of the side. It rolls up towards the City Guard HQ, working its way around the rubble, and comes to a stop a little way down the street.
Marler steps out first from the front, and my mouth curls into a grin. Then, a couple more soldiers empty from the vehicle, with Adryan following behind.
I find myself hurrying straight towards him as his feet hit the streets he’s trodden so often, and his eyes immediately turn towards the central platform where his home once stood.
Yet, my rushing frame is enough to gather up his attention, and he turns to me as I press straight on. Reaching him, I clatter into his arms, completely losing my cool, and feel my body lifted right off the floor as his limbs coil around me, wrapping me up tight.
Hanging from his body, our lips are drawn together, the world disappearing behind my eyes as we kiss. Suspended off the ground, I can feel his heart thudding as our bodies press tight, feel the grip of his strong fingers, digging into my back as he holds me firmly, unwilling to let go.
I feel a tension begin to leave me as we lock together, his presence drawing this stress from me like poison from a wound.
Only here, perhaps, with most of my friends safe and sound, and the direct threat of attack currently muted, am I able to allow myself this moment. Let myself relax in his arms and give in to the desires that I cannot deny.
For a good few moments, he just holds me tight as our lips attach, before gently slipping me from his grasp as I drop back to the ground. Then, with a look of sorrow, his gaze swings back to the platform, and he takes a moment to inspect his old home, crumpled in a heap before him.
There’s no need for words. I slip my hand around his, our fingers interlocking, and stand with him as he surveys the devastation. And, unlike most of his people, he does so with a mourning that marks him out from the rest.
After a few minutes, he nods slowly to himself, draws in a breath, and turns back to me. The smile returns.
“I’d better go and see Lady Orlando. Top floor of the HQ, right?”
“Right,” I say.
“You wanna come too?”
“Sure,” I smile.
Hands still linked together, we set back off to the summit of our base of operations, working down the street, past the pillars, and through the atrium. Adryan surveys it all as we catch up, walking slowly so as to give us a bit of time before Lady Orlando snaps him up and sets him back to work.
For him, the last few days have been strangely slow. For me, they’ve been hectic, filled with highs and lows, losses and kills, the returns of old friends and departures of new ones.
He knows most of what’s been happening, of course, and seems well informed about my personal activities.
“Lady Orlando’s been keeping me up to date,” he informs me when I query him on it. “I’m happy you have your friends back with you. That’s great, Brie, really great. I’d love to meet them…”
“And they’d love to meet you!” I say quickly. “We were only talking about it this morning. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“But you’re happy I am, right?”
He lifts one corner of his mouth into a cheeky grin. I’ve long forgotten that he’s not so naturally inclined as others at showing emotion.
“No, not really,” I counter, flat faced.
He recoils for a moment, as if working out whether I’m joking of not. Then, before my forced expression falters, his own lifts back into a smile.
“You’re joking,” he asserts. “You got me.”
I laugh, and right there see the other side of the coin: his deficiency at being able to fully grasp my sarcasm and humour.
Personally, I find it endearing.
“But, you are happy?” he questions again, just to make sure.
“Very happy,” I beam.
And, just to completely seal the deal, I kiss him again, right there in the foyer.
We continue towards the lifts, and Adryan continues to scan the interior. Then, as we enter and begin to slide up, his sharp mind picks up on our past experience of this place, when he came to pick me up after Woolf’s interrogation.
“You know,” he says. “Now that we’re in control of the building, perhaps you could check the archives for details about your father?”
I smile awkwardly.
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” I say.
We’d discussed exactly this many weeks ago, when he’d promised to try to find information about my parents in exchange for me actually going through with my mission. In the end, neither happened. He still seems guilty about it, his conditioning and desire to always complete a job clearly causing the issue to leap right back into his mind right here in this particular building.
“I’m sorry I never could help on that,” he says. “The archives were on level 12, weren’t they? I recall that’s where you met with Agent Woolf in the SCU, and they were on the same floor. I’ll take a look for you, how about that?”
“Um, no, that’s sweet Adrya
n, but it’s OK. I actually already checked, but, er, there wasn’t anything.”
He frowns and cocks his head a little.
“But, you just said it wasn’t a bad idea, as if you hadn’t looked yet?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve looked, but nothing came up. Thing is, I only know my dad’s first name, so I’d never find him…”
He’s shaking his head already.
“No, that’s not true. You just need time. If you search for all former City Guards with the first name of Maxwell, you’d be able to narrow the search down by their enhancement. In your dad’s case, by looking for Hawks. They also come with pictures, I assume, and you know what your dad looks like, and his general age, so you’d be able to find out from…”
“Stop, Adryan,” I say, the doors to the lift opening on level 15. “Just, leave it. I’m not interested anymore, all right? It doesn’t matter.”
I step out of the lift away from him. He follows behind a second later, a little confused.
“Right, if that’s what you want,” he says, eyeing me closely. “I just thought...”
“It is,” I say. “We both know my parents were taken to the REEF and terminated, just the same as so many others. So let’s drop it.”
I walk quickly down the corridor and away from the conversation. Keeping secrets really isn’t my strong suit, and I can react in strange ways when harassed and pressed.
In the end, all that probably does it make me seem more guilty, or that I’m trying to hide something.
So, half way down the corridor, I stop, spin, and take a breath.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know you’re just trying to help. It’s just, I mean, look at what we’re dealing with out there. With all those people dying, it hardly seems to matter that my parents were killed nearly two decades ago. I’m like Zander now, I’ve pushed it to the back of my head. I’m focusing on the future.”
He listens closely, those silver eyes of his still reading me better than most are able to. Then, he lifts a small smile and just says: “OK, that’s a good attitude.”
It probably is, although it’s not the truth.
The truth is that Director Cromwell is my grandfather, that he destroyed my family, and that if my last act on this earth is to take his life, I’ll consider mine to be one well lived.
205
My reunion with Adryan is brief, and somewhat indicative of the flow of our relationship. A passionate kiss, a deep sense of longing, followed by a little bit of bickering and the swamp of seriousness that always seems to blight any private time we get together.
I expect it to all be topped off by a long evening spent in the service of the rebel leader, for him at least, but am pleasantly surprised on that front. After being told to wait outside by Lady Orlando, I find Adryan rejoining me only a few minutes later.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He raises his eyebrows and lightly shrugs his shoulders.
“I’ve been given the evening off to get settled in,” he says. His eyes work their way towards the lift at the far end of the corridor. “Apparently my quarters are on the floor below.”
“Right, so you can be called here quickly if you need to be.”
“I suppose so,” he says. “I’d actually hoped…”
He doesn’t conclude the sentence, but I don’t need to read his mind to understand what he was about to say.
I’m very much feeling the same.
We go there now, though, checking him into the office-turned bedroom on level 14. Up here, the offices are a little larger, and his room is situated on the northern facing extremity of the building, giving him a view of the streets below.
We’re both drawn there upon entering – as with all other rooms here, there’s nothing else to draw the eye – and look out over the carcass of the High Tower from this loftier vantage point.
I choose not to zoom in with my eyes, though, for fear of catching sight of some corpse through a gap in the rubble. Right now, I’d rather avoid anything too macabre if possible.
“They’re cleaning it up fast,” remarks Adryan looking down. “Soon enough, it’ll be like the High Tower was never there.”
“Yeah, you could say the same about a lot of buildings in this city,” I say. “I’ve been through the north, west, and south in the last few days. There’s a lot of rubble about. A lot of places are too far gone to be rebuilt.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same as this,” he says, staring at the place that marks such a tragedy for his people.
Not that he has much love for them. But still, they’re his people nonetheless.
He turns from the sight, away from the window, and his eyes glide over the makeshift bed set up for him on the floor. I assume it was Alfred’s before he was swapped out and relegated to the church. Now, it’ll be the timid stutterer who needs to deal directly with Rhoth.
I feel sorry for the man. I really do.
“So, how’s Rhoth doing?” I ask.
Adryan’s eyes do a little roll.
“Difficult,” he says. “The man has no patience at all. He seems to get more erratic by the day.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know really. These tribal people are beyond my understanding sometimes. I’d like to study them some more, find out what makes them tick. I guess that was the only good thing about staying there.”
“What, watching Rhoth get more and more erratic?” I smile.
“Yeah, it was, um, interesting. He seems to be unwilling to call me Adryan. Always just refers to me as Mr Savant, as if I’m the only one. He tries to be intimidating sometimes, but that doesn’t really work on me. Alfred may have a more difficult time.”
I laugh at the image, although feel that pang of sympathy for the poor guy.
“Rhoth actually seems quite harmless to me,” I say. “At least, given our arrangement, he is. That’s what’s aggravating him, right? Our lack of immediate support for his war?”
“Seems to be,” says Adryan. “I suppose I understand his reasoning and fears.”
“And what are they?”
“That the Bear-Skins may retaliate for what happened when you passed through. Bjorn is, by all accounts, a rather hot-tempered man.”
“Oh, I should say so,” I huff. “And man would be an understatement. He is seriously gigantic. Must be at least part-Brute, although might well be a full one.”
“Yes, and perhaps that explains the rage. Brutes walk a fine line sometimes. They can turn into beasts if they’re not properly managed. And living out there in the wilds, his madness hasn’t had any such restraints.”
My mind steps back to seeing Titus’ fury only a couple of days ago. To see someone usually so mild-mannered explode like that was quite frightening.
“I don’t see what Rhoth has to worry about, though,” I suggest. “The woods in the west are too dangerous at the moment, what with Cromwell’s Stalkers creeping around the place. I’m not sure even Bjorn is foolish enough to strike there now.”
“He probably doesn’t know about any of that,” says Adryan. “And, that’s another concern for Rhoth – having his people hunted by the Stalkers. He’s considering bringing his whole tribe closer to the church for security, but then they’ll be closer to the Bear-Skins and the city. I mean, his concerns are understandable. I think he just wants his people to be safe.”
“It’s the same for us all I suppose. I thought he was just being impatient about taking out his enemies, but this is more understandable. Lady Orlando did mention a force was being gathered, though. Do you know anything about that?”
“Probably no more than you do. You’ve got her inner ear more than anyway by the looks of things.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just that she cares about you. That much is obvious. And Zander too. I suppose it’s because you’re his twin, and she’s looked out for him for so long…”
“Mmmm,” I mumble. “That’s all it is.”
With the evening our own, I deci
de that now would be a good time to introduce Adryan to Brenda, Tess, and the rest of the kids from the academy. Returning to the atrium, we work our way onto the main concourse outside and towards Compton’s Hall.
When we arrive, we find dinnertime underway. At various points along one wall, food stations have been erected for the distribution of rations. The people line up for their food before returning to their little units to eat, each of them given a fairly meagre allowance that suggests food stocks are a slight concern.
“That’ll be because of all the Con-Cops in the eastern quarter,” says Adryan as we discuss the point. “All food production has been shut down, so they’re probably just being careful. Who knows when we’ll be able to retake those factories and get things up and running again.”
“They’re only Con-Cops, though,” I say. “They don’t put up much of a fight against proper soldiers.”
“No, but this would be different. It’s not warfare on the streets and in the open. And who knows, maybe they’ve wired all the factories to blow in case they’re attacked.”
“Sounds like something Cromwell would do,” I grumble. “Anything to keep some measure of control.”
We continue on towards the rear, where I spy my friends waiting patiently in line for their rations. Unlike many others here, they’re used to living off smaller portions, partly because of their age and nutritional requirements, and partly because it’s the best Mrs Carmichael could do when responsible for feeding so many.
It’s to my guardian that we go, managing the kids as usual and making sure they all get fed, ably supported by Tess of course.
They both spot us coming, and both immediately step out of the line towards us.
“Well now,” says Brenda. “Is this the mysterious Adryan?”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Carmichael,” he says, reaching out with a stiff hand.
She slides right by it and draws him into a hug. Tess then sees an opening and does the same.
“We’ve heard a lot,” says my best friend, withdrawing. “How come you’re here? Last we heard this morning, you were outside the city?”