Into Darkness (A Night Prowler Novel)

by J. T. Geissinger

  I pretended to be just as horrified and shocked as everyone else, but now there will be an inquiry. The Elimination Campaign will have the Inquisitor out to interview everyone at the Hospice first thing in the evening. Just like six months ago, when I overheard the Hospice Administrator call her guests “cows awaiting the slaughter,” and every mirror in the place shattered.

  State-sponsored euthanasia is a fact of life in New Vienna, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Along with rations, sun poisoning, and the televised hangings of Dissenters, frying anyone over seventy-five in the CineratorTM after a lethal, “humane” dose of SleepSoft-9 is something I’ll never quite be able to stomach.

  First Formers don’t have to worry about growing old, though. Money can buy a lot of luxuries here, as many extra years as you need. In a world run by a corporation only one thing really matters: profit.

  Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can survive before the wild, snarling thing inside me breaks free once and for all, and tears this frail and shallow world to shreds.

  Thorne help us all if the monster inside me ever gets out.

  ONE

  December 25, 2037

  New Vienna, Austria

  Lumina Bohn awoke in the sultry semidarkness to the sound of gunfire.

  The sound was off in the distance, a sharp rat-a-tat that shattered the eerie quiet of Curfew. She jerked upright on her pallet, heart racing, then held perfectly still, straining her ears, awaiting the final burst.

  There was always one more burst.

  Through the sooty window across her cramped bedroom glowed the neon beacon of the megascreen, broadcasting the Imperial Federation’s tagline, “One World In Harmony,” throughout the district. A glance at the slowly rotating screen atop the south tower of what used to be St. Stephen’s Cathedral showed the time as 5:17pm IFST. Curfew didn’t end for another three quarters of an hour.

  As another volley of gunfire rang out, Lu said a silent prayer for the poor soul who’d broken it.

  A tap on her bedroom door, then her father’s head popped through. “Liebling? Ist alles in ordnung?”

  He was whispering, the survivalist habit of one long used to hiding. Behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his brown eyes shone with worry. He knew too well how much she hated the sound of gunfire.

  “Yes. I’m fine,” Lu lied, noticing how deep the grooves around his mouth had become. His once-dark hair had, overnight it seemed, paled to gray. In his faded dressing gown and house slippers, he reminded her of one of the guests at the Hospice. The thought made her shiver. He still had six more years before they’d have to face that, and Lu tried hard never to think of it.

  She tried hard never to think of a great many things.

  He switched from German to English. “Can you go back to sleep? You still have a few hours before work.”

  He looked hopeful, but they both knew she’d never go back to sleep now. Beyond the obvious horror of what gunfire during Curfew meant, there was something darker that prickled her skin and soured her stomach at the sound. Some ancient monster buried deep in her psyche blinked open yellow eyes and lifted its head, hackles raised.

  That monster she feared more than anything else, even more than discovery by the Inquisitor.

  “No. I think I’ll go in early today. We could use the extra credits.”

  “All right. I’ll put the coffee on.” Her father swung shut the door, and Lu heard the shuffle of his footsteps all the way down the stairs.

  She scrubbed her gloved hands across her face, rose from the bed, and went down the hall into the bathroom they shared. The dying rays of the sun filled their apartment with a dim red light, filtered through the cloud cover, soupy and opaque. She removed the lightweight night gloves, laid them on the ledge above the sink, and stared down at her bare hands.

  Tattoos decorated the inside of both wrists. The left showed a birdcage, empty, its wire door cocked open. The right showed a trio of birds in flight, wings spread wide open as they soared. A constellation of tattoos decorated her body, including a quote from The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, on her rib cage, the zodiac sign for twins on her right ankle—it spoke to her, for all its meaninglessness to reality; she was a Virgo, not a Gemini—and a fire-breathing dragon curled around her belly button, but the birds were her favorite.

  When she was seventeen, she’d read Lolita by Nabokov—that one wasn’t on the banned list—and a quote from the book had stuck in her mind like a burr, refusing to shake loose. “I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze, I cannot get out, said the starling.”

  The words had resonated in the deepest level of her heart. Lu understood exactly how that little starling felt. When she pressed her wrists together, seeing her own tattoo starlings fly free, it made her feel a little better.

  Keeping a careful eye on the digital water meter on the wall above the tap, she brushed her teeth and washed her face, then combed her fingers through her long, wavy hair and braided it. The single plait fell nearly to her waist. She returned to her room and pulled on the Hospice’s standard-issue gray trousers and belted coat over the thin leggings and tank she’d worn to bed, then laced up her favorite pair of boots. The shoe vendor at the market had called them “combat” boots, a name Lu liked. She’d bartered ten water credits for them, a pricey trade but worth it; she spent most of her shift at the Hospice on her feet, and the boots were supremely comfortable, if ugly.

  Lu didn’t care about pretty exteriors. She knew even the most beautiful things could be worm-eaten on the inside.

  A quick check in the cracked mirror above the tiny bureau to make sure her appearance was in order, her usual stuck-out tongue at the reflection of the large red Third Form badge sewn into the lapel, then she made her way down the narrow staircase to the first floor.

  Her father was in the kitchen, frowning at a pan of water on the stove. He turned when she came in, held out an empty tin, shrugged an apology. “Forgot to buy more matches. Can’t put the coffee on for another half hour. Sorry, liebling.”

  The stove was wood burning, but also had electrical ignition switches, a hybrid necessity in a city where electricity was only available during certain hours. Lu needed neither, but her father had strictly forbidden any hint of zauber from her, no matter that they were inside and no one could possibly find out.

  “It’s all right. I’ll get a coffee at work. And I’ll pick up some matches on the way home. Anything else we need from the market?”

  Looking around the threadbare kitchen, her father made an amused noise she translated to Is there anything else we don’t need? Staring at the nearly empty cupboard shelves, he sighed. “It might be time for me to trade a few more books.”

  “No.” Her emphatic response made her father raise his brows, and Lu shook her head. “I’ll ask for extra hours next shift. We’re not trading any more of your blacklisted books. It’s too dangerous.”

  Her father chuckled and sent her a warm smile. “I think it’s not the danger you’re worried about, little bookworm. I think it’s which one of your favorites I might trade next.”

  “Psh.” Lu waved the comment away, but he was right. Reading transported her to other worlds so much finer and more interesting than her own. She’d rather give her eyeteeth than give up any more books, no matter how hungry they became.

  She crossed to the icebox, yanked open the door, and peered inside. She had to smother the pang of alarm at what little lurked inside. Putting on a bright voice, she said, “Okay. Breakfast. We’ve got a delicious-looking rind of”—unable to discern the color of the wedge of cheese beneath its layer of fuzzy blue mold, she sniffed—“cheddar. We’ve got a very perky head of cabbage.” Her father snorted. The cabbage was decidedly unperky. “We’ve got three cans of BioVite, two FitCakes, and something that looks like it used to be a sausage.” She paused. “Or maybe a banana.”

  Her father peered over her shoulder. �
�We haven’t had fresh fruit in weeks. Whatever that thing is, it’s definitely not a banana.”

  Lu’s sigh matched the one her father had made moments earlier. “All right. BioVite or FitCake?”

  “Let me get out of my dressing gown before I’m forced to make such a gourmet decision, child.” He patted her on the shoulder and began to shuffle from the kitchen. Watching him go, shoulders slumped, hair in disarray, his gait that of a man utterly bereft of hope, Lu felt something inside her chest harden.

  As soon as he’d vanished upstairs, she went to the stove, and pulled open the square firebox door. Then she lifted her bare left hand, flexed open her palm, and gave a small push.

  The pile of wood inside burst into merry flame.

  Lu shut the door, latched it, and stood watching the pan of water on the stovetop until her father returned.

  He stopped short in the doorway. Dressed in meticulously clean but worn clothes that included a cardigan with mended elbows, and his trademark black fedora, he looked at the simmering water in the pan, looked at her bare hands, looked into her eyes with a question, with that familiar flare of fear in his own.

  “Found a stray match in the cupboard,” she lied, turning back to the stove. “You can have coffee with your FitCake. Should make it go down a little easier.”

  Her father was silent a long while, long enough for the water to boil and Lu to pour it into two mugs, and stir in the dried coffee crystals. When finally she turned and held out a mug to him, he took it with only a murmured word of thanks, not meeting her eyes. They sat down at the kitchen table together and ate their breakfast and drank their coffee, neither one willing to mention the gunfire or the stove fire or all the other unspeakable things that lurched and stomped through the landscape of their lives.

  The bells inside the old cathedral began to toll, signaling the end of Curfew.

  Her father whispered, “It’s Christmas Day.”

  Lu nodded, surprised as always that his faith was still intact after everything. And that he dared to speak the word Christmas aloud. It was just as dangerous as what she’d done with the pan of water.

  “Your mother would be proud of you, Lumina.”

  Startled, Lu glanced up at her father. He stared back at her with unblinking intensity, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “I wish you’d had more time together. I wish the cancer hadn’t been quite so aggressive. I know how hard it’s been for you, growing up without a mother. Growing up so . . . different.” He swallowed and looked away.

  “She always called you our little miracle,” he said in a strained voice, staring out the small kitchen window into the alley beyond. The view was of the building next door to theirs, identical rows of concrete housing that were nervous looking in the red-dressed twilight. “We wanted a baby so badly, but it never happened. Then one day you came, years after we’d stopped trying. Just . . . out of the blue, there you were.” He turned his gaze back to her. “That was the happiest day of my life. Seeing your mother so happy . . . it was the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.”

  Lu was aware that her mouth was open. She was aware of a dull roar in her ears, and the feel of her pulse pounding hard through her veins, but she wasn’t paying attention to any of that because her father was talking about her mother, something he hadn’t done since she’d died when Lu was six years old.

  What could this possibly mean?

  He reached across the table and grabbed her wrist. “You have to be careful, Lumina,” he said with vehemence, his eyes burning hers. “Today, at work. They’re going to question everyone, you can’t do anything to stand out—”

  “The call from the Prefect last night,” she guessed.

  “Yes.”

  The hair on her arms prickled. “I can handle the inquiry, you know that. I’ve always been fine before—”

  “It won’t just be the Inquisitor this time, Lu.” Her father’s face had gone a startling waxen gray.

  “What do you mean?”

  He swallowed. The pause that followed seemed cavernous. “The Grand Minister will be there, too.”

  All the blood drained from her face. Her father tightened his grip on her wrist.

  “No matter what happens, you can’t lose your temper. You can’t let your control slip. One false move and you’ll be collared, then . . . then . . .”

  He couldn’t say it, but Lu knew the word he was choking on.

  Cleaned.

  Killed, only worse, because she’d still be alive, trapped inside a body immobilized by drugs, her marrow harvested from her bones, her stem cells harvested for reengineering. A single Aberrant could provide enough genetic material to make potentially millions in profits from the medicines the Phoenix Corporation created from their captive donors. Rumor had it the donors were kept alive for years; some even said there were donors from decades ago, right after the Flash, zombies in rows staring up at the same patch of ceiling since they were caught.

  “I won’t go to work,” Lu whispered. “We’ll run right now. Our bug-out bags are still ready; we have guns, money, papers—”

  “No, Lumina.” Her father’s voice was sad, his eyes even sadder. “I’m too old to run now. I’d only slow you down. You’ll have to go by yourself, liebling.”

  “If I run, the first one they’ll punish is you! I’m not going anywhere without you!”

  It wouldn’t be mere punishment, Lu knew. Her father would be made an example of. His death for high treason would be protracted, gruesome, and televised for all the world to see. In the Federation, harboring an Aberrant was a capital crime.

  Her father drew a long, labored breath and dropped his gaze to the table. His grip on her wrist loosened. He patted her hand. “If you won’t go, the only choice is to try and fool them. But the Grand Minister won’t be so easily fooled.” His eyes, now full of warning, flashed up to hers. “He knows what to look for. He knows all the signs. Jakob says the man is clever as the devil himself.”

  Jakob was the leader of the underground church, a man her father admired and trusted. Lu trusted him far less—all zealots struck her as unhinged, whether they were religious, members of the Elimination Campaign, or their Aberrant-loving opponents, the Dissenters—but she had a hunch on this the wild-eyed Jakob was right. The Grand Minister’s prowess at sniffing out a hidden Aberrant was legendary. Some said he had a sixth sense for it.

  A cold sweat broke out beneath her armpits. “Do I wear my gloves?”

  “If you don’t, it will look suspicious.”

  “If I do, it will look suspicious!”

  Her father nodded sadly. “You have little choice but to try and behave as normally as possible, as if you know nothing. As if you’re just like everyone else.”

  They stared at each other. Lu had been trying to be just like everyone else her entire life. Trying and failing. A thought arrested her. “Why did the Prefect call to warn you?”

  A thin smile curved her father’s lips. “Not everything is as it seems, liebling. The face we show the world isn’t always the face we see in the mirror. You of all people should know that.”

  The revelation hit her like a punch in the gut: The Prefect was a Dissenter. Shocked, she lifted a hand to cover her mouth. Cold and clammy, a flood of guilt for what she’d done all those years ago to Annika at the market flashed over her.

  “You’re going to be all right,” her father assured her, gently patting her arm again. “You’re smart, child. Just control your temper, keep your head down, and everything will be all right.”

  She would keep her head down. But what if the monster inside her wouldn’t?

  Walking to work, with a second cup of coffee in hand, through the winding, cobblestone streets swamped with pedestrians and bicyclists and the occasional horse-drawn carriage—people thronged the streets immediately after Curfew was lifted as if they’d been spat out of the buildings—Lu tried
to calm herself by humming. A habit she’d learned as a child when she’d awoken from a nightmare, she hummed the song her father used to sing to coax her to sleep.

  Svetlo tve daleko vidi,

  Po svete bloudis sirokem,

  Divas se v pribytky lidi . . .

  It was from a Czech opera called Song to the Moon, about the daughter of a water-goblin who desperately wants to become human after she falls in love with a hunter/prince who frequents the lake in which she lives. She asks the moon to reveal her love to the prince, to awaken him from his dreams so he will come and be with her.

  Lu had never seen the moon. Or the stars. Or been in love. All of them existed in the same fairy-tale place as the water-goblin’s daughter, imaginary and utterly out of reach.

  She glanced up at the sullen sky above, glowering with its usual load of impenetrable oxblood clouds. Hard to believe there was blue somewhere far above, blue like a wide-open eye with a yellow sun hung in the middle of it, blindingly bright. She’d seen pictures in IF-issued history books—look what was taken from us, look what those Aberrant bioterrorists did!—and imagined for a moment what that blazing sun might feel like on her face.

  Blistering, that’s what. Her lips skewed to a wry pucker.

  Even through the thick layer of clouds, the sun up in that blue sky beyond was vicious enough to kill during daylight hours. The few Third Formers desperate enough to break Curfew in search of food or water inevitably found that out. Even if they escaped the Peace Guard, the sun showed no mercy. Only after twilight was it safe.

  Safe being a relative term.

  Still looking at the sky, Lu bumped into something hard. Coffee sloshed from the mug and splattered her face, trickling down her chin and neck.

  “Scheisse,” she muttered, at the same moment someone said, “Aufpassen!”

  Attention. The word was as hard as a slap against her cheek. When she jerked her head up and looked into the eyes of the person who’d said it, her heart dropped into her stomach.

  He was tall, broad, and hawk-nosed, with a cutthroat smile and eyes that never blinked, in the way of a snake. His uniform was crisp, the brass medals on his chest gleamed in the light from the streetlamp. The automatic weapon slung over his shoulder gleamed, too.