“You mean Jed? What about him?”
“Did you kill him?”
“What?” they asked, simultaneously.
“That was what I heard.”
“Of course Scott didn’t kill him. He just wasn’t allowed to be a Black Jacket anymore."
“He’s sleeping about twenty feet from here, if you’d like to check.”
“No, I believe you.”
“You really thought I executed one of my own men for talking smack, and killed the Truands because I felt like it?”
“No… I mean…”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“When you say them out loud, they seem so much more silly.”
“Rumors tend to work that way.”
“At least you’re better than that crazy doctor,” I said, removing my blanket from the kids. Cindy and Ben seemed to be doing fine, and I was freezing from being without it for only a minute.
“Crazy doctor? Are you talking about Revy?”
“I think that’s his name. I don’t know who it was that let him be a doctor, but they should be fired.”
We all laughed, but quietly.
“He’s just desensitized from how much bad stuff he’s seen. I think everyone here has lost someone in that clinic, whether to infections, injuries or addictions.”
“Have you?” I asked him. I was intrigued to find out more about Scott, whom I had, only an hour ago, thought of as an even bigger monster than the ferals.
“Yeah. I lost my mom.”
When he said that, I became filled with even more guilt for ever buying into the myths and rumors surrounding this young man.
“How did it happen?”
“It’s not important. It was a long time ago.”
The Sapien Black Jacket, Vera, nuzzled against his cheek.
“I lost my husband about a year ago,” I admitted to them.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. It was hard at first, but I really should have been expecting it. He worked so hard just to keep us comfortable. He walked across the Sunset District for his low paying job every day; never late even once. He was the love of my life, but…” I started to cry. “The first time I found one of his vials, I knew it was over. He died five years and one child later, and, for most of that time, I was mad. I yelled and kicked him, but I wasn’t angry at him; I was angry with myself.”
“I know it can be hard for a single mother. If you ever need anything, let me know.” Scott said.
“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Come on,” Vera said, pulling him away. “I need to get back to patrol, and you need to sleep.”
They waved as they walked off, and I laid back down on the grass, pulling the blanket tightly around me. After looking to make sure the kids were ok, I finally went to sleep.
It was only another week until we made it to our destination. Many of us cried and others hugged each other with relief and happiness. It was a city, and it was huge. The Black Jackets seemed just as in awe of it as we were. deserted streets of grey concrete were lined with buildings of black steel. It was different from Jamestown; more industrial, with smokestacks rising out of many of the buildings, but it was also beautiful, in a dark sort of way.
The Black Jackets, on Scott’s orders, began checking the buildings for signs of life, but they were all completely empty. Once they were certain of that, they allowed us to move in. Families were assigned rooms and given the last of their rations, with the instructions to try and make them last at least another week.
I looked out the window of our apartment, which, was much nicer than anything I had lived in before. It was also surprisingly clean, if a little dusty. Out the window, I could see other people waiting out in the street. Most of them were ragged, dirty and tired, but agreed that this had definitely been worth the trip. After looking down at my clothes, I realized just how bad I looked, and how tired I was. I wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep in a nice warm mattress.
But, something caught my eye. On the roof of a building near ours was a man. He was dressed in all black, which made me think he was a Black Jacket at first, but he was wearing heavy armor. He took off his helmet, and looked out over the city like a king looking out over his subjects... No, it was more intense than that.
He looked at us like a child, staring down on a colony of ants before crushing them with his boot.
Chapter 61 - Paige Wilson
“It’s all finished Madam President. What should I do now?”
“Head home for the night.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When he left, I sat and stared at the machine for a while. It took up most of the space in the hastily constructed shack, which had been purposefully built between the Cages and the Sunset District; right where we needed it most.
I turned it on. There were no excessive lights or flare. Only a soft whir told me that it was working.
“Well-”
“Shut up. I don’t have time for you.”
“Hey, I work hard on my witty remarks. The least you can do is let me finish them.”
“This isn’t any of your business, Fischer.”
“My oldest friend in the world plans on poisoning a city. That’s none of my business?”
“It’s only a few problem areas. We need to bring this situation under control or else more people will die. I didn't ask for your opinion.”
I grabbed both sides of my head. They felt like they were about to split apart.
“Of course I didn’t ask for your opinion, because you’re a figment of my imagination, but you won’t go away!”
“I’ll go away when you make the right choice.”
“This is the right choice!”
“You should have left with Scott.”
“Just because some street gang convinced a few people to go with them outside the walls doesn’t mean we need to follow suit.”
“That’s an understatement. At the end of their time here, the Black Jackets had almost as many members as there are police officers, and it wasn’t just a few people that left. The Gray District is a ghost town.”
“And it’ll stay that way. They signed their death certificates the moment they walked outside those walls; my walls.”
I could see his crimson eyes staring into me. He always knew what I was thinking. “Are you really that concerned about what the guy in the suit said?”
I sighed, figuring it wasn’t even worth the energy to try and lie to myself. “Yes, but it’s far from the only reason.”
I grabbed a vial from one of the crates. It was almost the size of my leg, but I managed to get the first one loaded into the machine.
“Shouldn’t you be telling me to stop?”
He didn’t respond. I kept loading in more of the enormous vials, and still he didn’t say one goddamn thing. The sounds of the machine and the sloshing of the neon liquid was all I heard.
I stood there with one hand on the lever, contemplating my decision.
“You know there was something else he said. ‘All things are foreseen?’ If he’s foreseen all of this, then why isn’t the son of a bitch here trying to stop me? If I pull this lever, I win. The city is saved.”
“Maybe.”
“Once everyone breathes this stuff in, we’ll have control. The Sunset District will be back in line, and the crisis will be averted.”
“Possibly.”
“We won’t have to leave. We can stay here.”
“You’ll be following the King in Light’s example. Everyone will be zombies.”
“It’ll be better than them being dead, or turned into dog-creatures, or poisoned by vapor… I mean they won’t die from vapor, at least.”
“Maybe.”
“Then why isn’t he here? I would have at least thought he’d be here to do something.” I removed my hand and shouted upwards. “Where are you? Aren’t you even going to try and stop me?”
I felt Fischer finally give up
on me.
“Everything will be alright. I'm fixing this city.”
I put my hand back on the lever. There was nothing else to do except what needed to be done. I could make things better.
“Madam President?” said a policeman, sticking his head inside.
“What?”
“Your nephew is here, and I think you should see him, now.”
“Let him in.”
When the door opened, I saw that he was holding his stomach, his breathing was heavy and glowing orange liquid oozed from around his mouth.
“Oh my God,” I said, running over and holding him. “What happened?”
“I tried this stuff that a man gave me, but then my stomach started hurting and I threw up a bunch of glowing stuff.”
“Oh, Jacob. You’re going to be alright. We’ll go find you a doctor, sweetie.”
“Auntie, you have to protect me.”
“Protect you from what?”
“It’s the dark man. He’s going to kill me.”
“No sweetheart, no one’s going to kill you. You’re just seeing things.”
“No, I’m not!” He began to sob, and his eyes had just the slightest tint of neon. “Tex Mex had this stuff coming out of him and the dark man came and killed him, and now he’s going to kill me too.”
“Shh, it’s ok. Everything will be alright.”
“Please, don’t let him kill me auntie. I’ll never do it again, just please don’t let him kill me.”
“It’s ok sweetheart. We’re going to get you to the hospital now, and I'll be with you the whole time. You’re going to be safe, ok?”
He nodded, but kept crying into my shoulder. I picked him up and carried him out the door, where a stretcher and an ambulance had just arrived.
“We called them as soon as he got here, Madam President.”
“Thank you,” I told the guards. “I need you to do one more thing."
"What's that?"
"Tell everyone to get packing. I’m putting out an evacuation order.”
Chapter 62 - Ins Vera
“Welcome to Soothouse.” That was what the sign behind me said.
I looked out over the fields of black grass, wishing my family could have seen this. My mother and father would have loved the brand new city, with clean streets and shiny new apartments; the tall buildings of black steel, the burned orange sky and the lack of neon lights. However, I knew they never would have left the Court of Myracell behind. Maybe I was a traitor for leaving, but, if I was, I was ok with that. I had come to terms with it.
I would never forget the Truands, that old life would always be a part of my soul, but I had a new family, one that cared about me as much as my blood relatives ever did.
“Vera? You ok?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Rae looked out over the endless field, just as in awe of it as I was.
“It seems like it goes on forever.”
“I know. I can’t believe we walked that far.”
“What do you think they’re doing in Jamestown, right now?”
“Well, all those pretentious shiners from the Presidential District are probably working down in the farming facility.”
“Oh, that’s right. There’s nobody to do that, now that we’re gone.”
“I’d love to see the looks on their faces. They probably haven’t had to work a day in their lives.”
“Yeah. Imagine them crawling around in the dirt.”
We both laughed. The image of the President herself trying to farm was pretty funny.
“Did you hear that they’ll be coming soon?”
“Coming here?”
“Yeah,” Rae said. “At least, that’s what Scott told me. The President contacted him.”
“Huh. I’m surprised Scott is letting them follow us. He and the President never seemed to get along.”
She shrugged. “You can go ask him why. I need to go check on Revy anyway. He and the others are close to getting the farming facility up and running,” she said, before leaving. “I’ll see you later.”
“Later.” I pulled out my radio. “Scott, where are you?”
“Uh, back at the barracks.”
“Oh good, that’s close by. I’ll be right there. I need to talk to you.”
“No, wait. Shit, I wanted this to be a surprise, but I’m over at the tower on the north square.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the gray markings.”
I started walking there, wondering what Scott had waiting for me. The building he was referring to was the most ornate in the city. The black steel was interwoven with grey markings, and the bottom floor was full of intricately carved stone pillars, both inside and out.
It stood on the north side of the main square, the highest building in the city. It looked out over the streets, and towered over all the other buildings as well as the tree in the center of the square. It was the only tree in the Badlands. Its leaves were black as coal and its bark was as hard as bedrock.
I walked through the glass doors and across the speckled granite floor. Several Black Jackets wandered about, along with men and women in coveralls.
“Hey, do you know where Scott is?” I asked one of them.
“Oh, Ms. Vera. He’s up on the top floor.”
“Thank you.”
I got into the elevator and hit the fifth button.
“There you are,” Scott said, once I found him. “What do you think?”
Just outside of the elevator doors, there stood a set of rather unremarkable double doors, but beyond that was a room I can only describe as a masterpiece, albeit an unfinished one.
Workers were up on ladders, painting over a set of ugly murals on the walls. Lights hung down from the ceiling and covered the room in blue, and a long beige carpet was laid out between the doors and an enormous throne at the far end. On both sides of the double doors, on the same wall, were sets of even larger doors that led to a room behind the elevator. It was an enormous bedroom, with ornate furniture and a king sized bed.
“It’s beautiful, but…”
“You haven’t even seen the best part yet.”
Scott pulled out a remote and pressed one of several buttons on it. The lights faded out, and the black wall behind the throne faded away, to reveal the city behind it. We could see all the way up main street, where people bustled about, Black Jackets patrolled and workers fresh out of the farming facility walked home for the day.
He led me to the other end of the hall, pressed a second button and the walls of the bedroom did the same. Not only that, but when the windows appeared I could see a balcony that stretched around the entire building, with doors leading out to it in the bedroom and behind the throne.
“What do you think, now?”
“Again, it’s beautiful, but why did you build a throne room?”
“I didn’t. I found it. Can you believe that?”
“Not really. Shouldn’t we just gut this building and use it for something else?”
“No way. After all that’s happened, I think we deserve it. Why don’t you test out the throne?”
“No thanks. I don’t want my ego to get as big as yours.”
“Come on. Just try it.”
I finally conceded, sat down and had to admit, “Ok, this is pretty cool.”
“I know, right? It’s like being a god.”
“Is it comfortable, Mr. Vale?” asked one of the workers.
“It’s absolutely perfect. You guys did a fantastic job repairing it.” The man beamed with pride.
“Mr. Vale?” I asked Scott.
“They just started calling me that. I don’t know why.”
“It happened to me too. Someone called me Ms. Vera. Do I look like an old woman?”
“It’s just a sign of respect, sir,” the worker said. “I know there are a lot of people who are upset with you, but I was there the day the Truands came. I know you didn’t want to hurt anyone. You were just trying to protect us.”
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“Thank you, that means a lot,” Scott told him, as he started to crack a smile. “Do you want to try this out?”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t…”
“No, I insist.”
Scott pulled the man up to the throne and let him sit down on it. “I feel like a king.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great. Do the rest of you guys want to try?”
He then let all the Black Jackets and workers in the room test out the throne, and they all were ecstatic to do so. It reminded me of why I was so in love with him; underneath all the intimidation and rumors, and even beneath the sadness and loss, he was a down to earth guy, who wanted to do what was best for the people he had taken under his wing.
“I’m going to go. I want to check on Jack.”
“Yeah, I should get back to work to, but come back tonight so I can show you the bedroom.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” I said, running a finger down his chest.
Only a moment after our lips touched, we heard screaming and gunfire from outside. We looked down and saw people running out of buildings, Black Jackets trying to usher people off the streets and civilians running around with guns.
“This is Scott Vale,” all of us heard over our walkie-talkies. The message was full of static, but just clear enough to make out. “Head east. All Black Jackets take everyone to the east side of the city.”
“That’s not me!” Scott yelled. “What the fuck? That's not me!” He screamed into his radio, but none of our radios were able to send out messages. They were jammed.
“Goddammit!” he screamed, smashing it against the floor.
“We need to calm everyone down. Let’s get outside,” I said, calling Scott and the other Black Jackets in the room.
We took the elevator down to the bottom floor, but it was complete chaos outside. People were yelling and shoving, and no one would listen to us.
“Vale! We need to get you to safety!”
“I’m not going anywhere!” he told the Black Jackets. “Take her! I’m staying here.”
“What? I’m not leaving either!”
“Listen to me,” he yelled, as he took my hands in his. “I’ll be fine, but I need to be sure you’ll be safe.”
“I can take care of myself. I’m not leaving without you.”
Black Light: The Deplorable Savior Page 23