by J. L. Lyon
Lost in thought, he hardly noticed the many twists and turns they had taken until—too soon—golden doors loomed at the end of a widening hallway. The soldiers broke off and stood next to the door, rifles drawn and ready to fire.
Premier Sullivan faced him and spoke gravely, “The MWR and the Ruling Council will have your cooperation, soldier. Resistance is pointless. If you desire a quick and painless death, you will provide us with all the information we require. When Napoleon Alexander speaks, you are to be silent. If you speak, it will only be when spoken to. Do nothing unless commanded to do so.”
301 nodded. He took a deep breath and reached into his left pocket, where his fingers found the very last of his prized possessions. The ring had no real value as far as he knew, but to him it was the most important object he had ever owned. It proved that he had not always been a passing shadow upon the ground; that once, someone had cared enough to give him a piece of themselves. It was the only clue that remained of his true identity.
He traced the circular shape of the ring with his index finger while rubbing the smooth stone with his thumb, and his heart slowed to its normal rate. Unfortunately the fear still remained, lurking at the edge of his mind like a predator ready to spring.
The Premier pushed open the golden doors, and 301 followed him into the presence of Napoleon Alexander. The MWR stood at the window with his back turned, a dark silhouette against the brightening horizon.
“Mighty World Ruler,” the Premier said.
Alexander turned, and 301 beheld him for the first time.
His first thought was that he had expected the MWR to be…taller. Very few soldiers had seen Napoleon Alexander and lived to tell the tale, so he had only their iconic descriptions to go on. The reality was anticlimactic and somewhat disappointing. Barely exceeding 301’s own height and beginning to show signs of aging in his face and hair, the MWR’s appearance was unexpectedly normal. 301 even detected an aura of humor about the man, a strange quality that nearly quelled his fear.
But then he felt it. Perhaps it was merely the way the sun only shone on the MWR’s back that made him appear so dark, but a strange power seemed to emanate from him—a concealed evil just waiting to burst forth and consume him in its wrath. The malevolent presence would have struck fear into even the bravest soldiers, and coupled with knowledge of the MWR’s temperament it wasn’t hard to imagine why some spoke of him as they might a god.
The room had fallen silent as the two men laid eyes on one another. Napoleon Alexander studied 301’s face, brows furrowed as though he saw something that greatly disturbed him. The Premier’s gaze darted between the two of them, unsettled by the MWR’s hesitant behavior.
He broke the silence, “Mighty World Ruler, as you have requested, this is 301-14-A, former first lieutenant of the Fourteenth Division of the Great Army in Alexandria.”
The MWR blinked as though coming out of a trance, “Thank you, Premier Sullivan. Now—if I’m not mistaken—you have a meeting to prepare for.”
Sullivan gave a short nod and walked out, pulling the golden doors shut as he left. 301 couldn’t have imagined this moment a few hours ago. To be summoned for a personal audience with the ruler of the world was not something he had ever envisioned possible. Though death would likely follow, the experience nearly overwhelmed him.
Napoleon Alexander sat and motioned for 301 to come closer. He obeyed and snapped back to attention in front of the MWR’s desk.
“Well, first things first…” Alexander opened the thin blue folder in front of him and thumbed through its pages. From the corner of his eye 301 thought he saw his own designation written on the tab, from which he surmised that the thin collection of papers was and always would be the only record of his short and painfully unimportant life. He struggled to hold back a strange burning sensation in his eyes and turned his attention to the horizon, beholding its great beauty as only one who knows it is his last opportunity to gaze upon it can do. Savor the sunrise, 301…
“Have we met before, soldier?”
Surprised by the unofficial question, 301 stumbled over his response, “N-no, sir. Not that I am aware of.”
Alexander’s eyes shifted to the sheets of paper and then back to 301, “You are the soldier they call the Shadow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do they call you the Shadow?”
“I suppose…” he searched his mind for an impressive answer, but came up with nothing. There had never been one. “Because I am a man without a past. I entered the System when I was very young, but I have no memory of it. My allegiance to the World System is all I know—it is all that I am. My origin, my parents, my early childhood, even my name is obscure to me. So, Mighty World Ruler, I guess they call me the Shadow because that is what I am.”
“You were raised in the Capital Orphanage not far from here, I see.”
“Yes,” 301 nodded. “Matron Young and the orphanage’s Discipliner started me in the ways of a soldier while I was under their supervision.”
“Your record in the Great Army is exemplary, and your progress to much higher ranks near certainty,” the MWR went on. “It may or may not surprise you to know that the Ruling Council had marked you as a potential royal heir. It says here that you are not just efficient in military skills, but history, mathematics, sciences. It will be a pity to lose you to be sure—but the laws are clear…”
“Yes, sir. Of those laws, I am well aware.”
“Then you understand that your appearance before the Ruling Council for judgment is mere ceremony, and regardless of the evidence your sentence will be death.”
301 made eye contact with the MWR and replied, “I have failed in my station, sir. My squad is defeated, and if fault is deemed to lie with me…it is the law.”
Alexander looked down at the cloth tied around 301’s hand, “Is that wound from the ambush?”
He nodded.
“Tell me about the battle.”
“It was not so much a battle as a slaughter, sir,” 301 answered. “The rebels caved in the ceiling of the target location and fell on us from above. Most of my men were dead before they even knew what was happening—the rest only managed to fire a few shots before being taken down. I fired blind, for all I knew aiming at phantoms in the dark—and that’s when the gun was struck from my hand and I received this.” He indicated his wound.
“And these men—you say they fought with glowing swords?”
“Yes, sir. I had never seen the weapons with my own eyes, but read about them in my studies of the World System’s rise to power. They fought with the Spectral Gladius.”
“You know the implications of what you are saying, soldier.”
“Of that, also, I am well aware, sir.”
“And the commander who gave you this message? What of him?”
“He would not tell me his name…only that once you saw the message you would know who it was from.”
At that moment the MWR reached in his pocket and pulled out the small piece of cloth that Sullivan had given him before 301’s arrival. 301 recognized the object immediately as the message they had just spoken of.
“Do you know what this is, Shadow Soldier?” Alexander asked.
“No, sir,” 301 said.
“They call it the Spectral Cross. Sent in this manner, it is more than just an insignia. It is a challenge—a warning. Only three men would ever have the courage to send this to me. One is dead and the other two presumed so. But it would seem that one—perhaps both—have survived. Which one I hope to learn in the next few moments. Describe him to me.”
301 complied, and as he gave the description the MWR’s expression grew darker and darker. When 301 finished Alexander asked for one final detail, “What color were his eyes?”
301 studied his mental picture of the commander as he had seen him through the dim light of the room, and answered, “Blue.”
Alexander affirmed 301’s own suspicions when he whispered
the name like a curse, “Sawyer.”
Jacob Sawyer—second-in-command of Silent Thunder, the only rebellion to ever seriously challenge the rule of the World System. No sightings of him had been reported for over a decade, granting weight to the assumption that he had died sometime after the rebellion’s fall from power. That assumption, it seemed, was incorrect.
301 remained silent, feeling the tension in the room rise as Alexander’s anger grew. One of the great nemeses of the World System had resurfaced once again, and whatever brought about his return could not be good news.
Alexander slammed his fist down angrily upon the insignia patch, prompting 301 to defy protocol and step backward in fear. The MWR’s face contorted with a disgust and fury the magnitude of which the young soldier had never seen.
“None in the Great Army have laid eyes on Sawyer and lived to tell the tale in fifteen long years,” Alexander’s fiery stare burned into him. “And you allowed him to escape without incident. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you tortured in the worst way imaginable!”
Knowing his chance for a swift and easy death had likely passed away, 301 resolved that he would not beg this man for mercy—he would not beg for anything. He dropped his attentive stance and looked the MWR straight in the eye, “While I know blame for this incident will fall upon me because I was present at the ambush, let’s not pretend that the failure for losing that squad is mine. You know as well as I do that the failure here is not in your soldiers, but in your training.”
Alexander looked like he had just been slapped, but 301 did not stop, “We march down the street in the open and expect our enemies to lay down at our feet and die. I say this is foolish, and if you mean to preserve your government then you would do well to stop executing your soldiers for minor mistakes and free them to use any means necessary to hunt down those who would destroy us.”
“You know the horrors to which I can subject you, and yet you mock me by questioning the laws that I have put forth? Do they not teach proper protocols in officer training these days, soldier?”
“If torture and death already await me, what use do I have for protocol?”
The MWR’s eyes narrowed, but the Shadow Soldier’s calm logic in the face of such a gruesome fate made him relent. Few—even those facing torture and death—had spoken to him without restraint.
“Why did they leave you alive, Shadow Soldier? Of all those who were there last night, why you?”
“I was the officer,” 301 replied. “As the one at the highest level of command, I would know best how to deliver the message to you.”
“You don’t think it was for any other purpose?”
301 recalled his short conversation with the rebel commander. He had known quite a bit about 301’s personal history—probably just as much detail as the file on the MWR’s desk. He had wanted 301 to leave the World System, to join him in his attempt to break Alexander’s hold on civilization. But 301 doubted knowledge of his refusal to accept this offer would endear him to the MWR.
“No,” he answered. “It was simply a tactical decision.”
Alexander nodded, “Very well, soldier. That will be all for now. The guards outside will accompany you to the holding room where you will wait until noon. Then you will appear before the Ruling Council for judgment.”
“Understood, sir,” 301 turned to leave.
The MWR’s eyes followed him out of the room, watching until the golden doors closed and took him from sight. Nostalgia prickled his emotions, as though he had just spoken with someone he hadn’t seen in many years. Had something monumental just transpired? One of those moments that history forgets, but that echoes into eternity? The boy had impressed him…quite unexpectedly.
He looked down at the Spectral Cross on his desk. As much as it pained him to admit, Sullivan had been right. The threat was real. Now they could only sit and guess at what Jacob Sawyer could be planning in that treacherous mind, and just how far he was prepared to go.
-X-
Premier Sullivan waited patiently as the jet bearing the first of his colleagues touched down on the runway. The craft pulled around and came to a stop in front of the control tower, where it extended a mechanical ramp as the door to the cabin slid open. Several men and women—senior members of the advisor’s staff—filed out of the plane one-by-one and formed two lines on either side of the ramp. Once they were in place, a man dressed in the black robes of royalty emerged. His staff bowed their heads courteously as he passed.
Tall and thin with short gray hair that lay thick upon his head, the Chief Advisor held a reputation as the most regal of his peers. With a distinguished public career that spanned back before the birth of the System and even the fall of the Old World, he commanded the respect of every man from the lowest enlisted soldier in the Great Army to the MWR himself.
Sullivan strode forward to greet his colleague, and the two men shook hands. “Good morning, Chief Advisor Holt. It’s been too long.”
“Premier,” Holt nodded his head respectfully, and the two men walked toward the vehicle waiting to transport them to the palace. “So…I don’t suppose you can tell me what this is about?”
“All will be made clear when the Ruling Council has been assembled,” the Premier replied.
“Not even a preview for an old friend?” Holt asked.
Sullivan smiled as he opened the door to the vehicle and motioned for Holt to get inside, “That can, perhaps, be arranged.”
After Holt climbed in, Sullivan shut the door and got in the other side. He ordered the driver to move and then sat back in his seat. There was a brief moment of silence, broken quickly by Holt, “So what’s the story, Scott? What are we doing here?”
The Premier sighed, “There was an attack on one of our squads last night. It’s possible the rebellion was behind it.”
“The rebellion?” Holt asked. “But they’ve been virtually nonexistent for over fifteen years—what makes you so sure?”
“A soldier survived and recounted the event to us—the attackers wielded the Spectral Gladius. And in addition to that, he brought back an insignia patch of the Spectral Cross. I’d say there is little else we can assume from such evidence.”
Holt’s eyes darted to the driver, who remained oblivious to their conversation, “How does this affect our plans?”
Sullivan bit his lip, “That is a question we must address at another time. For now, there are other things that must claim our focus. The soldier that survived the ordeal is appearing before us for judgment in a few hours. Hearing his story and passing sentence on his life will be our first order of business. Then we can decide what to do about the rebellion.”
“When is Chief Advisor Drake to arrive?”
“Within an hour of the meeting,” Sullivan replied. “He had some things to take care of in Division Nine before his departure. He did report, however, that Grand Admiral Donalson will be in attendance.”
Holt frowned with disapproval, “Alexander’s watch-dog.”
“Yes, but his absence from Division Nine could be beneficial to us.”
“Indeed. So who is this poor kid?”
“The soldier?” Sullivan retorted. “He is no one. In Division One he is known as the Shadow Soldier—the man without a name.”
Holt looked at the Premier with astonishment, “The Shadow Soldier is the one on trial? I’ve seen his file…we marked him for royal candidacy. Is this really a man we want to pass a death sentence on?”
“Alexander wishes it,” came the Premier’s reply. “And we must abide by those wishes for now—if only to ensure that no undesired attention is focused upon us.”
“It sounds as if this soldier would be useful,” Holt tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Could he be turned?”
“I doubt he will live long enough to be persuaded,” Sullivan said. “But for now, I believe an even greater opportunity has been given to us…the chance to revive an advantage we lost long ago. That must clai
m my focus now, for it is not in our interest to be overzealous in preserving the Shadow Soldier’s life.”
Holt nodded, “So what is this grand plan of yours?”
“That, my friend,” Sullivan smiled, “is a secret I shall reveal in good time.”
4
301 WATCHED THE CLOCK tick his life away, second by second. His deep green eyes—bequeathed to him by relatives he would probably never know—burned into the device, and he imagined the mechanisms within that made the hands turn. Each gear had its own purpose, insignificant in itself, designed only to serve the greater purpose of the whole. This was what the System had turned him into: a mechanism whose only use was to make the hands of the government turn.
In some ways death seemed a relief, a sort of rest from all the troubles of the world. At last he could be free of the constant striving to please his superiors and the ever-present stress to do more and be more than all his peers. But this put him face to face with a fear that had previously been irrelevant to him. What exactly would that rest entail? What would happen to his consciousness after his body was destroyed? Was that it? Was he—his emotions, his thoughts, his desires, his very being—just a momentary phenomenon that would evaporate into nothingness?
These were questions, he knew, that no living man could answer. No one could help him with this fear, and even if they could he had no time to seek such counsel. The hour of doom had come upon him, and there would be no escaping it. He buried his face in his hands and whispered aloud in frustration, “Was it all for nothing?”
No one could hear him to answer, of course. He had been placed in a small holding room with chairs lined up against the wall, and he imagined it was normally used to facilitate discussion. Dignitaries from around the world, perhaps, were forced to look one another in the eye so only the really good liars could prevail.
For him the empty seats only served to add to his sense of loneliness, until the room itself seemed to swallow him. He tried to keep his mind occupied, but it always returned to the Ruling Council members that gathered in the Hall of Advisors at that very moment. Soon each of them would cast a vote that meant nothing to them…but everything to him.