Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  Meanwhile, Alistair, his vision sharp even away from the glow of the fire, caught a glimpse of dark fleeing figures just before they disappeared between two houses across the street. He was after them as fast as his powerful legs would go. When he reached the alley between the houses, he caught another glimpse of a figure disappearing around another corner and he continued his pursuit. In this way he trailed them through the neighborhood – over fences, under bridges, across open lots – and each time he lost sight of them he would round a corner and find himself closer. He was big, fast, athletic and in a rage. They did not elude him for long.

  Casting furtive glances over their shoulders, the men, of whom he counted at least four, were running in panic as the large predator closed the distance. One hurled something at him but the marine dodged it without losing a beat. His fingers tingled with anticipation as he closed in on the last in line, and when he was close enough his right hand shot out and hit the man squarely in the middle of the back. He was launched forward and lost his balance. Limbs swinging wildly, he took a couple off-balance steps and then fell forward, landing face first on the pavement.

  The other men left their fallen comrade and Alistair let them go, instead launching himself into the air and landing with all his weight on the fallen form. The man gave a pitiable yelp and Alistair punched the back of his head, slamming his face into the pavement. He then grabbed his hair, pulling his head back at an uncomfortable angle.

  Putting his lips to the man’s ear, Alistair, his spittle spraying the side of the man’s head, hissed, “We don’t feel like selling.”

  He flipped him over and slammed his fists into his prey’s stomach about a dozen times while the vandal futilely attempted to dislodge his much larger and stronger opponent. Upon finishing the first barrage, Alistair stood up and the man, gasping for air and nearly sobbing, started unsteadily to crawl away. Alistair grabbed him, lifted him up and punched his face. He then lifted the man over his head and threw him into a nearby brick wall. He landed with a thud and lay still.

  Alistair’s anger abated and, chest heaving from his exertion, he stared down at the man. Glancing around to see if the collaborators were returning, he saw black silhouettes in the windows of the neighborhood. A few people opened their front doors and stood on their porches. He realized how loud his cries of anger had been, and he blushed under the eyes of his audience.

  The beaten man stirred and, though too feeble now to rise, dragged himself across the ground. Given something to do other than endure the gazes of the onlookers, the former marine took four giant strides towards his opponent. Grabbing the back of his neck and the belt of his pants, he hoisted the man onto his shoulders, turned on his heel and made his way back to Nigel’s, leaving his audience behind but feeling their gazes on his back the entire way home.

  Chapter 6

  The door had been hydraulic long ago. Without interruption the power plants supplied it with electricity. The various components were fashioned in diverse factories until finally being assembled and delivered to Arcarius. The inevitable breakdowns were fixed by men trained by the local tech schools; the required spare parts were shipped around the globe. It worked as smoothly as could be expected.

  Somewhere, sometime, it was replaced by an ordinary door of metal bars, perhaps because of the increasingly desultory supply of electricity that made the hydraulic door more nuisance than assistance. It might have been replaced when the supply of qualified mechanics was diverted by the government to other purposes. Or perhaps, when the door needed replacing, a bureaucrat several hundred miles away, sitting under a mountain of request slips and guided by a strict quota, could only grant a limited number of the requests. Such a simple thing, but interesting to track the decline of a civilization through the history of a door.

  Whatever the reason, the door was now made of crisscrossing steel bars and was opened by hand or, in this case, two pairs of hands. A third pair shoved Alistair through, though he stubbornly resisted the shove, making it quite clear, as he entered the cell, it was by the power of his own legs. He found himself in a spacious and dimly lit holding cell with a low ceiling and about a score of other prisoners.

  “Turn around and approach the door,” said one guard in a disinterested tone. “Unless you want the cuffs on all night.”

  Alistair, keeping his mouth shut, walked backwards until his hands hit the door. A guard reached through with a key and released him, then left without comment.

  He needed no time for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. The other prisoners eyed him, and he in turn surveyed them, seeing them in multi-tonal shades of gray, much like surveillance equipment. The little visible light interfered with his special vision, but not enough to render it worthless.

  Two men lay quivering and drooling on the floor. He did not doubt that much of the powerful smell assaulting him was their doing. A few men sat idly observing the poor addicts, occasionally summoning enough interest to snicker when one was seized by a particularly strong spasm.

  Eager to move away from the door and out of attention, Alistair went to the back of the room and made as if to sit down on an open spot on the bench. Immediately, a man of slight build and short stature moved to block him.

  “That’s my bench,” he claimed, jutting his chin out. Timidity did not help a man such as he to survive in the environment from which he no doubt came.

  Consumed as always by the blushing and the throbbing pulse in his ears that accompanied public scrutiny, Alistair sought action, having learned that merely standing under many gazes invariably made him look foolish. Grabbing the man by the face, his large hand engulfing it completely, he threw him to the side where he fell and skidded to a stop.

  “I’m not in the mood for it,” he growled, but he cursed himself when his throat clamped shut on his words, giving them the form of a stutter. There was a general chuckling, but he did not acknowledge their merriment, uncertain whether they were laughing at his clumsy speech or the plight of the man he had sent flying. He sat down on the bench and avoided all gazes, his blush burning his face.

  The next challenge came from a larger opponent. Surrounded by his flunkies, an oafish brute, who until recently had been the cell’s largest occupant, sat in the corner staring at Alistair from the second he arrived. After a bit of whispering with his mates, the big man got to his feet and approached, his chest puffed out and his shoulders thrown back for effect.

  “Find yourself a seat, and find it as far away from me as possible,” Alistair suggested before the man got a word out, staring at the floor as he spoke. He kept his voice low, praying he wouldn’t attract any more attention, but that was a lost cause from the moment his new adversary stood up.

  “I think maybe I need to explain somethin’ to ya’,” the prisoner began, but Alistair stood up and went nose to nose with him. The man was big but overweight and out of shape, a fearsome foe in a typical bar brawl perhaps, but not a professionally trained fighter like the ex marine he was confronting. All other activity in the cell ceased as the prisoners watched the two big men square off.

  “I already said I’m not in the mood for it. Show me you can make a good decision and get back to your little corner over there.” His throat constricted on the last few words and he stuttered again.

  The big man started to laugh, but the laugh never fully emerged from his mouth. A hand on the chest and a foot behind the heel sent him crashing to the ground. Before the brute had time to blink, indeed almost before his backside hit the floor, Alistair grabbed the back of his head and slugged him three times in the face. There was no wind up, just three short and controlled blows to his nose. When he let him go, his head dropped like deadweight. Rolling over, he clutched his face and moaned while blood streamed onto the floor to merge with the other stains.

  “I’m not in the mood for it,” Alistair declared for the third time with a look around the cell. The prisoners divided their attention between the victor and the vanquished, and no one moved to dispute him.


  As the former marine sat back down, several of the brute’s lackeys rushed over to help the beaten man back to his corner. They half carried, half dragged him, giving Alistair furtive glances over their shoulders. For his part, Alistair fought to control his breathing, and his shoulders, thrown out like a male gorilla claiming territory, slumped down to a relaxed position. His face, however, still burned.

  “So what are you in for?” asked a man.

  Turning his head to get a look at the speaker, Alistair saw several days’ growth of beard and some dark bruises on what would be a handsome face. He had curly black hair that was oily, and his clothes, though they looked like they had been worn for a week or longer, were of the highest quality and a bit ostentatious of color and cut. He sat in a relaxed fashion, one leg crossed over the other and gently kicking back and forth, managing, even in those surroundings, to exude a quiet dignity. There was an intelligence in his eyes most of the other denizens of the cell lacked; he held himself erect and with grace.

  In response to the question, Alistair inclined his head once towards the spot where his foe had fallen. “That.”

  The man nodded as he considered it. “At least you’ve learned your lesson.”

  Alistair allowed himself a small half smile. “What about you?”

  Without answering, the man studied him quizzically for a moment, though the young Ashley could not understand why. With an expression that said “might as well”, he finally answered. “All sorts of things. Money laundering, tax evasion, illegal importing, illegal exporting… it’s a long list. I’m actually innocent on some counts. Not that it will matter much.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t even know. We’ve been fed… I don’t know how many times. How dirty do my clothes look?”

  “At least a week.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “So what happens to us now? I’m new to this.”

  “Me too. All I know is we sit here until they get us processed and ready for transport to the main prison. They’ll be back to question you before too long.”

  The man whom Alistair had beaten was upright now and sitting in his spot on the bench. No longer moaning, he was gingerly poking at his tender nose, wincing when he nudged the tender spots a bit too hard. A companion was trying to stop the bleeding with his own shirt, but he was pushed away whenever he got too close. Alistair briefly felt a pang of guilt for his treatment of the thug, but he quashed the feeling. I didn’t go looking for a fight, he said to himself.

  “So who did you thrash?” the man asked. “Were you a tin man?”

  “No, I was in the service until recently. The guy I beat set a bomb off at my dad’s restaurant. He attacked us first. His buddies got away; he wasn’t so lucky.” Changing the subject, he continued, “So which of those charges were real ones?”

  The man chuckled. “Oh, most of them.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, all of them might be. I really don’t keep track.” He shrugged his shoulders and, with a resigned tone nonetheless tinged with something sounding almost cheerful, or perhaps carefree, said, “I shall be in prison for a very long time.” After a pause, the man asked, “You really don’t recognize me?”

  Alistair shook his head. “Should I?”

  An amused expression crossed his face. “Darion Chesterton? Doesn’t ring a bell?”

  He shook his head again. “I’ve been off the last four cycles.”

  “I couldn’t decide if you were some inept government agent sent to ply me for information, or if you honestly didn’t know who I was.”

  “The latter.”

  “He’s a damn crook!” spat a man on the far side of the cell. It was not immediately apparent who had spoken.

  “He’s the biggest thief since…” Whoever the speaker was, he lacked the acuity to complete the thought.

  Without acknowledging his detractors, Darion said, “About the time you were joining the armed forces, I was running a smuggling ring. My clients were all over Aldra, and I got them whatever they ordered and made a handsome profit doing it.”

  One of the prisoners jumped to his feet. “I spent the last two cycles out of work because of scumbags like you!” he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Darion. “And you sit there feeling proud of your profits! I stole to feed myself; you stole for your fuckin’ wardrobe!”

  Alistair leveled a steady gaze at the man who had interrupted them. “Why don’t you sit down and be quiet before I decide to ask him how he got those bruises?”

  The man revealed no fear, but after a dark glare at Darion he was back in his place on the floor. “These fuckin’ profiteers,” he muttered, the anger still there but controlled now. “You’ve been gone four cycles? Things have gotten worse since then.”

  “I’m here for sellin’ specnine,” another man started slowly, carefully. “Darion and his buddies take all the good opportunities for themselves. The little guy gets left out in the cold while these bastards get rich off the rest of us.” The last part he addressed to Darion: “The government’s gonna give you what you deserve.”

  Alistair nodded thoughtfully. “What was the last thing you bought?” he asked the man.

  He, caught off guard, seemed suspicious and unwilling to answer at first. Finally, he said, “I got a pair of shoes right before they arrested me.”

  “How many credits?”

  The man snorted. “I traded some potatoes for ‘em.”

  “All right, how many potatoes?”

  Shrugging, the man replied, “About thirty. Grew ‘em on my roof. What’s it to ya’?”

  “Would it be fair to say you wanted the shoes more than the potatoes?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Would you say you robbed the shoemaker, or that he robbed you?”

  The man looked baffled, like he had gone about as far with the questioning as he was prepared to go. Nevertheless he ventured one last answer: “I already told ya’ we traded. I never robbed nobody.”

  “Darion did exactly what you did. He just did it more often.”

  There was a general cacophony of protest, and one voice rose above the others. “There’s nothing wrong with trading with your neighbors, but he trades away Aldran goods with foreigners!”

  “No one needs that much money!” insisted another.

  “How can you justify being so rich when some of us are struggling to get by?”

  “Every import is a lost job for an Aldran! Not that he cares about any Aldrans other than himself.”

  The force of their anger was extraordinary, the kind reserved only for those things that threaten what a man holds most dear and sacred. Alistair sighed but did not respond, and a moment later a Civil Guardsman appeared at the door.

  “Let’s keep it down in here or I’m going to have about twenty sedated prisoners!” he barked, rapping on the metal bars with his nightstick. “Alistair Ashley 3nn?”

  Alistair rose and went to the door to have the handcuffs put back on.

  ***

  To Alistair’s surprise his cuffs were taken off before he was asked to sit down at a desk across from an old grizzled officer. The look on the Guardsman’s face was pure knowing cynicism, though not necessarily disapproval. When Alistair was seated, the Guardsman pushed some papers across the desk and tossed a pen on top of them.

  “Read ‘em and sign ‘em. Seems we had a mix -up.” His tone was as sarcastic as his expression.

  “I’m not sure—”

  Another Guardsman, standing nearby, cut him off. “The guy cleared it up,” he said. Alistair turned to see who addressed him, and the officer gave him a wink. “He told us how you saved him from the men who were assaulting him.”

  Alistair nodded slowly and turned back around. The graying officer across from him watched the exchange with an expression that might have been amused if he had cared enough to feel anything about it. He scratched at the papers with the pen offered to him. After signing, he was given an envelope containing
his ID and other documents he had been forced to surrender. Checking to make sure all was in order, he followed the officer who had winked at him. The man held open the door, and Alistair passed through and left the station, getting a pat on the back as he left.

  Outside, Stephanie and Oliver were waiting for him, Stephanie in her Civil Guard uniform and looking as skeptical as the man who had him sign the papers but more judgmental. Oliver sported a grin from ear to ear. The abrupt temperature change from inside the moderately heated Civil Guard station to the outside produced a shiver in Alistair. The wind whipped at their clothes and Stephanie’s hair. She had her arms folded across her chest, either as a buffer against the wind or to enhance her disapproving glare.

  “Good to see you,” Oliver called out and enveloped Alistair in a hearty embrace.

  Alistair returned the hug and suddenly had an idea of what had transpired.

  “Stephanie,” he said by way of a greeting.

  “Alistair,” Stephanie returned, her expression carefully controlled. “I’m glad you didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No. As it turns out, I saved someone from a deadly assault.” He gave Oliver a look out of the corner of his eye.

  Oliver chuckled while Stephanie sighed.

  “Let’s get you home,” she said, and the two men walked with her towards the nearest Metro. The darkness of the predawn hours and the chill of the autumn wind made them shiver, and they walked quickly, eager for the relative warmth of the station.

  “So, Oliver, you managed this quite well,” Stephanie offered.

  “I managed nothing, Stephanie dearest,” he replied, his voice dripping innocence.

  “I’m not talking about the bribery, per se. That’s common enough, unfortunately. It’s just curious you knew exactly who to bribe and got it done so quickly. And what you said to the young man Alistair ‘saved’ I’d be curious to hear.”

  With his beefy paw Oliver reached for Stephanie’s rough, unfeminine hand and brought it to his lips. “Stephanie, I am truly, truly shocked, and truly hurt you could think such a thing of me.”