by T. C. Edge
“Do you know who they are?” I question tiredly.
His eyes turn back to mine.
“I recognise your father,” he says. “Maxwell.”
My heart flutters briefly, but it doesn’t last. Why does it really matter now? What good it is me knowing anymore?
My curiosity, however, even at this late hour, cannot be sated.
“What else do you know about him?”
“I don’t know much, Brie,” he murmurs. “He was a Hawk. He was a little younger than me, one of many young men under my command. I wasn’t Deputy back then, of course. I was a more junior commander.”
“And do you know about my mother?” I query.
“I’m afraid I don’t recognise her. It is regretful what happened to them…or what must have happened. I can only assume that your birth was discovered. Consequently, your parents will have been executed for their…crimes.”
“Crimes,” I whisper, my hazel eyes turning a shade or two darker. “Do you really believe that falling in love is a crime, Commander?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
“It is disallowed under our doctrine. Your parents will have known that, and broke the rules anyway. I’m afraid that they knew what was coming, Brie. And that is precisely why they hid you both.”
“Us both,” I whisper. “You know of Zander?”
“Only what I’ve been told,” he tells me. “You have a twin…”
He cuts himself off, and I wish that I could sneak inside his mind and see what he’s thinking. There’s something in his eyes, some deception, some trickery that he cannot hide. Not him, a Mind-Manipulator who, clearly, has some degree of emotion within him.
I’ve spent enough time around these people now to know who does and who doesn’t. And Leyton Burns can’t hide it all from me.
“Anyway, I have work to do, Brie. You know the drill by now. Open your eyes and relax. This won’t take long.”
I take a breath at the thought. Mental intrusions are uncomfortable enough, but my resignation is based on more than that. Because as soon as Burns discovers the secret way into the underlands inside me head, I can be damn sure that a sizeable squad of Stalkers will be sent straight on down it.
Please, Zander…get the people to safety.
As Burns sets himself up to enter my mind, I ask one final question.
“Adryan. What will happen to Adryan?” I ask.
“Oh, your husband, yes. I’ve spent some time with him already…”
“And is he OK? Cromwell wouldn’t tell me…not properly.”
“He is. For now.”
For now…
“He doesn’t need to be here,” I say. “You don’t need him. Please…just let him go.”
“I’m afraid that’s not my decision to make, Brie.”
“Then…tell Cromwell I want to see him again. Tell him…tell him that I’ll give Woolf back. Tell him I’ll negotiate a trade.”
Burns offers a weak smile at my desperation, my words rushing around the small room, my eyes flaming and nostrils flaring.
“You care about him, don’t you?” he asks.
I nod, and feel the threat of tears rising once more. I won’t let them gather. I have to be strong.
“OK,” he whispers. “I’ll speak with Director Cromwell. Now relax, Brie, and look at me. If you cooperate, I’m sure the Director will be more likely to work with you.”
It’s all I need to hear. In the end, my mind is going to be inspected anyway. If I can somehow get Adryan to safety first, then I’ll consider that a decent trade.
And so, opening up my eyes nice and wide, I let my body relax and await Burns’ assault. And into the blackness I fall as he takes possession of my mind, and begins carefully searching my thoughts.
I don’t know exactly how much time passes before he leaves the room. All I know is that the light outside has changed, the sun climbing higher in the sky, and gentle formations of clouds have begun appearing on the far horizon.
It happens in a snap, all so fast.
I get only cracked and blurred images as Burns looks through everything I’ve experienced over the last few weeks, learning all he can about my exploits, Zander, the Nameless, and the plot that I seem to know so little about.
I see him discover the secret tunnel in the north as well. The cluttered room at the back of a derelict building. The switch on the right hand wall, behind a stack of chairs. The little door that it opens on the other side, hidden by the moth-eaten sofa.
He knows, now, how to enter the underlands. Within minutes, the information will be passed to Cromwell, and together they’ll send out the Stalkers that now fall directly under Burns’ command.
Perhaps they’re already there, gathered in their terrible force, ready and waiting for the kill order to be given. Perhaps in only half an hour or so, they’ll be storming through the underground city, pouring into the secret caves and caverns and striking down all those they find.
Sophie and Rycard and their little boy, Maddox. Drum, sitting in his assigned space, still yearning to become a soldier. Zander might even be there, and he’s the only one that I hope is. The only one capable of repelling the threat, he and his own force of hybrids combating the modified freaks sent in to kill them.
Perhaps that will all go down over the course of the next few hours. Perhaps the threat of the Nameless will soon be expunged, the last hurdle for the Consortium toppled and tossed to one side.
Or, maybe, just maybe, Zander and Lady Orlando, and all the others sitting at the top table of the rebels, will have seen this coming. Maybe, when the Stalkers flood the underlands, all they’ll find will be empty caverns, only the remnants of life for them to pick over.
Either way, I may never get to find out.
The session with Burns seems to end as soon as it begins. He leaves me having dredged up all those recent memories of mine, bringing those of pain and fear, as well as joy and longing, to the surface. They play out like a highlights reel of my life, before fading away and leaving me alone, once more, in that cold and quiet room.
I assume he has what he needs, that perhaps my part is now over. But when he moves to the door, he does so with an assurance that he’ll be back.
“I’ll see you again, Brie. Very soon.”
“Remember Adryan,” I call out. “Please…talk to Cromwell.”
He nods, and then disappears through the door.
Leaving me with nothing to do but wait.
5
In the end, I don’t have to wait too long. It would appear that, as busy a man as Artemis Cromwell is, his magnificent mind is currently preoccupied with my presence here in the High Tower.
And, by the looks of things, my offer to negotiate and return Agent Woolf appears to be an attractive one.
Burns, thankfully, is true to his word. Immediately after seeing me, it would appear, he goes straight to his master to update him, which isn’t overly surprising really.
Top of the agenda, of course, will be the secret passage into the underlands, and any other relevant information that he’s extracted from my mind. After that, he’ll move onto the topic of Adryan, one that leads Cromwell back to my cell within a couple of short hours.
As I look out of the window towards the city streets so far below – the only distraction I have here – the sound of footsteps has me turning back to the door just as it begins to open. And through it, Cromwell comes, with Burns right beside him, both dressed in their white suits, Cromwell’s just a shade brighter.
The Director is quick to talk.
“I hear you’re interested in getting your new husband to safety,” he says. I nod hurriedly. “And in exchange, you’ll ensure that your brother hands Romelia back to us?”
I continue to nod.
“Tell me, Brie, why I would strike such a bargain? Your husband is a traitor, and that cannot be tolerated. He is to be punished in accordance with his crimes. It won’t give you much solace to know that the crime of treason carries
with it our strictest of sentences.”
A shudder runs through me. I can only imagine what such punishments will entail. Truly, I don’t want to know the details.
My pleas can’t help but rush off my tongue.
“No, you can’t! You’ll get Agent Woolf back, I promise you. Surely she’s worth more to you than merely punishing one of your own? It’s not like you get any joy from it, after all.”
“No joy, but some measure of satisfaction,” Cromwell educates me. “And justice, Brie, needs to be done. That is the society we have built here.”
“But what about logic,” comes my rushing voice. “Logically, it’s better to have a useful asset like Agent Woolf back in your ranks, is it not? I mean, she’s a Mind-Manipulator, and a powerful one at that. There aren’t many, are there?”
I watch his eyes carefully. I feel like I’m winning him over.
“And…if you kill Adryan, my brother will just kill Romelia,” I continue, seeing an opening. “What’s the logic in losing them both?”
He seems to consider my words for a moment. I gauge that simply by his lack of immediate response, more than any change in his expression. To his side, Burns watches closely, his face easier to read as those muted emotions and expressions play out. By the looks of things, he believes the idea to have some merit.
But he doesn’t speak.
“Say I decided to negotiate,” says Cromwell slowly. “How would I communicate with Lady Orlando to discuss this swap? In your current state, your telepathic link with your brother has been severed. Oh yes, Brie, I’m well aware of that…”
“Well…take me off these drugs. Then I can communicate with him.”
A small smile hovers on Cromwell’s face before fading.
“I think not, Brie. You will remain drugged.”
I didn’t expect that to work. But another idea flows into my head.
“The communicator,” I say suddenly. “The device Adryan used to speak with Lady Orlando. It’s unlocked only by a special code, which only Adryan knows. You could extract it, and then talk to her that way.”
I watch on with hopeful eyes. If I can just save Adryan before I die, then at least that’s something. I’ll be able to go to my grave with less regret.
“That may work, Artemis,” says Burns, speaking for the first time. “I can extract the code immediately for you if you wish. The investigative team have Mr Shaw’s personal belongings in evidence. I can have the communicator brought up here for you.”
Another few moments of silence are drawn into the room, a silence that Cromwell appears to relish. He may not feel joy, but there’s a sense that he obtains some pleasure from his influence and power. That this isn’t just about making sure his people thrive. That he does, in fact, want to create a legacy of his own as well.
Or maybe that’s just me, projecting onto him how such a man would usually behave. Truly, he’s complicated, and unlike Woolf, who has a devious streak, his intentions do at least run in line with his world, his upbringing, his people.
As Adryan once told me, Cromwell and the Consortium are not evil people per se. They are merely doing what they consider to be right, and while that leads to evil things, terrible things, it isn’t necessarily something they take any gratification from.
I wonder, had I been born a Savant, would I be looking at the world in the same way as him? Or would I have been like Adryan, turning away from his people?
He only did that because of what happened to his first wife, his emotions unlocked by that terrible event. Would I have been that same rare breed, or would I merely have nodded along and got on with the life, and duty, I was assigned?
I’ll never know, of course, but it remains something that serves to dampen my hatred. Despite the terrible things people do, they often do it all in the name of something they truly believe in. And with someone like Cromwell, his own conditioning and programming, as a Savant, has led him down this path.
Maybe he, like me, like any of us, never really had a choice.
But, on the other hand, he’s willing to murder tens of thousands of people to serve his own ends. And he’s truly of the belief that humans, in their original, Unenhanced, form, have no purpose other than to serve the higher beings in the new world. And when that purpose begins to wane, they’ll gradually be bred out of existence until only the Enhanced remain.
That is something that cannot be tolerated. However much he believes it to be right, it isn’t. It’s wrong, and I can only pray that, one day, my brother, or someone else, proves exactly that.
Yet, right here and right now, he holds the cards. The only one I have to play is my place among the Nameless, and my ability to negotiate the release of Agent Woolf.
So, eventually, he concedes, and a small smile of hope hovers onto my lips.
“OK,” he says, turning to Burns. “Gather the communicator, and extract the code. And in the meantime,” he adds, looking back at me, “I will consider your proposal.”
He turns and moves to the door, and Burns follows behind.
“When will you be back?” I ask desperately.
Cromwell stops, and swivels. His eyes land on mine.
“Soon,” he says, his answer typically ambiguous.
And with that, both men disappear.
I’m left, once more, with nothing but my thoughts for company. Outside, it remains light, the clouds away over the distant mountains continuing to press their way towards the city.
I suppose that I at least get to enjoy this view; a final tease, perhaps, before my fate is sealed.
They could, if they wished, make sure that the wall turned solid again, blocking off the view, and blocking off the light. They could keep me in this small, silent dungeon, stewing in the darkness.
Yet, they don’t.
One might consider it a small mercy to be allowed to look upon the city, upon the mountains and woods beyond, and the grand spectacle. But, perhaps its intended to be the opposite: a punishment, to look out at the world that I couldn’t save.
Or maybe, sitting here with nothing to do but think, I’m coming to all sorts of conclusions that they haven’t even considered. Do they really care about me? Do they really care about torturing me, giving me this final tease before snatching it all away?
Who knows? And in the end, it doesn’t really matter.
So I sit, and I look out, and do nothing else as the clouds march on, and the light gradually begins to fade. Without my Hawk-eyes, I just stare at the blurry details, at the forms of buildings and the lights that give shape to the streets. At the towering mountains away off in the distance, and the muddied greens of the woods at their base.
I sit and stare for hours until the clouds have come and gone, and the sky has turned black, dotted with bright stars. The celestial glow of the moon shines down, and the world below burns with artificial light as the advertising boards of the western quarter give off their multi-coloured haze.
And soon, as the night grows late, the boards begin to shut down as the people sleep, and the entire city starts to go dark, joining the perpetually blackened streets of the north. And above, a fresh gathering of clouds come, obscuring the moonlight and starlight as the entire world gets swamped in a shroud of gloom.
But there remains one light.
One single, tiny glow, so far away that it can barely be seen. And somehow, I muster the tiniest shred of power that remains inside me, and manage to look forward just a little, my eyes spreading towards the distant mountains away to the northwest.
And there, I see it – the glow, flickering so faintly, coming from the dark depths of the mountain passes.
A glow of orange. A glow of fire.
And watching, I recall the rumours of the mountain dwellers that I’ve heard so many times since I was a kid. Rumours that Tess never believed, and that I always wished were true.
Now, perhaps, I have some confirmation. Fire, lit within some lofty cave, sending forth its signal. A signal that calls to my very heart, sends a
new wave of sadness through me that I’ll never be able to venture beyond this city, trek up there and see it all for myself.
That yearning for freedom, for adventure, will never be quenched. And with my dying breaths, it will remain in me, leaving me with so much regret.
Then, a fresh swamp of cloud breezes over on the wind, and the light is hidden once more. And with it, I let myself fall into a terrible, uncomfortable sleep. A sleep filled with demons and memory.
A sleep that might just be my last.
6
The hours have begun to take their toll. My back aches with a deep throb of pain, locked tight in that chair. My wrists are sore, bound to the arms, and my ankles the same, bound to the legs.
I want to stand and stretch, to use the bathroom. I need some relief from this silent room, awaiting my summons and sentencing.
And still, on my lap, my parents watch me, berating me with the grief hidden behind their eyes. I want to shake it off but can’t. I no longer get any comfort from seeing them.
Now, I just can’t bear it.
I begin to shout out as the morning light dawns, bringing the city to life beyond the window. There’s a trickle of rain, a grey mist hanging in the air. A miserable pattern of weather to match my mood.
I shout out several times, louder and louder with every renewal of my voice. But no one comes to me. No one is on guard. No one is watching.
In the end, I give up, my own voice ringing in my ears, and suffer another hour of waiting before I hear the sound of footsteps once more.
And Director Cromwell appears.
His presence brings a surge to my voice. I beg to be released, to be able to use the bathroom, to stretch my legs, if only for a couple of minutes.
He stands, detached from my pleas, and I wonder if he’ll just ignore me. But then, moving from the room, he returns a few moments later with a Stalker at his side.
I’m released, my wrists and ankles unbound, and led out of the room and down a corridor to a bathroom. I stretch with each step, purging the stiffness from my limbs, before relieving myself and being marched straight back to the cell.