by T. C. Edge
As she begins mopping up the fresh flow of blood, she once more questions how the little wound was inflicted.
“Like I say, I just knocked my head,” I tell her.
My words are a little short. If she can keep secrets, so can I. Although, there’s nothing for me to really say on the matter anyway. Getting spooked and running into a large refuse bin is hardly an interesting story.
She doesn’t push it as she continues her work. Once she’s done, she retreats to her chair and pours me a little glass of whiskey. I shake my head.
“Drink it,” she orders. “It’ll help soothe the pain.”
“It doesn’t really hurt,” I say.
“Well, drink it anyway. After what you’ve been through today, you probably need it…”
I scoop up the glass and take a sip, and an immediate sensation of burning follows in my throat.
“Jeez…what is this, acid rain!” I cough.
She laughs. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“You’re telling me.”
Some, like Tess, seem to acquire it quicker than others.
Mrs Carmichael shuffles a little deeper into her seat, and sends a quarter glass of the burning liquid down her throat with no recoil at all. Then she fills another, before zeroing in on me again.
“So, tell me about today. How was it visiting Inner Haven?”
The question is innocent, yet I know what sort of answer she’s looking for.
“Weird,” I answer truthfully.
A little smile immediately creeps up her face.
“It’s lifeless, colourless,” I continue. “The people walk about like robots, all smiling fake smiles and being polite. They even have these posture police who make sure no one’s adopting negative body language or expressions. Did you know about that?”
“I’ve heard,” she says. “Nothing you’re saying surprises me, Brie. I know all about Inner Haven.”
“Really? How?”
She’s never really told me this before. Mostly, I’ve always thought her bitterness has come from hearsay, and the sort of negative gossiping about Inner Haven that fills the local drinking holes she frequents.
“Oh, I’ve spoken with many people who have been there in my time. This line of work I’m in…I get to speak with all sorts. Outer Haven isn’t short of a few who know the workings of Inner Haven. If you keep your ear to the ground, you hear things.”
“You probably know a lot more than me, then. I just got a superficial look, and I didn’t much like it.”
“And Tess?”
I shrug. “She seemed more enamoured than me…with one thing in particular.”
The look in her eye requests I elaborate.
“We met Sophie’s husband, Rycard. He’s a Hawk. Tess…well, she got a bit drunk and couldn’t keep her eyes off him.”
“You got drunk?”
“No, not me…only Tess. We had dinner at their apartment, and she overindulged in apple wine. Don’t worry, she’s paying for it now, I can assure you…”
She frowns, looking less than pleased at the revelation. I wonder if I’ve said too much and got my best friend into trouble.
Yet, her frown appears to be based on more than just Tess’s inebriation.
“I thought you were meant to be going to a banquet or something?” she queries.
“We were. It was called off after what happened.”
“I see. It doesn’t surprise me. The ceremony was just for show, as I told you. After the, um, interruption, there would be no point in carrying out the banquet. I’ll bet they hated that,” she says with a grin.
“The hijack?”
“Oh yes,” she crackles gleefully. “Those Savants love their order. It must have been killing them that the Nameless took over their broadcast. Even they probably felt some anger at that…”
“It sounds like you know who they are,” I say.
Her eyes round on me. Her grin drops. She scoops up her whiskey again and, with the room now mostly cleared of smoke, lights up a fresh cigarette. It’s a ploy she uses when she wants to think…or delay.
Eventually, when her answer comes, it’s hardly revelatory.
“Not really. Again, just a few bits and pieces.”
“Like what?” I question.
“It’s not worth discussing, Brie. All I know it that they’re a resistance group of some kind who are opposed to the doctrine of the Consortium. You get these sorts of rebel groups all the time. They come and go.”
She returns her attention to her cigarette. She knows more than she’s letting on. What she doesn’t know, however, is that Rycard has already spilled the beans.
“So, you don’t know that they’re hybrids then?” I ask flatly.
Her old eyes flash for the tiniest of moments, before regaining their cool poise.
“I’ve heard that, yes,” she says. “Hybrids are outlawed, so it’s only logical that they’d fight the system. But…who told you that?”
“Rycard,” I answer. “Sophie’s husband. He’s a member of the City Guard.”
“A member of the City Guard? He shouldn’t be so loose with his tongue…”
“I don’t see why not. All this cloak and dagger stuff…it makes no sense. Why doesn’t everyone know about the Nameless and who they are?”
“Because, like I say, the Savants like to keep order. They don’t want people knowing about a group that could be a threat to them. After today, though, I guess there’s no stopping it. There are already rumours all across the city.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve heard them. I went for a quick walk when I got back, over to the main intersection. Most people think they’re pranksters, like Deputy Burns said…”
“Most people are sheep,” she returns bitterly. “They don’t know how to think for themselves. I’m not sure going for a walk was a good idea though, Brie. It might be best to keep a low profile.”
“Why? No one cares about me.”
Her eyes turn a little shifty, and her voice deepens.
“You never know who’s out there,” she says. “People have agendas.”
My mind turns to the shadow in the alley.
“What do you mean?”
She seems to remember herself, her face brightening again.
“Just…no, nothing. You know me, Brie…I’m in one of those moods. Just be careful, OK. Don’t go out alone, especially at night.”
Her words send a shiver up my spine. More questions boil to the front of my mind, but she swats them away like flies, gulping down her whiskey and stubbing out her cigarette with a fresh haste. It appears that she wants this conversation to end.
Then she turns to the little clock, ticking endlessly on the wall.
“Wow, would you look at the time. It’s been a long day. Best get some sleep, hey?”
I nod, the lateness of the hour forcing me to agree. Before I leave the room, however, I pose one more question.
“Did you hear that boom earlier?” I ask. “I felt a rumble out in the streets.”
“Just the storm, I’m sure,” she tells me casually. Clearly, she can’t have felt it like I did. “Now off you go, get some sleep. I’ll check on your cut tomorrow.”
I do as she says, returning to my room to find Tess now snoring loudly. It matters not.
Despite my weary limbs and tired eyes, I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight.
16
The following morning reveals the truth of what I spent the night obsessing about.
I wake from a brief and broken sleep and immediately head for the common room, leaving Tess coiled up in the foetal position in her bed. Already, the academy is starting to come alive, the sound of voices spreading from the various avenues of the ground floor taken up by the youngsters.
Thankfully, I find the common room itself empty. A few more minutes of peace before the bombardment begins…
I flick on the television set and it gradually blooms into life. The sight that greets my eyes sends my heart pounding.
“Devastation in the eastern quarter,” reads the headline at the bottom of the screen.
Behind it, an image of a flaming warehouse fills the view, the building blown apart and being hastily cleaned up by a relief team. Towards the rear, dozens of body bags are lined up, with others being removed on stretchers or added to the growing pile of dead.
A reporter stands in front of the camera, his voice grave as he speaks.
“So far, the count of dead hasn’t been determined,” he says. “But it looks likely to rival the attack at Culture Corner only days ago. The warehouse behind me was operating on a night schedule, filled with innocent people just doing their jobs. Many are still being pulled from the rubble. So far, no survivors have been found.”
As the man speaks, the door opens behind me and Abby comes in. She’s only 8 years of age, and this sort of carnage shouldn’t be witnessed by her eyes.
“Hey Brie!” she says, her innocent face lighting up. She comes clattering over to me and gives me a hug. “You were amazing yesterday!” Then her eyes flow towards the television, and her demeanour changes. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing interesting,” I say quickly. “You should go to the canteen, Abby. Breakfast will be starting.”
She frowns and squishes up her little features.
“There’s been another bomb, hasn’t there?”
I forget how perceptive kids can be, even though I’m only 18 myself.
I shake my head and prepare to deliver a white lie, but she continues.
“I felt it last night in my room. The ground was shaking. Did lots of people die?”
I can tell there will be no fooling her.
“Well….some,” I admit, noting that she’s already seen the body bags on the screen. “But it’s OK, it was right on the other side of the city. We’re safe here.”
“Are you sure?” she asks softly, looking for comfort.
“Of course,” I say, pulling her into a hug. “You think Mrs Carmichael would let anything happen to her academy? I don’t think so!”
I draw a little smile from her face and quickly reach over to turn off the TV.
“There, all gone. Now come on, let’s get some food.”
I stand up and lead her out of the room and into the canteen. Some of her friends are there already, giggling in their group.
“Go join your friends,” I tell her.
“I’ll stay with you if you want,” she says.
“No…I have work I need to get on with. It’s OK, go to your friends.”
Her eyes scrunch up with concern as she looks at me.
“But it’s not safe out there.”
“Don’t worry. There are Con-Cops and City Guards everywhere. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise.”
I’ve learned the word ‘promise’, when delivered by someone with authority, has the desired effect of settling nerves and dousing concerns. It’s a trick Mrs Carmichael taught me, herself a master at keeping the youngsters in order. More than a few times, in fact, she used that particular word to settle me down when I was a resident of the ground floor.
Thankfully, it works, and after another quick hug, Abby rushes off to eat with her friends. They huddle round her as she comes, keen to find out what we were talking about.
Sometimes, I miss the innocence of youth. Adulthood seemed to creep up on me so fast…
Once she’s gone, I pop my head around the door in the kitchen to see if Drum is still on duty. With a new week beginning, it appears as though his run is up, another of the transitioners having taken on the role.
He looks at me with a bit of shock as I appear, eyes popping and his arm fixing to stone as he stirs a large pot of gruel.
“Don’t mind me,” I say. “Carry on.”
I guess I’m going to have to get used to being looked at like that, what with my newfound celebrity status and all.
Leaving the kitchen and canteen behind, I find myself accosted by a fresh batch of youngsters pouring down the corridor to breakfast. I brace for the storm of questions and they duly oblige, a dozen voices flooding towards me at once.
“I guess you saw it all on TV?” I ask them all, referencing the previous day’s events.
They all nod and chatter.
“Of course! We’ve seen it, like, a hundred times!”
A round of laughter follows.
“Well then,” I say, “I’ve got nothing to add really. You saw what I saw, didn’t’ you?”
They appear disappointed.
“But…what else happened, away from the camera? Come on, Brie, tell us, tell us!”
“Nothing,” I lie. “I just went there and came back. Now off you go to breakfast. I’ve got things to do.”
I hear them grumble as they move down the corridor, one kid saying: “Maybe Tess will tell us.”
I laugh inside at the idea. They’ll be in for a rude awakening if they try to bother Tess today.
I spend the next hour attempting to gather more intel about the latest explosion. The reports on TV only give me so much, but I learn that it was a production and storage warehouse for food products that was destroyed.
It hardly makes sense. Up to this point, the Fanatics have been spraying their graffiti over art installations, primarily in the southern quarter. The attack at Culture Corner, terrible as it was, made sense: it was a public attack, an attack on art and emotion, an escalation of their war against our civil liberties.
But this? Blowing up a food warehouse over in the eastern quarter at night. It doesn’t exactly fall in line with what they appear to be about.
Fresh evidence, however, points the finger squarely at them. As the flames are extinguished and the scene investigated, the same graffiti we’ve seen elsewhere begins to appear, scattered over broken bits of wall. As the macabre puzzle is put back together, it becomes clear that the Fanatics were, in fact, to blame.
I guess it could have been no one else. It must simply be that their hatred of our liberties is now extending to our consumption of food. I suppose it’s another expression of freedom and pleasure, creating all manner of foods that the wealthier residents enjoy. If they had it their way, we’d all be on gruel and nothing else.
As I sit and watch the latest reports, Mrs Carmichael appears through the door.
“Ah, Brie, I thought you’d be in here…”
“Have you heard about this?” I ask hurriedly.
“Yes, I have. I guess you were right last night. I wish you weren’t.”
She looks at me, my eyes glued to the screen.
“Now don’t be getting any ideas about going over there, Brie,” she says. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” I say, honestly. “I have work to do, right?”
According to my rota, today was supposed to be a clean up job at an office not far from here.
“Oh, no. I’ve assigned that to someone else. You and Tess should take a couple of days off, let things die down a bit. You’ll only be harassed out there.”
“So…stay here at the academy? I’ll be harassed just as much here as anywhere. Probably more.”
“Yes, well stick to your room and you’ll be OK. Now let me check that cut.”
She comes in and quickly inspects my wound. There’s little point. It’s absolutely fine. Frankly, she’s been acting overly caring recently, a far cry from her usual stoic self.
Before she leaves the room, she pulls a little bag from her pocket.
“Here you go, fresh supplies,” she says, handing it to me.
More pills.
Then she’s off, disappearing to deliver fresh orders for the day to the youngsters, always keen to maintain a tight ship. She’ll have them doing chores, running errands, learning some of the core skills that will hopefully help them find employment when they reach working age.
It’ll work for some, but not for others. That’s just the nature of things here.
The thought brings Drum back into my mind. As the
common room begins to fill with more bodies, I take my leave without being pestered too heavily. Given what’s happening on the TV, their attention is already moving off elsewhere.
I move up the first floor and back to Drum’s room. When I knock this time, I receive an answer. It’s not Drum’s voice that calls back, but one of his roommates.
I go in to find Fred, a small red-headed child with a face littered with freckles and a spindly frame that’s in stark contrast to his oversized roommate. He’s a nice kid, though, as is the third of their little crew, Ziggy, who appears to be absent.
Mrs Carmichael has always put like-minded kids together where she can. Quite what happened with Tess and me I don’t know…
I quickly scan the room and see that Drum is also absent.
“He’s not here,” says Fred, without being prompted.
“Where is he?”
“Working. Clean up I think. Mrs Carmichael had two spots spare, she told us. Gave them to Drum and Ziggy.” There’s an air of resignation in his voice.
“Ah, OK,” I say. “Chin up, Fred, you’ll get work eventually.”
He nods feebly and dips his long nose back into a book on his lap. The poor kid looks upset. His days are very much numbered here.
As I shut the door, however, I think it fortunate that Drum’s got some work. And it was clearly Tess and me who made way. If I could, I’d happily sacrifice half my work if it meant Drum got to take it on.
With a smile, I return to my room to find Tess still curled up in a mess. It’s dark inside, the sharp light from the corridor cutting in across her bed.
“Oh God,” she says, shielding her eyes. “Shut it…please.”
I draw it to a close, nice and slow.
“I’m never drinking again,” she mutters, pulling the blanket over her eyes.
“That’s what they all say,” comes my standard response. “You’ll be happy to know that we have the day off, maybe more.”
“Awesome…thank you Mrs Carmichael,” she groans. “What you been doing today?”
She peeks from below her blanket, the room dim.
I consider telling her the latest news, but deduce that she’s probably not in the best state to hear about it right now.
So I merely shrug and tell her nothing, before slipping onto my bed.