by M. J Kreyzer
She plucked her phone from her pocket and handed it to Hendrick without hesitation. Hendrick popped it open and left the room, dialing numbers as he went and partly closing the door behind him.
It wasn’t long before the others arrived. The Ditrinity, Luke’s entourage, consisted of six members including Sable and Hendrick. One by one they arrived. The first, of course, was Morlo. In a complete disregard for Luke’s condition, Morlo slugged him in the arm and tried to get him to go out for a round of drinks. Crawling out of bed and moving to the living room was the most that Luke could manage at the time.
Over the next hour the others showed up. After Morlo came Vyvyr Syvyr and Pontious Granlow. Vyvyr was in his usual mood, being the reserved, stoic, and silent individual he was. But even he managed a smile seeing Luke in a conscious state. He was a dark individual, gothic in dress and appearance, with black hair that hung down to his shoulders, pale, sunken cheeks and a thin, lanky build, while the lines in his face drew deep shadows. Pontious, Vyvyr’s apparent antithesis, was a werewolf, standing around five foot ten with a medium build, silvery hair and bright orange eyes. Like Vyvyr, he stood stoic, though his reaction to Luke’s well-being was much better illustrated and expressed. The last of the group to arrive was Trey Scarsborough who made his entrance as loud and attention-grabbing as possible, throwing the door open and powerfully proclaiming “I’m here!” in a voice that bounded throughout the apartment.
It didn’t take long for Luke to get out of his room, helped along by Sable, and move to the living room where the others were waiting.
The apartment was ornate, and it was a shock to Luke to realize that he resided in such a place, not having seen it as he was unconscious for the duration of his residency. A chandelier hung over the living room where a circle of couches and lounge chairs surrounded a coffee table and an elaborate stone fireplace. A gorgeous library rested in a loft at the top of a wrought iron spiral staircase on the far side of the room. Works of expensive and elegant art- statues, rugs, and extravagant tapestries- concealed a good portion of the walls and floors. And before it, on a slightly raised platform, rested the kitchen, where Hendrick was already spreading glasses across the black marble countertops and drawing various bottled drinks from the deep oaken cupboards.
The group stood around Luke, all offering to help with something while he moved towards one of the lounge chairs placed around the fireplace. After Luke sat down, arranging all the medical equipment for the most comfortable layout possible, the others followed in suit, settling in and turning to Luke.
“So why Styne?” Luke asked, closing his eyes and his voice still suggesting his desire for sleep. It was blunt, maybe untactful, but Luke wasn’t feeling at all inclined to speak more than he had to. Every word made his temples pound.
A few voices sprang up as nobody knew who exactly he was speaking to. Hendrick made the quickest interjection and gave the explanation, moving to the living room with his hands full of drink-laden glasses which he passed around to the rest of the group. “Resources. We’re still lucky that Sam’s cluing us in everything the Darks are doing.”
“Friggin’ tools.” Trey added.
“Well, not gonna dispute that.” Hendrick said, moving to the sofa and falling down next to Trey. “So he wanted to take Styne because he feels that we aren’t… aren’t accruing the necessary assets to stage an effective strike against the Commune.”
Luke chuckled. “You been working on your vocabulary while I was gone?”
Hendrick grinned. “Crosswords, man.”
“So I gotta ask ya.” Pontious said, claiming his place as the next speaker. “That whole bloody mess back in Olsgrad Canyon. How much… well, how much of that’s true?” Pontious looked around at the group in an action that included them all in his statement. “We’ve been getting all sorts of stories about what actually happened.”
“And you better b’lieve we’ve been defending ya.” Morlo added.
“But we haven’t known for sure either.” Pontious finished, resting back in his chair and waiting for Luke’s response. “So is that… that something you can shed a little light on?”
Luke sat and thought for a minute. He knew they’d be asking him questions, he just had no idea how personal these questions were going to be and how fast they were going to get there. But looking around at all of them he knew they were honestly curious, not out of some morbid fascination, but out of concern. Regardless, Luke didn’t want to tell them. Not yet. Without looking at Pontious, Luke shook his head. It didn’t hurt any feelings, and he knew that they understood why he wasn’t quite yet ready to share the details surrounding Olsgrad Canyon or his imprisonment. He’d only been awake for no more than an hour and was already getting hit with some pretty difficult questions. He’d tell them. They’d just have to wait. As if to send the group a signal, Luke rested his head back against the chair and took a deep breath, feeling a great deal of comfort feeling himself sink into the chair’s deep, soft cushions.
“I was reading over some of the reports we got during the Durant Relocation act, those millions of Durants that went through those work camps…” Pontious said, speaking directly to Luke. “I took a look at your files from the research facility, saw your living conditions, your diet, stuff, like that and… well, honestly, by any stretch of reality you should’ve been dead years ago. We’re all just thanking God you’re okay.”
With shortened breath Luke managed a short, cynical laugh, that drew a harsh chain of subsequent coughs. Luke regained his composure and spoke through a ragged throat. “Heh, right.”
The statement caught everybody off guard. It was a statement they never imagined Luke would make, and looking across their faces he knew their shock. But honestly, he didn’t care if he used to be one of the most religious men any of them knew. They hadn’t seen the things he had.
“Luke…” Sable started quietly. “What’re… what’re you talking about?”
“He would’ve stopped it.” Luke uttered roughly, looking around the group with sunken eyes. “If he cared…if he were even there at all, he would’ve stopped it. Tens of millions of Durants don’t just get rounded up and massacred if there’s a god that actually cares whether they live or die. Hell, not just die, the Commune butchered them and researched them, trying to get from them what they got from me. They tortured them, dismembered them, gave them diseases, pushed their bodies to their limits and, in most cases past them, all to see just how much a human being can endure. And the sick thing, the really, most disgusting thing, is that I’m sure nobody remembers this. I’m sure if I walk out there and ask somebody what happened at those camps, what happened at those labs, they’d say ‘oh, that’s terrible, how can anybody be so sick?’ and forget about it within minutes.” Luke looked around at the group. It was clear they were taken back. Again, it didn’t bother Luke in the least. “I was stupid before, believing that if we kept doing what was right, keeping faithful, all that pathetic bullshit, that somebody would save us, somebody would give me the strength to finish the fight that they started. I spent over a decade living in the dirt, eating garbage, watching everybody that I loved die literally all around me, fighting battle after battle hoping for that time to come, that moment when our endurance, our faith, would pay off.” Luke stopped as memories of war rushed back to him. The dark feeling that already floated around within him became thicker, darker. Luke shook his head. “Nobody ever came for us.”
There was silence; nobody said anything. Only a few of them looked anywhere but the floor. Sable, though, looked at Luke with saddened eyes, her troubled expression not a product of Luke’s dismissal of religion, but rather his abandonment of something that, at one point, was a corner stone of his life. For her it was evidence at just how hard prison had been on Luke. Regardless of the thoughts, the words that she ached to vocalize, Sable said nothing. Instead, like the rest of the group, she sat silent, the thoughts that ran through their heads being quite similar to Sable’s.
Luke
sat back in his chair, his arms lazing on both rests as he slowly sank deeper into the chair. It was as though he had just drained himself in every sense possible. His face was sullen, tired, as though expressing that one thought were the most effort he had exerted in a long, long time. And with the exception of his escape from the prison facility, it probably was. Then, out of his deep subconscious, a thought came to Luke, something that he had thought about in prison on a regular basis. He took a deep breath. “Where’s Tess?” He asked quietly.
There was a brief pause.
“Sorry,” Pontious replied. “Who?”
“My daughter.” Luke answered. “Where is she?”
Everybody became visibly apprehensive in answering. Without skipping a beat, Luke picked up on the change in tone and became immediately concerned, that concern mixing with a noticeable amount of anger.
“Nate, you tell me right now.” Luke said, giving Hendrick a hard eye. “Where is Tess?”
Hendrick pursed his lips as he thought of a way that he could answer. “Since you were taken, I’ve made it my business to keep an eye on her but… well she’s definitely your daughter cause once she hit sixteen she just stopped listening to me and-“
“Don’t sugar coat this.” Luke moved to the edge of his chair. The machine that measured his pulse sped up. “Just tell me.”
Hendrick shook his head and gave a sharp, conquered exhale. “They don’t know. She was in Fox team… Fox Seven, and they were taking Styne’s third district when they got a call for backup to board an enemy Helio.”
“She’s been fighting Legionnaires?” Luke said with both surprise and fear.
With a look of amused deprecation, not of Luke but of the Dark leadership, Hendrick shook his head. “IA, yes. She’s trained for years but she’s never gone hand to hand with a real Legionnaire.”
The beeps that emitted from the machine became fast and shrill. He put both hands onto the armrests and went to stand up. Sable darted to his side immediately while the rest of the Ditrinity was prepared to help.
“Luke,” Sable said, putting both hands on his chest. “Luke, listen, you’re not going anywhere like this.”
“Like hell, I’m not.” Luke rasped.
“Listen to her.” Vyvyr said as he stood up and walked over behind Sable. “You’ve been in a two week coma following a six year imprisonment. You’ve suffered extreme muscular atrophy, malnutrition that should have killed you, you don’t have the strength to walk out of this apartment, much less cross the city to have a talk with Sam.”
Luke gave a weak, defiant laugh. “How do you know who I want to talk to?”
Vyvyr shrugged. “Well who else would you want to see then with a matter involving your daughter’s ?”
He was right, obviously, and his expression demonstrated that recognition clearly. And Luke had forgotten the way Vyvyr dictated his words. It was strange hearing that after such a long time. But he didn’t have time to sit around and ‘recover’. There’d be no recovery until Luke knew his daughter was safe. Or alive, for that matter, in which case her death would be met with several more. Halfway back into his chair, Luke looked back at Sable with firm eyes.
“I’m going.” He said, pressing her away from him. He tore the IV from his arm and took the pulse monitor from his finger, drawing a long, typically alarming noise from the heart rate monitor. With a slight limp he made his way around the chair, using one hand to support him as he moved. “My gear’s in my room, right?”
Sable tried to support Luke as he tottered towards his room as he shrugged off her attempts at aiding him. He winced as she put her fingers on his wounded shoulder. She immediately backed off but maintained her position. “You’re not going.” She said firmly. “I’m not going to let-“
“I’ll drive.” Hendrick cut her off. Sable spun on him with stark disapproval. With a grin of smug apology on his face, Hendrick fished his keys from his pocket while he waited for Luke. “Well… he can’t drive himself, I mean… that would just… that would just be irresponsible.” Hendrick nodded over to Pontious and Vyvyr, then nodding towards the door. “You two are running escort with me and Sable. Morlo, Trey, get us something to eat by the time we get back.”
It was as though Hendrick had just insulted the physical and social integrity of both their mothers. Morlo and Trey began to protest and Trey, feeling that simply stating his disapproval wasn’t enough, found a nearby coaster and threw it at the ground. Hendrick shrugged.
“I don’t want to deal with those retarded questions you ask,” Hendrick said pointing at Trey with his keys jangling in hand.
“What, and you think I do!” Morlo replied loudly.
Hendrick wasn’t finished. “And we’ve only got Sable’s SUV to drive, not a friggin’ moving van.”
Luke emerged from the hallway, limping in a quick stride. Now in a pair of jeans and a black tank top, Luke threw on a white, sleeveless trench coat formed from the rough hide of an albino Razorback as he walked. But most intimidating of all, the thing that neutralized every last ounce of visible frailty that Luke suffered, was the long, black-edged broadsword he carried in one arm. Even in his weakened state, Luke still managed to heft the eighty pound sword to the leather straps on his back with relative ease. “Alright let’s go.”
Vyvyr and Pontious were first out the door. When Luke took step behind them, Hendrick and Sable closed the door behind him, Hendrick smiling and waving to Trey and Morlo as he pulled the door shut. As they entered the hallway, turned past the stairs and headed towards the elevator, Hendrick looked down at Sable’s thigh. “Your gun?”
“My pea shooter’s shoved in my boot with my knife.” She said as they reached the elevator. “My forty’s out in the glove box and my sword’s in the back.” Sable looked Hendrick over and her expression became inquisitive as well. “Yours?”
“Took a lot of flexibility training to hide it where I did.” He said with a laugh, earning a disgusted look from Sable. The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, Pontious and Vyvyr in the back of the elevator, Luke in the middle and Hendrick and Sable in the front. Still smiling, Hendrick reached back and patted the back of his shorts, signaling the actual hiding place for his gun. Sable managed a slight shake of the head as the doors closed behind them.
It was the afternoon, and with most of the city’s population working, the streets were pretty well clear. The complex that Luke resided in perched on the very edge of the river that ran straight through the city, originating in an underground spring, running down the hill that much of the city was built upon and moving through the city’s outer walls as it reached the base of the valley. The creamy, stucco exteriors of the houses and apartments that hugged the streets glowed beneath the warm afternoon light, accented by the dark wood frames, windowsills and the deep red roses that peppered them. Wrought iron was the only visible metallic structuring, forming fences, railings, signposts, and anything else imaginable that they might be used for. And as the car coasted through the cobblestone streets, Luke examined the city in great detail as it was one of the few major cities in the world that he had never seen in person.
The car turned the corner and began heading downhill, the straight street giving them a sprawling view of the city ahead of them. Bell towers and beautiful spires rose above the brown tile roofs and flat-topped buildings, giving the city depth and variety. And, far off in the distance, the city’s outer wall could be seen, appearing to be nothing more than a thin, earthy line drawn across the horizon. Small turrets were spaced evenly along the wall while, at each one of the outer gates, massive anti-air cannons sat silently, standing guard. And, though they were mostly concealed by surrounding structures, Praemon was outfitted with one of the most impressive and destructive anti-air networks in the hemisphere.
In the back seat, Vyvyr, Pontious and Hendrick checked their weapons; Vyvyr and Pontious checking the chambers on their pistols while Hendrick strapped his Blazers to his wrists, turning his hands over and inspecting the weapons�
� fastening. As he did, he paid a discreet glance to the front seat and caught a glimpse of the looks Sable gave to Luke. With only his stomach being slightly affected, Hendrick maintained a neutral expression and returned his attention to his Blazers.
“It’s just up ahead.” Sable said, shifting the car into a lower gear as they descended the hill. She looked over at Luke who was riding shotgun. He watched out the windows at the passing city, not speaking, completely oblivious to anything that happened around him.
The world had changed since Luke had first been imprisoned. He didn’t know how he knew it. It was probably because everything seemed fine when, in reality, Luke knew what was going on beyond people’s knowledge. As Luke watched the people strolling down the walks, stopping through the street side markets, he knew they were honestly oblivious to the truths of the world. They were completely content living in an ignorance they were unaware of. But seeing these people for the first time since his escape, seeing them interact with each other and the world around him, Luke realized that they were fighting a losing battle. With the Commune in control of the media they’d never be anything more than a rag-tag group of pirates, terrorists, bent the destruction of the citizenry’s cherished way of life. As though the Legionnaire didn’t make the Commune an impossible enemy, it was their control of the media that offered them ultimate power. Luke knew how to kill, yet when it came to radically altering the opinions of others, he was helpless.
Sable took the next corner, coming onto a long, narrow street as they quickly approached a large set of iron gates. The walls were ten meters high with a guard tower every hundred feet stocked with four Dark soldiers, each toting a hefty rifle in such a way as it made it clear that they were itching to use them.
“Dark high command.” Sable said, slowing down and coming to a stop at the gate as their car was identified. Soldiers circled the car and got a good look at the passengers, giving each one of them a hard eye. Then, after seeing Luke, the man who appeared to be the commanding officer got on his radio. After a moment and what appeared to be an involved conversation, the soldier looked up to the guard tower and waved his hand. The man up top returned the wave and disappeared beyond the edge of the tower. No sooner had he done that did the front gate crack open with a shrill tremble. It slid open, disappearing into the surrounding walls like a sword into its scabbard, permitting Luke and the Ditrinity’s entrance.