by R. T. Lowe
Now, however, he had to turn his attention to this silly anarchist with her ridiculous name and tough girl posturing. Lynch wished he could just kill her and be done with it before her stupidity and recklessness caused problems. He didn’t understand why Lofton was dithering. Why keep one foot in and one foot out? Unfortunately, Lofton’s orders were unambiguous (use the ungovernables until the government was securely in Lofton’s hands to ensure the public continued to be exposed to the occasional mass murderous reminder of just how desperately the citizenry needed the leadership and protection of the ERA) and he didn’t want to waste his capital on this buffoon when he would need every last dollar after he killed Felix. So Lynch resisted the temptation to snap her neck. For now.
“Give me your report,” Lynch demanded wearily, “before I find myself losing patience for your amateurish antics.”
The smile disappeared from her lips and she put a hand behind her, reaching into her waistband. “I don’t know if a man who doesn’t carry a weapon should be making threats.”
Lynch imagined she thought her voice sounded steely and threatening. To Lynch, it was timid and weak. Pathetic. He observed her for a moment, his expression unchanged. “There are few things I enjoy more than making people like you understand what it’s like to feel real power.” He held out his hand and a flaming orb formed over his palm, spinning slowly, throwing off sparks and black smoke that twisted and curled around it.
Xena took a step back, her frightened eyes on the burning object.
This wasn’t the first time he’d shown her a hint of his abilities and her reaction was predictable: terror and awe. “Tattoos and bad haircuts don’t make you strong,” Lynch lectured, staring down at his hand, enthralled by the power he could call upon with a thought. In centuries past, Sourcerors with this ability were called firestarters, and it was said the first to master it was a man named Eusebius, a governor of Caesarea who had famously defected from the Order to become the leader of the Drestianites. The ability was exceedingly rare, and in his forty-six years, Lynch had come across just one other person with the gift.
“I have an itch,” she said, keeping her arm behind her.
Lynch smiled, hoping she’d brandish a weapon at him. Then he would have no choice but to kill her, and Lofton would have to accept the unfortunate but unavoidable elimination of his asset. “If this touches you,” he said to her, smiling down at it, “you’ll turn to ash. Instantly. For your sake, I hope that itch resolves itself in the next three seconds.”
“Someone left their sense of humor at home,” Xena demurred, bringing her hand out in front, fluttering her ringed fingers for him to see. “I’m just trying to get a rise out of you.” She looked down at his crotch, but he refused to acknowledge her crude sense of humor. She sighed before continuing. “Poisoning the water in Buren went down even better than I’d hoped. Those idiots weren’t even protecting the filtration plant. We broke in with a wire cutter. In and out in less than ten minutes. The mall shootings in Texas and Minnesota went well, but the authorities are responding faster so the casualties were lower than anticipated. Going forward, we estimate the improved rapid response rates will drop body counts by fifty percent unless we can recruit more shooters, and that isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
“Recruiting is your problem,” Lynch told her, blowing into his palm, extinguishing the flames in a single breath. “Not mine. What about Portland College? What happened there?” Lynch knew Felix and his friend Allison had thwarted the campus shooting, but he wanted to see this fool squirm.
She shook her head irritably and bleached strands of oily hair fell over an eye, obscuring it. “I don’t know. My guys were professionals. Off-the-grid types who wanted to set a new body count record. I met them. Personally. They were committed. They knew what they were doing.”
Lynch’s tightened jaw communicated his disapproval. “Apparently they were more committed to killing themselves. Not one kill. Not one.”
“I don’t know what to say. I honestly don’t know what could’ve happened.” She stood there, looking nervous, and glanced back at the car. “Tennessee is on track for the end of the month, February at the latest.”
Lynch’s phone beeped and he glanced at it, a text from Iphi requesting he call her. Lynch had hoped it might be Kayla. Jalen and Kayla were supposed to meet him at a hotel near the Rose Bowl after the Numbered Ones had scattered into the sewers. Only Jalen had showed and claimed he hadn’t seen Kayla since their meeting with Lofton in the car. Lynch believed him. It had only been a day. He wasn’t worried. Yet. She was young, and that meant she was foolish and irresponsible, so her behavior didn’t surprise him. If he didn’t hear from her by tomorrow, however, he would notify the Commanders to start a nationwide search.
“Tennessee,” Xena repeated, trying to get his attention. “Probably early February.”
“I’m not sure if February interests me anymore.” Lynch smiled thinly. “It seems so…remote.” The use of the ungovernables was twofold. They undermined the authority of the government, creating public mistrust and panic, and while they went about killing and poisoning and blowing up bridges, Lynch and his Commanders were tracing their every movement, tracking them, learning their identities and where they lived. Because the ungovernables—for all their past usefulness—would no longer be needed in the very near future. There were nearly a million of them on Lynch’s termination list. A million anarchists, terrorists, militiamen, dimwitted fascists masquerading as ‘patriots’, white supremacists, insurrectionists, and a motley host of others whose political and social beliefs would not permit them to abide Lofton’s regime and obey the new laws that would soon be imposed on the country. They would exterminate the ungovernables like disease carrying rats, and when Lofton gave the order, Lynch—if he was still in Lofton’s good graces—would ensure not one slipped through his net. He awaited that day with limitless anticipation, and hoped with every drop of blood in his body Lofton would forgive him for killing Felix before the commencement of that step in the creation of their perfect world.
“We have other operations closer to launch,” she countered quickly, apparently sensing the importance of concluding the meeting on a high note. “A company that makes applesauce. We laced their shitty products with an additive that eats through the lining of your stomach. We estimate casualties of at least five thousand before they identify the cause.” She looked up at the overcast sky as if attempting to recall something on the tip of her tongue. “Right—another theater shooting planned for the end of next week. Maryland this time.”
“Go on,” Lynch said, unimpressed.
“Not good enough?” Xena paused for a moment and then she smiled, the lines on her weathered face opening up like cracks in a drying body of water. “In New York, we hit the lottery. A recently-fired-and-still-disgruntled employee with aspirations of slaughtering his boss and former colleagues. The casualty levels should be really off the charts. Large company, employees work on the same floor, limited escape routes. Our guy should go through those capitalist swine whores like a weed whacker!”
“Fantastic,” Lynch replied dryly. “Hopefully this one kills someone other than himself.”
Chapter 32
The Chamber
Sophia shrieked with unabashed joy when she noticed Felix. He stood in line behind three other students, watching her untie her apron with fumbling fingers and toss it to the kid working the espresso machine. “Can you cover me for thirty?” she said to the hapless barista, and without waiting for an answer, she grabbed her coat and stepped around the bar, taking Felix by the arm and leading him toward the door. “I have to show you something,” she stage-whispered, grinning with excitement.
Felix looked back at the bar hopelessly. “I need to get—”
“It’ll just take a minute,” she promised, eyes dancing. “I found it.”
“Found what?” he asked, holding the door for her.
“A secret room,” she said, her breath misting white in the co
ld. She pointed off in the distance and took off at a stutter stepped walk-jog, Felix keeping up beside her. “The same building in the Old Campus I told you about before. I went there with my friend last night. There’s this weird stone wall and one of the rocks sticks out just a little too far. It was me who noticed it actually.” She looked up at Felix, beaming with pride, her enthusiasm so genuine and childlike he couldn’t help but smile back at her. “So I pushed on it and the floor just opened up, and you know what it was?”
He probably should have insisted he had to be somewhere, but Sophia struck him as the fragile sort and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She was also obsessed with the mysteries of PC’s secret past, and if it made her day to share her discovery with him then who was he to deny her big moment? Besides, he had a few minutes to kill and a little distraction might be good for his psyche. The instant he stepped foot in Caitlin’s hospital room, he would be immersed once again in the same world of lies he thought he’d rid himself of only yesterday. It seemed a crowning irony that his friends now believed in The Warning and the Source when he and Allison now knew it was an elaborate fiction. He couldn’t tell his friends the truth, because as Allison had explained, it was all about perception. If he chose to lead the Order (which he couldn’t really picture himself doing, though he hadn’t completely ruled it out), he would have to convince them he was the Belus. The Order would have to believe without reservation he was the one chosen by the hand of fate to kill Lofton, so no one, including his friends, could know it was all an ancient fabrication that had taken on a life of its own.
Only Allison knew the truth, the only person he would ever be able to confide in. For the rest of the world, he would either be ‘regular guy college freshman Felix’ or ‘Felix the Belus’. The ‘Felix’ who was currently traveling along a path next to an English garden with the Mill Stream in sight was much harder to define. The best he could do after giving it some thought was ‘very powerful Sourceror whose mysterious past mirrors the Belus’s as foretold in The Warning’. It wasn’t very catchy and far too long. He would have to come up with something more concise once he had a better handle on his new identity. Aside from the naming issues, he liked his present situation. He had all the same powers and none of his former responsibilities. He felt unburdened. Liberated. The fate of the universe wasn’t in any way dependent on his actions anymore. He promised himself he would get around to picking a side. Eventually. But why rush? Why not wait until Lofton and the ERA had some time to prove the merits of their agenda? If they did amazing things and the world was better for it, he could then offer his help to Lofton. He wasn’t sure what Lofton would ask of him, but he had a vague sense it would involve hunting down terrorists in some far away desert. That actually seemed pretty cool on reflection, and he didn’t think he’d feel too guilty about taking out a few ‘enemies of society’. Then there was the flip side to consider. Could he really take orders from Lofton? Be a part of his solution? The cannibal’s purpose was no longer irrelevant, he realized. If he was a tester, and if Allison hadn’t led them to the house in no-man’s-land, Caitlin would have died, and her death would have been at Lofton’s direction. Just as the Faceman had acted on Lofton’s orders when he murdered eighty-five kids. It felt personal for Felix. Caitlin was his friend. And he’d stared into the muzzle of the Faceman’s gun, just like the girl murdered in the desert—Gabriela?—and the girl murdered in a supply shed in Louisiana, and all the others who had died far too young. Sacrifices, Lofton would call them. Thousands had to die so that billions could live. Maybe Lofton was right, but it still felt…wrong, like there had to be a better way.
“Do you know what it was?” Sophia repeated, looking up at him. “Felix?”
“Sorry” Felix sputtered, realizing he’d spaced out. “What was it?”
“A staircase!” she shouted, then quickly muffled herself with her hand as if the students crowding the walkway might be eavesdropping on their conversation. “Can you believe it?”
“Did you go down?” he asked as they crossed the Mill Stream, the rooflines of the Old Campus buildings standing out in the foreground of an ominously gray sky, raindrops beginning to spot the path.
She nodded enthusiastically. “It was the coolest thing ever. I’m telling you, it’s epic. Epic! It’s a chamber, but it didn’t really lead anywhere. We looked around at everything but it was just dead ends. We didn’t stay too long. My friend was afraid the staircase was going to close up on us.” She frowned shyly. “I guess maybe I was too. We promised we wouldn’t say anything to anyone, but I couldn’t help myself. As soon as I saw you in line I just had to tell you!” She half smiled and half cringed. “I bet she’s going to be sooo mad.”
The National Guard and police were tear-gassing rioters and looters across the country, but at Portland College the kids were going to their classes and hanging out like it was an ordinary Thursday, the campus sheltering them from the brewing chaos of the outside world. The crowds thinned, and as they continued on the path to the west side of campus they left behind the few remaining students and an off-duty cop trailing closely behind a group of Delta Gammas (if their asses hid weapons, Felix thought bemusedly, he’d be in prime position to prevent the next shooting) and slipped through the east gate, the iron rods grinding against rusty hinges as it screeched open.
They entered the Old Campus, and suddenly, everything seemed different, as though the air itself had changed, adopting a heavier, darker texture. The feeling went beyond the oddity of seemingly stepping into the past and experiencing a physical reminder of what the college used to be like centuries ago, before the school had expanded beyond its original walls and the buildings within it became obsolete. Being inside the Old Campus affected you in your bones, at a primal level, dredging up dark thoughts and childhood fears from the depths of your subconscious.
Sophia didn’t seem to notice, not showing even a hint of apprehension as they moved along the weathered brick path, the twisting branches of gnarled oaks stretching across the walkway, forming a tunnel around them. The wind stirred as the sun dipped below Stubbins Stadium, the drizzling rain thickening, edging closer to sleet.
“Which building is it?” he asked just as his phone buzzed against his leg. The text was from Bill and Felix noticed he’d also sent it to Allison: “I need to talk to you guys. It’s time to tell you everything.” Everything? He stared at the word on his screen, wondering what it meant. Did Bill know The Warning was a sham? Felix quickly dismissed the possibility. Bill wasn’t aware of his run in with Lofton and Felix could never let him find out. Bill might be a serial liar, but he was incredibly smart, and if he was aware Lofton had let Felix live, the pieces could come together for him pretty quickly.
“The one in the middle on this side,” Sophia answered, waving a hand off to their right. “Inverness.”
“Oh,” Felix mumbled absently, puzzling over the text, picturing Allison fuming over Bill’s admission that he hadn’t already told them ‘everything’. Allison, he was sure, would be pissed at Bill. Again. Maybe Allison and Bill would never get along. “Inverness?” he blurted out, finally comprehending what Sophia had said. He held a special place in his heart for the mothballed building that housed the school’s former library, where his fury, stoked by Bill’s insults, had forced him to connect with something inside himself—which at the time, he’d thought to be the Source—and he’d moved a stack of books without touching it, and in that moment, his life had changed forever. It was so surreal, he thought, how such a trivial display of power could strip away his skepticism of the strange world Bill had introduced him to. His doubt—of his aunt’s Journal, of Bill, even of his own sanity—had ended as a few dusty tomes toppled from their perch. Now, of course, he knew it was all a colossal mind fuck. There was no Source. As for the Journal, it was just a fountain of lies memorialized by one of the millions who had wasted their lives over the apocalyptic ramblings of a sun worshipping Druid. Eve had been deceived. As had Bill. So had Felix for a
time. But not anymore. Now he was free—free.
She turned to him, giving him a questioning look. “You sound surprised.”
“That’s the one in the photo of the founders, isn’t it?” Felix said, covering his indiscretion. “The picture on the wall, right?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Sophia said slowly. She dashed suddenly ahead and turned around, walking backward.
Felix noticed a thick root that had snaked its way through the bricks and was about to warn her when she hopped deftly over it without glancing down, her eyes still on Felix, not breaking stride. Nice reflexes. He never would’ve thought there was an athlete hiding under that baggy jacket and jeans. Funny, he mused, now that he considered it for a second, her clothes were always a couple of sizes too big for her.
“In the Founder’s Photo they are standing in front of Inverness, aren’t they? I wonder if that’s significant.” Her brow wrinkled with concentration lines as she settled in alongside him. “You have a good memory.”