The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4)

by Zachary Rawlins

  “That way.” Vivik pointed at the tracks in the near distance. “That it?”

  Eerie nodded.

  “That’s good news, right?”

  Eerie nodded again with a blank expression.

  “Oh. Ah. Good, then.”

  This time, she didn’t even nod. Vivik was briefly tempted to shout, just to see if he could coax a reaction from the Changeling.

  “How much further do you think we have to go?”

  “Distance is hard.” Eerie put aside her bite valve, licking the excess liquid from her fingers. “Our way will get easier from here, though.”

  “Oh.” Vivik was crushed, though he tried not to let it show. “I thought the tracks might be near the end of this.”

  “The Outer Dark is half as far from Central as anything can be from anything. That’s a long way to walk, and near and far aren’t really…things. Not here.”

  “Ah, sure. Do you think Alex is still…okay?”

  There was a glimmer of something, in the depths of Eerie’s gimlet eyes.

  “I don’t know about okay,” the Changeling admitted. “If Alex were dead, though, I would know about it.”

  “How?”

  “It would hurt.”

  Vivik nodded slowly, though he did not understand.

  Katya trudged over with a scowl on her face, tossed her pack on the creek bed, and then sat down heavily against the rock, sunburned and exhausted. The Changeling was apparently immune to such considerations, and Vivik was blessed with his mother’s cocoa-hued skin, so the Ukrainian alone suffered the depredations of the unrelenting sun. The skin across her nose and on the back of her neck was pink and peeling, despite regular applications of sunblock, and her cheeks were well-freckled.

  “Are we close?”

  Katya closed her eyes and leaned back against sun-warmed rock.

  “I guess not,” Vivik said, adjusting his sweat-soaked turban. “We found the tracks Eerie mentioned, though.”

  Katya grimaced.

  “Please tell me we are going to ride a train the rest of the way.”

  Eerie shook her head violently, strands of faded blue hair flying.

  “No!” Seeing their disappointment, Eerie tried persuasion. “You wouldn’t want to ride on a Black Train. No one does.”

  “I might at this point.” Katya’s tone was challenging. “Have you ridden on one before?”

  “No,” Eerie admitted. “But…”

  “Then you don’t know. Maybe it’s nice. Maybe they have air-conditioning and dining cars and waiters with refined English accents.”

  “That’s very specific, Katya,” Vivik said. “Why English?”

  “Because I like English accents.”

  Eerie looked at the ground forlornly.

  “It doesn’t matter, even if they do,” the Changeling said. “The Black Trains don’t stop here anymore, and haven’t for a very long time. Nothing at all stops here. This is the Waste, and it died so long ago…”

  “Look, I don’t give a fuck about any of this stuff.” Katya opened one eye to look askance at the Changeling. “I don’t want a history lesson or a tour. I just wanna get someplace where I can take a shower and then never see either of you ever again.”

  “I don’t think that you’ll be able to shower,” Eerie began, face creased with concern. “Not in the Outer Dark, anyway, and…”

  “Shut up!” Katya shouted, turning even redder behind her sunburn. “Enough with the ditz act! How much longer?”

  “I’m not acting, or a ditz!” Eerie looked wounded. “We have farther to go, okay? I’m bending the rules as far as I can, but it’s still a long, long way to the Outer Dark.”

  “What rules, Eerie?” Vivik asked, perking up. “What are you doing?”

  “Finding shortcuts,” Eerie explained, with a frustrating shrug. “The Waste isn’t fixed or certain. It fluctuates, and the topography changes all the time, like the Ether.” The musical quality of Eerie’s voice receded as she spoke, something Vivik had noted with increasing frequency. “I was made to return to the Outer Dark. To the Church of Sleep. My body knows the way, even if my head doesn’t. Even though this is the first time, I’ve already been there…”

  “You’ve been to the Outer Dark before?” Katya squinted at the Changeling, half-blinded by the sun. “When?”

  “Not yet!” Eerie flapped her arms helplessly. “Soon, but that’s…just a way of looking at it. Looking back, I already know everything I need to. I’m following my own footsteps before I make them. It’s…complicated?”

  “Tell me about it.” Katya studied the Changeling. “You make my head hurt.”

  “I am creating our path from my future memories of the path we took.” Eerie delivered her explanation in a tone utterly devoid of melody. “The software helps me find soft spots. Places where the Ether has rubbed holes in the bones of the universe, like water carving through stone…”

  “Isn’t that what Alex does?” Vivik interjected. “He said something like that, once…”

  “Yes.” Eerie nodded. “This is like that, but much slower. Safer, though. I think.”

  “If you know all this,” Katya asked bluntly, “does that mean we survive? Do we save Alex?”

  “It’s not foreknowledge. I’m recalling the memories as I encounter them. It’s a spontaneous thing, like dowsing for water.” Eerie shook her head slowly, her expression very sad. “I don’t know what happens; I just know what I need to know, when I need to know it. I can’t risk any more than that, or I will…”

  Eerie appeared to remember herself, and trailed off. Katya leapt to her feet, and seized the Changeling none too gently by her shoulders.

  “You will what? You said something about returning to the Outer Dark. What does that mean? Are you from the Outer Dark?”

  “From the Outer Dark?” Eerie looked legitimately confused. “I’m from Roseville…”

  Katya lifted Eerie by her shoulders and shook her, the toes of the Changeling’s sneakers brushing against the river stone.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” Katya said, voice frigid. “I want to know what the hell is going on. No hints, no fucking about. Do you work for the Outer Dark?”

  “No!” Eerie squealed. “Definitely not! Put me down!”

  Katya dumped Eerie unceremoniously on the creek bed.

  “Hey!” Eerie rubbed her backside resentfully. “That hurt, you know!”

  “Tell me the truth, Eerie,” Katya commanded, looming over her. “Right now.”

  “Or what?” Eerie stared back blankly. “You’ll die out here without me.”

  “You think I care whether I live or die? You don’t know anything about me! I don’t expect to survive this nightmare.”

  Eerie bit her lip and brushed dust from her Pittsburgh Penguins sweatshirt.

  “Fine. It’s hard to explain, though…”

  ***

  In a cold and moonless desert, laying on a bed of river-smooth stone, Alex regarded the otherworldly grandeur of the abyssal darkness between the galaxies. As he watched, the stars were snuffed out, with a sound like the cry of an abandoned child, or the betrayed whimper of a beaten dog. There was a sickening sense of violation, of having witnessed something perverse, something that diminished him and discolored the universe, a bruise on the face of the sun. The sky grew steadily darker, and Alex’s eyes blurred with tears, as the stars died off one by one, ambushed and murdered like the elephants of Sumatra.

  Slowly, he came to realize that the darkness was not empty. This was followed by the creeping realization that his voyeurism had been noted. Alex recoiled, his heart in his throat, as he realized that the darkness was filled with hateful eyes, and that each of them was focused on him.

  Fingers scraping the colored stone, eyes aching like cavities, Alex regarded the slow death of the cosmos, and whimpered helplessly as it slowly turned its consuming attentions to him.

  Eleven

  Grigori Aushev entered the room at his usual agitated pace, nodding
briefly at various peers, subordinates, and Hegemonic acquaintances. Locating Hope across the room, Grigori hurried over, making the absolute least amount of social effort that was required. He met her smile with a nod, opened his mouth to complain about the lack of notice for the meeting, and then he noticed Chandi Tuesday standing at the podium on stage, unaccompanied, and hesitated.

  “What is this?” Grigori glanced about the room, noticing for the first time that only current Academy students and very recent graduates were present. “Did Chandi call us here?”

  Hope shrugged and gestured at the seat beside her.

  “We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose!” She offered him an encouraging smile. “What have you been doing lately, Grigori? I haven’t seen you at all around Central…”

  “Field Study.” Grigori’s eyes darted about the room as he sat beside Hope. “Considering options while I finish coursework.”

  “You plan to graduate this year, then?”

  Grigori nodded distractedly.

  “A wise move,” Hope said. “I wish I had done the same.”

  “Oh?” Grigori shifted impatiently. “The Calibri Cartel has not been to your liking, then?”

  “It’s fine!” Hope laughed. “They do spend a great deal more energy than I would like on rather trivial disagreements within the Hegemony, however…”

  “I see. How unfortunate.”

  “Yes. A great deal of that going on, these days.”

  “Or so it might seem,” Grigori said grimly. “I think it has always been such, to be honest. We do not remember the turmoil of the past because we held no responsibility for it.”

  “I suppose you’re right, though I’m a bit surprised to catch you waxing philosophical,” Hope said warmly. “How is your family, Grigori?”

  His face was always ruddy, but it darkened at the mention.

  “Afflicted with the same madness as all the rest,” Grigori said. “The family is of two minds regarding the conflict between the Thule Cartel and Lord North, though I could not tell which faction will carry the day. I am certain, however…”

  “That the conflict will only aggravate the divisions, rather than reconciling them?” Hope allowed a rare frown to cross her face. “I share your concerns. Without a radical revision of the status quo, all that we can accomplish is to tear apart the Hegemony.”

  Her response troubled him, and Grigori intended to inquire further, but Chandi cleared her throat gently into the microphone attached to the podium. She waited politely until the chatter in the room died away.

  “Thank you all for coming.” Chandi’s voice was stiffer than usual, burdened by what Grigori assumed was public-speaking related nervousness. “Please forgive me for calling you away from your affairs. I will attempt to make this as brief, but I’m afraid that won’t be easy. These are not easy matters.”

  Grigori snuck another glance around the room, again surprised at the particularly youthful crowd. Aside from a handful of others who had graduated last year with Hope, each face that Grigori recognized belonged to a current student at the Academy, affiliated by family or disposition toward the Hegemony. None of the Hegemonic leadership was present, nor any of the subsidiary cartel leadership either, though the meeting request had been issued on official Hegemony channels. At the very least, Grigori took some solace from the confusion he saw in the audience. It would have been more worrisome to be the only one without a clue as to what was going on.

  “I have called you here today for a simple reason. Most of the people in this room will be dead in the next eighteen months, without intervention.” The room went utterly silent. No one doubted Chandi, of course. As an F-Class precognitive, she was already moonlighting managing her cartel pool, and her predictions were famously accurate. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to alarm you, but…”

  Chandi paused, and Grigori realized for the first time that she was under extreme emotional distress, rather than nervous in front of a crowd, and held herself together by will alone.

  “…the civil war brewing within the Hegemony has become inevitable. If you have not already been contacted by those sympathetic to the North or the Thule Cartels, then you will be soon.” The rustling and whispers in the room made it clear that much of that contact had already been made. “Most of you will be recruited, and then circumstances will force the remainder to choose sides. That conflict will not only weaken the Hegemony at a critical point in our conflict with the Black Sun, but will also kill many of us in the process.”

  “You must be joking!” Grigori twisted his neck around, but the speaker was unfamiliar to him, a redhead with an Irish accent and the sneering confidence common in teenage boys. “What the hell are you going on about?”

  The crowd shushed him hurriedly, but Chandi merely nodded and continued looking miserable.

  “I am not joking,” Chandi said earnestly. “Your name is Reginald Oster, yes?”

  “Uh, yeah. Reggie.”

  “Reggie.” Chandi nodded seriously, and put a hand over her own eyes. “Let me see…yes. Reggie Oster. You will likely choose to join Lord North, along with your adopted cartel…”

  “What?” Reggie was pinned in place like a butterfly, crushed by the weight of all the eyes in the room. “How do you know?”

  “The Looking Glass Protocol,” Chandi said blithely. “Most probably, you will die three weeks from today, in a hospital, after a bombing in Central, along with many others. Though most will suspect the Thule Cartel, responsibility will never be truly determined.”

  Reggie stood there, horrified, mouth agape.

  “Many members of your cartel will die attempting to avenge your loss,” Chandi offered kindly. “If that helps. Please sit down, Mr. Oster.”

  The young man dropped into his chair, his face as white as Chandi’s teeth.

  “Would anyone else like to hear their particulars?” When the room offered silence in return, Chandi uncovered her eyes wearily. “I will continue, then. I tell you this not to alarm you, or to sway your intentions, but because I believe you have the right to decide for yourselves, and because I need you all to understand why I have gone to such great lengths, seeking a remedy.”

  Grigori shot a confused look in Hope’s direction, but she looked just as puzzled.

  “Before I begin, however, I want to wish you all well.” Chandi paused, and just for a moment, seemed at a loss. Grigori was dumbfounded. “Some of you will never speak to me again. I understand your reasons. I just want you all to know that our association has been a pleasure. Please think as kindly of me as you can; remember, if you can, the burden that I bear.”

  Grigori’s eyes narrowed at the thought of prescience. Chandi did not exaggerate – the suicide rate among precognitives was astoundingly high, and the judicious psychological and pharmaceutical management of precognitive pools was a topic of considerable study at the Academy.

  “Let me tell you what I anticipate,” Chandi intoned, with the gravity of a preacher discussing hell. “A civil war within the Hegemony, between the Thule Cartel and their allies and the North Cartel and their allies. It will be brutal, beyond anything that has happened in our lifetimes or those of our parents. I anticipate a return to the early days of Central, before the cartels, when retribution was constant and the strong survived. The streets of Central will be stained with Hegemonic blood, and the Black Sun will watch from the shadows, waiting for the opportune time to mop up the survivors.”

  Chandi paused to take a sip of water, but the audience was too captivated – or terrified – by what they were hearing to whisper.

  “For last year’s graduating class, I project an overall casualty rate around forty percent.” There were gasps and moans in the audience. Chandi appeared to have anticipated this reaction, as her speech paused briefly to accommodate the interruption. “For this year’s graduating class, I project a casualty rate approaching sixty percent. I cannot predict next year’s class’s survival rate. I do not dare speculate as to the reasons for that.”
r />   Behind Grigori, someone burst loudly into tears. Others cried out, or raised their voice in objection.

  “You can’t know these things!”

  “Do you mean to say…?”

  “This is treason! There’s no way…”

  “Silence!” Grigori spun about in his seat with a ferocious glare. “Chandi Tuesday is a precognitive of the first order, and her loyalty to the Hegemony is beyond question. She has worked to advise the High Council on numerous occasions. Her projections are uniformly accurate. I will listen to whatever she has to say. You would all do well to do the same.”

  The crowd quieted. Grigori folded his arms and nodded to Chandi. Chandi returned the nod weakly, looking green and reluctant.

  “The prevailing cartel will cull the surviving members of the opposing order and any suspected to sympathize with them. The independence of cartels within the Hegemony will be vastly reduced, or eliminated entirely, to create a single unified military force. During or following this consolidation, the Black Sun will attack the Hegemony, or be attacked by an extremist faction within the Hegemony; I am uncertain as to which. It is impossible to project the result of such a conflict, but the outcome will certainly be grim.”

  There were no more objections. The disquiet in the room was palpable.

  “I have invited today those who have not yet chosen a side, though your parent cartel may have its own separate leanings.” Grigori shifted uncomfortably, recalling his adopted uncle’s vociferous support for Lord North, and the traditional aristocracy of the Great Houses. “I wish to offer you an alternative to the scenario described. A third way, between the pride of the North Cartel and the ambition of the Thule Cartel. I must warn you, however; there is no way to describe what I will propose to you today as anything less than treason. Those of you who claim descent from one of the Great Houses or hold a fanatical dedication to the ideals of the Hegemony may find this proposal compromising. I invite any who might wish to leave to do so, and thank you for coming. Know this, former friends – I will make my proposal, and then I will disappear. Feel free to report to your superiors and parents the events of this evening. I will be safely beyond retribution before you can make your report.”