by Sean Platt
“Come on,” Pascal said, ushering Elijah into the locker room in the rear of the building before turning to the others. “Continue practice.”
Elijah could sense everybody still staring, and didn’t dare to look back.
“What the hell was that?” Pascal asked in the locker room.
“I don’t know. Hunter was on top of me and I … I just got scared, like I was about to die. And … I don’t know what that was.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Okay, I think.”
Pascal started asking him too many questions: Have you ever done anything like this before? Are there any other powers? Have you been feeling sick lately? Have you been having dark thoughts?
Elijah was overwhelmed, and starting to panic again. He pushed himself away from Pascal. “I don’t know!” Then, embarrassed, “Sorry. I … I’m okay.”
Pascal stared back at him.
“You’re not going to add this to my chart, are you?”
“You know I have to.”
“Please, Pascal. People already treat me like a freak. I’ll never get into Rangers if this makes the Registry!”
“Yes, because the Rangers don’t value Alts,” Pascal said sarcastically, “or promote them to positions of responsibility, like teaching Cadets.”
“You’re different. You’ve saved people. You’re a hero. Everyone looks at me like I’m gonna be the next Skylar Hendrix.”
Pascal narrowed his eyes. “That was different. You are not her. She … well, never mind. This was one incident. You just need to control your emotions more.”
“Okay,” Elijah said, feeling like an idiotic kid, wanting to flee the conversation before Pascal thought twice and refused to let him fight in the Cadet rank. Now that Elijah demonstrated some new ability, his parents would find out that he’d lied his way into the Cadets for sure.
“Go home and cool off. We’ll talk another time.” Pascal patted his shoulder, then left Elijah in the locker room.
He ignored the whispers as he passed by his fellow Cadets and made his way outside the dojo.
He stopped at the Wall of the Gone near the market and saw two women setting flowers in front of the memorial — hundreds of pictures encased in plastic to protect them from the elements. Photos of folks that had gone missing in The Event. People from a world that had disappeared when Elijah was still a baby.
He couldn’t fathom a universe beyond the small three-county area he knew of. Yet, there had once been billions of people over millions of miles.
And they’d all just blinked away in an instant.
Just past the wall was the temple which had more shrines inside, the same temple his father worshiped at.
Elijah couldn’t believe in Gods capricious enough to allow billions to perish. If these Ancient Gods that the monks worshipped really did exist, he planned to avoid them at all costs.
It was better to live invisibly.
Three
Johan Pascal
Hope Springs
* * *
Pascal scanned the crowd of the Large Council meeting at City Hall, searching for any sign of troublemakers. Something was about to happen. He could feel it in the way animals could sense things most people couldn’t, an electricity in the air, a current exclusive to him.
Hope Springs was on lockdown, but whispers suggested that bandits might have breached the borders before the city shut the gates last week.
According to rumor, they had planned to terrorize the city’s Market Square in the coming week, staged around the city’s monthly Large Council meeting.
Yet another attempt at chaos designed to sway the Coalition Cities’ law and order, but Pascal refused to allow any bandit garbage to ruin the lives of citizens who had already suffered so much.
He remained ever vigilant and ready to kill at a moment’s notice, but Pascal didn’t trust the rumor, from that bartender at Springs Tavern, who’d heard it from a trader who’d heard it from yet another trader round the bend. And given that both traders were long gone, there was no way to verify the tale. Pascal had touched his face to see if his abilities could illuminate the matter, but the man’s drunken state had jumbled his memories.
Shutting down trade in and out of the city over hearsay was overkill for sure, but the mayor made the call and it was Pascal’s job to follow.
Taking the threat seriously meant extra Rangers at this morning’s Large Council meeting. At least four hundred citizens packed City Hall, sending it well beyond capacity. Most were pissed that the city was closed, and waiting to hammer the mayors with a piece of their collective mind.
Pascal was in the balcony with a bird’s-eye view of the crowd. No signs of anyone armed. Ever since The Event fourteen years ago, and the Coalition Cities agreed to disarmament, they’d ceased being much of a factor. Rangers had seized and destroyed most of the pistols and rifles. With ammunition in such limited supply, most Rangers, and even bandits, had resorted to knives, swords, bows, and crossbows. That made it more difficult to launch surprise attacks at a distance, but easier to protect the Large Council than it would have been back when Pascal patrolled the streets as a beat cop.
He glanced down at his boss, the weasel-faced Captain Stewart, now on the stage where four mayors from the Five Cities were about to take their seats at the dais along with the monk, Brother Serenity. He shook his head: no visible threats.
Pascal glanced over to Lockhart at the east entrance and Simmons on the west; both also gave the all-clear and he relayed it to Stewart. He then disappeared behind the curtains and led the mayors to their seats.
Mayor Richmond Freeman Jr., sitting in the center seat at the three long tables, opened the meeting. Rare boos bellowed out from the crowd.
To his credit, Richmond permitted the response, even though Pascal could practically feel Stewart wanting to unleash Rangers upon the dissenters. Richmond took the angry reaction in stride, boos barely biting into his smile or dimming the light in his confident eyes. The mayor still looked youthful at thirty-five, almost boyish. Impressive given the stresses of his station.
Richmond abandoned his usual opening. He swallowed, then bobbed his head closer to the mic. “I understand that many of you are concerned with the recent events and the city being shut down—”
A man shouted, “Damned right!”
The audience cheered.
Brother Serenity, dressed in his blue robes, closed his eyes, perhaps in prayer. The man was in his late sixties, and despite being known for his calming presence, there was something intense about him. And from more than the mural of arcane symbols permanently painting his body, from toe knuckles to gleaming bald head.
Richmond smiled gracefully. Pascal admired how calm the man remained under pressure. He exuded coolness in the face of difficulty, like his father, the first and now late Richmond Freeman. He was still enjoying some goodwill in his first year as mayor, earned by his father — the beloved, and feared, mayor before him.
Freeman Sr. had stood by his people during the apocalypse and had helped them recover. Even flourish after The Event that destroyed so much of the world.
Richmond diffused the situation. “Believe me, Mr. Roderick, I want my tea too.” A few scattered laughs. “Merrick will be delivering to the markets again soon enough. We’re committed to finding the bandits responsible for the recent attacks. We will safeguard the trade routes and protect our communities.”
Again Pascal marveled at Richmond’s calming effect. The crowd was collectively ready to shred him just moments ago; now at least some of them looked like they wanted to give him a hug.
But the sedation didn’t last.
Someone yelled, “Where’s Mayor Solis?”
“Harmony Solis is mourning the deaths of two children in Riverside lost to a Ruin Storm that raged in a few days ago.”
“They ought to just move that wretched town south. No need for anybody to be that near The Ruin,” grumbled General McTaggart, the mayor of Fortress.
/> “And where would you have them go? West of Fortress?” Mayor Larry Stafford of Callan’s Corner was forever vigilant at keeping threats from encroaching on his logging territory south of Riverside.
“There’s plenty of area north of John’s Township,” McTaggart answered, practically daring Mayor Marge Davies of John’s Township to argue. She had been trying to annex the undeclared area for ages.
Marge refused the bait. Life was a game to McTaggart, an instigator by way of sport and profession. The general was excellent at his job. He’d admirably served Freeman Sr. for years, and helped to settle many of the towns, liberating them from the bandits who threatened their existence.
The general was the right mayor for Fortress. An old Army base surrounded by a proud little village. Most of its residents were either Rangers or served them in some capacity. Who else would make a better mayor?
But working with other mayors, as part of the Large Council, McTaggart lost most of his charm. He seemed to view the other mayors as combatants, and forever sought victory in his arguments against them, even when the stakes had little or nothing to do with him or his town.
As Richmond continued, bringing the meeting back to the agenda, Pascal caught sight of a suspicious woman standing in back. Late thirties. Long black coat over layers of dirty attire. A filthy face and matted brown hair to her shoulders.
Dark circles ringed her eyes.
She looked like a stranger to Hope Springs. More like a nomad or … maybe a bandit.
Pascal loaded a bolt into his crossbow, taking aim at her.
Nobody could see him from the shadows, unless they were to look directly up at him. No worries about starting a panic.
As Richmond continued speaking about a proposed amendment to The Code, the woman moved forward through the crowd. There would typically be a nice clean alley between the sections of seats, but tonight overflow stood between the aisles and all along the walls.
She pushed her way through the crowd. Walking with an odd gait that felt off to Pascal, though he wasn’t sure why.
Does she have a knife?
He trailed her, targeting the woman’s head as she moved. He wanted to look around to see if any of the other Rangers had spotted her or if anybody else was making a move toward the stage, but if he moved his eyes away from the woman then he might just lose her in the crowd. She could attack someone in seconds.
The stranger moved toward the stage with determination and speed.
Pascal’s finger stayed on the trigger, prepared to send a bolt through her skull.
She stopped just short of the stage, and raised her hand. “Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor.”
Richmond stopped speaking.
All eyes were on her.
But especially Pascal’s.
“Yes?” Mayor Richmond said.
“I’d like to know what you all are doing!”
“Ma’am?”
“My husband, Ezekiel, was a merchant for the Coalition. One of the men killed by bandits two weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. As I said, we’re doing everything we can to—”
“I didn’t ask what you’re doing to find the men or safeguard the cities. I want to know what you’re doing for me and my unborn child.”
The woman parted her coat like a curtain and showed the room somewhere between two and three trimesters worth of swollen stomach.
The crowd gasped.
Pascal drew a breath, along with his weapon, his heart pounding. Shooting a pregnant woman would have been like punching a stained-glass window, particularly in this post-Event world where pregnancies, and live births, were incredibly rare.
He looked around the room, at the mayors, at Vice Mayor Olivia Freeman, and the crowd. Nearly everybody was quiet, on the verge of tears as the woman told her story. She and her husband had been trying so hard to survive, they had traded the security of a life in Fortress for one in John’s Township. Ezekiel became a merchant, delivering the tea that everybody loved so damned much. Now she had a baby on the way and no way to raise it.
“You all act like you value life, with your Code and your archaic laws around women and children, while allowing these bandits to keep killing our people. You let them go unchecked even when you know where they come from. You know how to stop them, but don’t. Why is that, Mayors?”
The crowd stared in silence at the men and women onstage. The first speaker risked political suicide.
McTaggart was looking around, as if taking the temperature in a way that the other mayors were not. They appeared to be considering the best way to handle this situation. But his eyes suggested that he might be seeking a way to exploit it.
No surprise, Richmond spoke first. “I assure you that we’re doing everything in our power to find the people responsible for—”
“Bullshit! If you were doing everything in your power, you would be in The Slums right now, rounding all the bandits up!”
“We can’t just storm into The Slums and—”
“Can’t or won’t?” The woman crossed her arms, staring defiantly at Richmond.
The crowd joined her stares, if not in defiance, at least in demanding a response.
The general spoke. “I agree with the young lady. No wife should have to bury a husband. No parent should have to lose a child. No town should ever be forced to live in fear. And no council should cower in the face of its responsibility to protect the people.”
The crowd cheered.
“We can’t just go in and enforce our laws on someone else’s territory,” said Richmond, ever the voice of moderation.
“If they don’t respect our laws, why should we respect theirs?” McTaggart countered.
More cheering and whooping from the riled-up crowd.
McTaggart leaned toward them. “I move that we send our Rangers into The Slums and demand that they turn over all the bandits!”
Pascal bit his bottom lip, only now realizing what he was seeing.
McTaggart had arranged the drama. This woman had to know about the meeting if she came all this way. Most residents outside of Hope Springs didn’t keep up with the politics, let alone the calendar of upcoming meetings. McTaggart had been pushing for the Large Council’s approval to move on The Slums for a while now, and was steering this woman’s tragedy toward his political ends.
Cheering nearly shook the walls.
The mayors looked at one another, flummoxed. Not even Richmond, normally so collected, seemed sure of what to do or how to handle this sudden outrage.
He banged his gavel on the table, something Richmond rarely did, though his father had once made it sound like thunder from the heavens.
The cheering fell silent.
“Have we already forgotten the Hendrix incident?” Richmond asked the crowd.
Even the general shut up. Nobody wanted a repeat of that terrible day, when one of the Rangers went rogue and launched an attack on The Slums.
“We will try diplomatic means first. I will arrange to speak with the leader of The Slums. And we’ll take it from there.” He lowered his voice and filled it with empathy. Pascal doubted any but the most cynical in the room didn’t feel the mayor’s sincerity. “As for you, ma’am, what is your name?”
“Ramona.”
“Ramona, I know this can’t possibly make up for the injustice done to your family, but we would be honored to welcome you here in Hope Springs. We can provide for you and your child. You’ll live closer to amenities and your safety will be assured.”
Pascal wondered if Mayor Davies would object, but John’s Township was a small farming community that lived mostly in poverty, save for the owners of Merrick Tea, and it obviously couldn’t compete with what was a paradise by relative comparison. Most of the world had gone to shit, but Hope Springs had solar power, plumbing and running water, plus a planned community surrounded by the safety of walls on every side. It was the safest place in the known world outside Fortress.
“You would do that?” R
amona choked.
“We would be happy to have you. Your child will be a blessing.”
“Thank you, I …” She shook her head, unable to finish.
McTaggart quietly chewed on his rage, his plan foiled for now.
Richmond finished with Ramona and continued with the agenda items. No more outbursts from the crowd or surprise interruptions. He stood once finished. “If you’ll indulge me, Vice Mayor Olivia Freeman, my wife, would like to make an announcement.”
Olivia took the stage, elegant like always with her sparkling white dress and hair hanging in loose curls. Standing in front of the dais she said, “I’ve just gotten word that a shipment of Merrick Tea has arrived. As you leave this meeting, feel free to visit the Information Center to receive a complimentary box.”
The crowd erupted into cheers.
And that’s how you win back a crowd.
Four
Alma Gray
The Northwestern Passage
Two weeks ago
* * *
Alma stared outside the cabin as snow fell for the seventh day in a row.
A week since Erik left to find the man who could get them passage south on the rail cart under the mountains, past the Sentinels.
She could feel her daughter’s stare from the couch where she was bundled in blankets, warming herself despite the lack of firewood.
“He’s not coming back, is he?” Emory sounded so much younger than her dozen years.
Alma put on her most confident smile, false as it was. “I’m sure he’ll be back. We knew it would take some time to find the man.”
“What if they killed him?”
“They didn’t kill him.”
“What if they found out what we did? What if they know where we are?”
“Then they’d be here already.”
“They found our other place. They can find this—”
“Please, Emory. Stop.”