The Calling

by Rachelle Dekker

  Kate especially. Small, barely five feet tall, with short blonde hair that swept across one light-blue eye that was always filled with darkness, Kate moved like she was carrying the weight of the entire world. As if she would personally see to it that vengeance for every harmful deed was paid in full. Sam was more gentle, a beast in size comparatively, but otherwise they looked like twins. He was the only one who could talk Kate off the ledge if necessary.

  Besides Aaron. Aaron changed the way Kate spoke, walked, stood. He eased her, and in the moments when Aaron was around, Kate looked like the young teen girl she was supposed to be, not the warrior that stood before them now.

  “But it could work,” Wire countered.

  Silence fell over the group, Wire’s eyes on Kate’s face as if he was waiting for her permission to continue. It wasn’t a mystery to anyone how Wire felt about Kate. He followed her around like a puppy, and though Kate pretended to find him repulsive, they all saw the way she looked at him when she thought no one was watching. Kate rolled her eyes and Wire took that as the go-ahead.

  He pulled Roxy from his side. The device was a Wire original, something he’d been working on for his father before leaving the city. He’d taken it with him, even though it hadn’t been fully functional yet. Remko couldn’t count the number of mornings he’d woken to find that Wire had been up all night tinkering with the contraption. Ramses had become engrossed in helping Wire make it functional, and the two had nearly set the camp on fire twice.

  Wire set Roxy faceup on the table and punched the screen. The device sparked and everyone stepped back.

  “Seriously,” Kate said.

  “It’s fine, she’s just overworked and needs some new wiring,” Wire said.

  “Whenever you say she needs something I have to stop myself from having a visceral reaction and punching you in the face,” Kate said.

  “Kate,” Sam said.

  “What—do you remember how many ridiculous and risky runs we had to make to gather the stupid parts he needed for this thing in the first place?”

  “Are you going to hold that over Roxy’s head forever?” Wire asked. “I would have thought that she had plenty proved herself by now—”

  “You have to stop talking about her like she’s real; it’s creepy,” Kate said.

  “Enough, both of you,” Remko said. “Wire, what were you going to show us?”

  Wire threw Kate a final disapproving look, then took a moment to tinker with Roxy’s display before proceeding. “There’s an old subway system that runs for miles under the city and out into much of the surrounding area.”

  “Subway system?” Ramses asked.

  “It was an underground train transportation avenue back before the Time of Ruin. Most of it has been closed off so it’s not viable for entering the city anymore, but a lot of the underground tunnels are still intact,” Wire said.

  “Have we vetted it?” Remko asked.

  “That’s the risky part,” Kate said. “We’ve never been down there. We have no idea what we’ll find.”

  “But we can check it for wildlife,” Wire said. “And I could do a chemical and environmental check before we enter. I just need to get close enough—”

  “And what if we get all these people there and it isn’t stable?” Kate asked.

  “I could go ahead now and start the readings. I could radio back before morning,” Wire said.

  “We may not have until morning,” Sam said.

  “I know it’s a risk, but we don’t have any other plausible options currently, and I have a strong feeling—”

  Kate huffed. “You want us to risk the lives of these people on your feeling?”

  “Kate,” Sam warned again.

  “What? Do you want to take that risk?”

  Remko looked at the small map on Roxy’s screen and tried to imagine the underground train system. If it was built as a mode of transportation, the tunnels must be strong, large, built to withstand time, and out of sight, which was appealing. “Have you identified the fastest route to the most viable entry point?” Remko asked.

  Wire grabbed Roxy and viciously typed on her face. “No, but it’ll only take me a couple of minutes.”

  Kate watched over Wire’s shoulder and picked at him while he zoomed in and out, muttering about probable road conditions and visibility, but Wire didn’t seem to mind and made adjustments based on anything Kate suggested.

  Sam studied the maps on the table, looking for another option in case they needed a plan B.

  Remko considered slipping away, but before he could, Ramses placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and nodded for him to follow. Remko did and the two left the others to work.

  Ramses glanced at Remko as they walked and Remko knew what was coming.

  “How are you?” Ramses asked.

  Remko didn’t know how to answer that question, so he stayed silent. Quiet fell between them.

  Ramses led Remko out past the border of the camp’s activity, away from listeners. He stopped at the edge of the floor where a guardrail ran the length of the upstairs. He leaned forward against it, arms resting on its top. “I was thinking about how different you’ve become in the last year,” Ramses said.

  Remko looked at his brother.

  “I was just thinking about where we all were before this. You were all soldier then. Calculated and emotionless, all about what was right according to the law. Now they call you an outlaw.” Ramses teasingly nudged Remko’s shoulder, and Remko found himself nearly smiling in spite of the sorrow that hung over him.

  “Being a soldier is still part of who you are, but it looks different without a law to follow,” Ramses said.

  “I’m fine, Ramses,” Remko said.

  “Something that hasn’t changed—you’re still a terrible liar.”

  Remko leaned forward to match his brother’s position on the rail. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. I just want you to know that I see how different you are. How much emotion you have invested here. How much emotion you have invested in her.”

  “Are you faulting me for it?” Remko asked. He felt his defenses spike.

  “No, Brother. Love is a beautiful thing. But the pressure you are putting yourself under—”

  “I can handle it,” Remko said.

  Ramses nodded and turned his eyes forward. “Something else about you that hasn’t changed. You’re still as stubborn as Dad ever was. And your loyalty is fierce. You’re a good leader for us.”

  Remko had never asked to be leader, but he kept silent because he knew voicing that would only incite more concern from Ramses.

  “I just worry about you taking on too much,” Ramses said.

  “I have a family to protect. If keeping them safe means taking on more, then it’s not too much.”

  “Fine. Just don’t forget that you’re not alone in this. We’re all protecting family, and you’re mine.”

  Remko let his defenses slip and nodded. Of course Ramses was worried. He worried about Ramses just as often. “I know, Brother; I know.” Remko placed his hand on Ramses’s shoulder and his brother nodded.

  “I should . . . ,” Remko began, tilting his head toward the tent he shared with Carrington and Elise.

  “Go. Check on her. Come see me afterward. I’ll make sure we have a solid plan together.”

  Remko gave his thanks and left him, walking back toward the moving chaos. People acknowledged him with nods as he passed, their eyes saying more than their mouths. By now everyone in camp knew Larkin was dead. No one would say anything to his face, or even behind his back, but their looks grew more worried with each failure, and Remko knew the blame landed on him.

  A few tents still stood, one of them his. He saw Lesley, Ramses’s wife, standing outside packing up what was around her. Her face was filled with emotion and she kept her eyes locked on the task at hand. He knew she had grown close with Larkin over the last year, that being out here in this environment, facing the same troubles, had made them
like sisters.

  Lesley lifted her face at Remko’s approach and he saw her reddened eyes still filled with tears. His heart broke as she wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said.

  Remko stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. A soft sob escaped her lips and she placed the tips of her fingers against her mouth to control herself. She swallowed hard and released a shaky exhale. “I just keep trying to figure out how to tell Nina.”

  Again Remko’s heart ached. Larkin and Nina had become inseparable the last few months and he hadn’t even thought about how this news would affect her. She was just a child. How was she supposed to understand death?

  “Carrington’s inside,” Lesley said, pointing toward the tent. “I was just letting her have a moment before—”

  Remko leaned forward and placed a kiss on the top of his sister-in-law’s head. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and tried for a small smile before going back to packing.

  Remko pulled back the thick material that served as a cover to the entrance of the tent and stepped inside. He couldn’t stand all the way up and crouched as the cover fell closed behind him. Carrington knelt at the back of the tent, on the pile of blankets they used as a bed, cradling Elise in her arms, her face identical to Lesley’s—drenched in sorrow.

  Elise had grown so much in the last three months, but she was still tiny. The baby watched Carrington’s face with awe and Remko moved to be close to them. Carrington glanced up as Remko knelt down beside her.

  “I was just telling Elise about her aunt Larkin,” Carrington said. “About how much she loved her, that she’ll never be alone because Aunt Larkin will be watching her. She may not get to meet her—” Emotion choked out Carrington’s words. Tears slipped down her face and dripped off her chin. One landed on Elise’s head and the baby fussed at the unfamiliarity of it. Carrington wiped her face and then Elise’s head, rocking her softly. Remko put his arm around Carrington and his touch broke the barrier holding her sorrow at bay. She dissolved before him, and he reached out to take Elise from her.

  Elise safely secured in his right arm, he tucked his wife against the opposite side and felt her warm tears seep through his shirt. He fought back tears himself as the pain of the woman he loved enveloped the air around him. He had done this to her; his failure had caused her this torture. He tried to escape from the blame that was chasing him through the darkest parts of his mind, but with each heart-wrenching cry from Carrington he felt his resolve slip further. He had done this.

  He held both girls close and silently prayed for the strength not to fail again.

  4

  Damien Gold tapped all ten fingers along the grand table at which he sat. Six Authority members joined him at the table, their faces filled with exhaustion. Each looked more aged every time they met. Time had made them soft. They had become accustomed to the ease of ruling a city without rebellion, and none of them had proven equipped to handle the trouble pounding at the gates of their formerly stable control.

  The truth was they had never really been in control. They had all just bought into the lie Ian Carson had fed them. Like silly little children, fat on the candy shoved into their faces. Damien had always seen the underlying problem in the city. He’d known this day was approaching, which had made it easy to come in and offer rescue.

  The Authority Council had been at an impasse. The betrayal of Isaac Knight hung in the air like a heavy cloud, and the members had been searching for their bearings. Isaac’s psychotic break had shattered the ground on which the council stood, but no panic was necessary, because Damien had been fully prepared to restructure their faith.

  Not their faith in God, of course; rather their faith in him. As far as Damien was concerned, the idea of God was coming to an end. It needed to, for the betterment of the people. The Authority City, led by the Carson family since the Time of Ruin, may once have needed to believe in God to ensure a sense of security and ease, but Damien knew a new era was upon them. It was a transition that had been slowly maneuvering its way through the cracks over the last couple of years, and now with the fall of their highest religious leader, Damien could feel the floodgates threatening to explode.

  Previously, Damien had held the position of High Council Judge, a position with much power and glory but still in the shadow of Riddley Stone, the Minister of Justice, and the nine other Authority members. Damien had used his level of status to wield more influence than most, but if he wanted to really induce effective change, he was at a disadvantage. Some might say God had reached down and created the perfect opportunity for Damien to step onto the Authority Council after God had pushed Isaac over the edge, but since Damien believed God was a myth, he wanted to give the universe and dumb luck a standing ovation.

  He still believed in purpose, of course. Purpose was the reason for existence. Even the fly exists so the spider does not go hungry. So Damien existed to bring the people into a higher place of evolution.

  His entrance into the Authority had been swift and easy, first sitting in place of Isaac, spouting whatever religious nonsense was necessary to gain the trust of the other members around him and giving him a front-row seat to Ian Carson’s implosion.

  It hadn’t taken Ian long to self-destruct. The death of a child isn’t something anyone should have to watch, but to be the source of that child’s death had to create darkness inside a person with enough power to destroy any remaining sense of self. After months of failure in his increasingly frantic efforts to obtain members of the rebellion, Ian’s leadership abilities had been called into question. And after additional weeks of failure in his decreasingly effective attempts to lead the city out of the turmoil sweeping the streets, it had been obvious to all that Ian was no longer equipped to sit in the president’s seat.

  Damien had spent this time efficiently, whispering in the ears of those around him, egging on their rising concern over their once-glorious leader, and securing their loyalty. That part was most crucial. He knew that if and when Ian fell from power, the other members would be looking for a leader they could follow without hesitation. One might think each man who sat around the Authority table would covet the president’s seat, but Damien discovered most of them were sheep. Powerful sheep, perhaps, with the ability to make decisions, but to truly lead was a different kind of responsibility, one that very few were able to carry. And sheep didn’t survive long without a shepherd. Thankfully, Damien wasn’t a sheep.

  It had been roughly three months since Ian was overthrown, cast out, kindly asked to leave his post, however one might put it, and three months since the council had asked Damien to step in. In the short span of a year and a half, Damien had moved from High Council Judge to Authority President.

  Unlike the other members in the room, Damien had not grown up watching his father rule. Damien’s father had been in law, just as Damien was, but with an unfathomable sense of contentment that kept him from rising higher than the position given to him. Damien had never understood his father’s acceptance of place and duty. Damien had always wanted more. He found contentment disgusting, a sign of weakness. His mother had taught him that. She’d been the compass that steered him forward toward greatness. Now here he sat, not just a royal like the rest, but the king.

  “How could you have let them slip through your fingers?” Enderson Lane asked Lieutenant Smith. Smith had been allowed to sit in on the last couple of Authority meetings at Enderson’s request. The fall of Dodson Rogue had been another stab at the falsely assumed stability of the city’s leadership. To have two of their own betray the ideals they had sworn to uphold within the same time frame made the sheep frantic. Yet the difference between Isaac and Dodson was monumental: Isaac was mentally unstable; Dodson had made a choice.

  After Isaac had used his secondary, untraceable chip to kidnap and murder girls throughout the city, Ian had demanded that every other Authority member turn in their secondary chips. Dodson had claimed that when he went to retrieve
his, it was missing. Stolen, he assumed, by Remko after the soldier had been told he could never be with the woman he loved. A story that by all accounts had felt plausible and true. It had been easier for the sheep to believe the lie rather than accept that they had yet again been fooled. But there were too many unanswered questions for the claim to sit soundly.

  Witnesses remembered Dodson heading into his office with Remko that night. They also recalled Remko leaving alone, Dodson still in his office, but mysteriously, Remko’s chip had been found near Dodson’s office later. If Remko hadn’t been alone in Dodson’s office that night, when had he stolen the chip? He could have taken it earlier, of course, but why would he, if the crime had in fact been a reaction to the Authority’s decision? Dodson could provide answers for none of these questions. He was clearly complicit in Remko’s crime, but without solid proof—which they didn’t have—the other Authority members believed taking away his seat was all they could do for the time being.

  Many believed Dodson would rejoin the council once a full and detailed investigation of his missing chip had been completed. But Damien knew Dodson had helped Remko escape, had been the cause of all the turmoil that had followed since. The man was probably a follower of Aaron, even though he claimed not to be. And since rescuing the Authority and setting the community on a new path was his duty, Damien had done what any true leader would do—he’d made sure Dodson paid for his crimes.

  Damien had found a less-than-upstanding soldier and paid him to claim he’d spoken with Remko that night and that Remko had admitted to Dodson giving him his secondary chip. When the young soldier, Aryers, had come forward with this information, the first question everyone asked was why he’d kept it to himself so long. But Damien had prepared Aryers for that. Aryers claimed that Remko had threatened his family if he said anything. He said he knew he’d been a coward and would pay for his wrongdoings however the Authority saw fit. Then they wanted to know why Remko would say anything to him in the first place. Aryers replied that he and Remko had been very close, like brothers, and when he’d encountered his friend using Dodson’s chip to leave the city that night he’d tried to stop him.