by Hayden, Nick
“When I am no longer needed.”
“Ha! Needed? No one’s needed in this world. We’re all extraneous, accidents. Men live and die. Their names sometimes linger a few generations. For what? I’ll be forgotten soon enough, even if I change the whole world with my mind. I’ll hang on as a name in a book and a picture on a wall, if that.”
Bron nodded. “Then why do you do what you do?”
“They think they need me. It’s a lie. Someone else would do what I’m doing, if not now, then within a decade. But I might as well do it. It gives me a way to spend my time, and it pleases them.”
“Well, protecting you gives me something to do as well. Let’s leave it at that.”
Calea wanted to scream at him. She had rattled off that little speech to make him uncomfortable--and from some uncomfortable emotion of her own. He had accepted it without question. He was either an unthinking brute or he was mocking her. It was possible both were true.
Her destination was a retailer she’d recently partnered with, a bicycle shop she was using to sell the new motorcycle she’d help develop. With the newest battery, streamlined, magic-powered vehicles were now possible. Most cars were still clunky and over-large, but that was slowly changing. Calea wanted to shock the people with her compact two-wheeled vehicle. She hoped to do some interviews with customers today.
“This is going to be a nice place to live,” Bron said. He did not often start conversations.
“The metrics of happiness and prosperity have been rising steadily in this section. Technology is the most efficient means of changing a person’s position in life.”
“Not the only way.”
“The most efficient.”
“Will you spread your work to the rest of the city?”
“I don’t have much say in other sections. In time, others might borrow from my work, as long as it doesn’t contradict with their own experiments. The technology will spread to Thyrion before it’s publicly released, if history teaches us anything. They’re tech-grubby, and it causes them more than a few problems. The minor villages will get it in time. But my work needs tested over years, and verified by others, then repeated, before the socio-economic blueprint will be made officially available.”
He did not respond. He was a normal, a native of routinely poor Section Three. He likely disagreed with the process. The non-Select always took the short view of things. “We’re doing this for your own good, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
He seemed to tense up. That encouraged her. He had been hurt in some way.
People and traffic crammed down the street. This section had more cars per household than any other, not a particularly difficult feat considering how few civilian cars had been allowed in the city. By her estimation, in three years nearly half of all households in Section Four would own one. Her newest battery was more compact, efficient, and long-lasting than any before it, and the method of creation safer. Manufacturing costs would drop, and the retail price to civilians would fall. Previous administrators of Section Four had run a moderately open economy. Calea didn’t plan to make any changes. Let the people work, earn money, and purchase what they would. They’d purchase her work.
Bron leaned over casually. “We are being followed.”
So perhaps his earlier stiffness had not been from affront but paranoia. “It’s lunch hour in the busiest part of downtown. You’d have to work not to follow someone.”
And if she was being followed, what did it matter? She could handle it. It didn’t concern her much.
She felt a sense of pride walking among the people--people who did not know that she was making their lives better. It wasn’t a sense of identification with these people; she felt as if she were invisible, walking between them as they lived whatever lives these people lived. She did not look down on them. Not much, anyway. She simply regarded them as agents in her experiments, blind beneficiaries of her work. Driving, as many Guides were wont to do, either from desire of speed or a vague fear of the masses, would draw unwanted attention.
She was beginning to feel eyes upon her, though, but it was a fancy, invented by Bron so he could feel useful. The man was dull, slow, and single-minded, a personality better suited to a dog than a man.
The bicycle shop was two roads over. The sun was hot, the people close, and her hip was beginning to ache, a flaw in her prosthetic. This was a main road, narrow but busy, men and cars working at cross-purpose, neither yielding to the other. Stores crammed close to one another, savory aromas coming from many, shoes and clothes and books and groceries sold in others. It was all a bit quaint, actually, with two-story buildings, apartments over storefronts, a far cry from the tall towers of Section Six and the relentless propaganda of Section Eight. It would almost certainly have to change as technology did, but she had no strong opinions on the direction. She’d keep track of the retail, consumer, and architectural evolutions and let them run their course, whatever that would be.
She pressed her way across the street, hoping to lose Bron in the crush. He wouldn’t reprimand her, but she would smirk and show him how little he meant to her. The crowd quickly thinned a block over. Calea looked back to see if she had lost Bron. Three men surrounded her. Two grabbed her arms and the third spoke. “Come quietly. Your expertise is needed. We have much to offer you.” They pulled her into a narrow alley.
Calea was more affronted than frightened. Her mechanical arm easily freed itself from the grip holding it. “You must be from Thyrion. There is nothing I want. Everyone here knows that.”
“You will come, one way or the other.”
Bron stumbled around the corner. Blood ran from his forehead. He unleashed a shot from his gun, but the blast streaked above their heads. He wobbled badly, fighting for consciousness. The leader of the three tilted his head. A brick pulled loose from the wall. Bron collapsed, groaning.
“A non-Select bodyguard. How useless.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Calea answered. “The Overseer naively believes Thyrion will refrain from armed assault on Jalseion. You know, the treaty. The bodyguard’s for more mundane plots.”
“Who says we’re from Thyrion?” He smiled. “Perhaps we’re just in it for the money.”
Bron kept twitching, as if his will refused to listen to his body. “This is a crowded area,” Calea said. “What if I resist? You wouldn’t want there to be an incident.”
The leader snapped his fingers. Fire sprung to life at their tips, taking the form of a miniature sword. Deft manipulation, that. These three were trained in precision. Perhaps the motion was show, but perhaps he still required it to guide the magic properly. “I have found that heating the brain can have lasting effects. Are you willing to risk losing all that precious knowledge of yours?”
“Are you?” Calea projected confidence, but she was beginning to tremble against her will. Panic shuddered through her at the mention of brain damage. Her mind was all she had. Everything else was already broken. “You need my knowledge.”
“We can take your arm and leg. There are many smart people in the world. One of them will figure out how they work. You haven’t shown the world everything, I think.”
She reacted quickly, almost before she had decided what to do. Digging deep from the Well, absorbing the aura of power that surrounded it, she swelled with magic until she wanted to vomit and then forced it out in torrents of raw power. Electricity emanated from her in waves, beating back the thugs. They reacted, pulling bricks down in heaps to bury her, but the electricity sparked into a wall of flame, burning her, scorching her, the blast of its heat knocking the three off their feet and breaking the bricks to pieces. Calea struggled to keep upright as the broken shards fell upon her. Now air hammered the three, keeping them down, choking and compressing them, battering them. She tapped the stone in the brick, throwing aside all her years of technique, and buried the three beneath the rock, melting it into unbroken mounds, where they were trapped, but alive. Probably.
The energy dissipated, em
ptying her. It had lasted less than a minute. She stood up straight, testing her limbs. A little stiff. She was covered in bruises and cuts. Blood trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t care. She felt barren, with a hint of sorrow and anger and joy somewhere beneath. Nothing else seemed necessary, no action, no thought. She felt she could stand there, frozen, for a long, long time, wanting nothing, needing nothing.
She saw Bron rising to his knees.
“I didn’t need you,” she said. “What use are you? I told you I didn’t need you.”
Chapter 7 - Discoveries in the Lab
The final approach to the Academy is uneventful. The road is relatively clear, and the nearing goal has reinvigorated me. I know it is a momentary boost, but I will take what I can get.
The Academy seems churned by giant hands, the walls mangled, but the damage seems largely superficial. It is built upon a stone pillar that rises out of the Well, a pillar erected by Select of several centuries past. They christened the well Curiosity’s Fount and set to work with their experiments. I wonder at their ambition, to create a residence in the center of the source of their power. Rumors say they attempted even greater things in their desire to live as near the magic as possible.
As is well known, the laboratory and research center they established evolved into the hub of the Wheel and modern-day Jalseion; now, it is an isolated, empty edifice, stranded above a desolate canyon of no importance.
And I am certain that the Academy is empty. Nothing moves in the exposed rooms. I remember the cars and generators in the city, blown to pieces by the blast, whatever it was. Did men who could feel magic and manipulate magic also fill up and overload on magic?
“We’re almost there,” I say.
“Save your breath,” Calea bites back. She is on the ragged edge of exhaustion.
The entry arch held a vast wall of glass, in which had been set a number of doors. The ground is covered in shards now. I am glad for my shoes. It is as if we are entering some vast cave, dark and forbidding. The Academy is a pensive structure. Within, the rooms are close and cluttered, most cut off from sunlight and illuminated by the building’s generator, which is certainly destroyed. Luckily, Calea’s labs are on the basement floor, which is built into the rock, in the outer ring, since her experiments deal with the actual substance of magic. This places her both closer to the source and deeper into the rock of the pillar. This last is for protection if something were to go wrong with her experiments.
I stop in the dark passage. Something is moving.
“What are you doing?” Calea demands. “You’re not going to give out on me.”
I squeeze her to quiet her, straining my ears. I hear it again, a rustling, but no voices. I thought I heard voices the first time. I turn aside, into the nearest room, one with walls taken off. Calea begins to protest, but I set her down in the corner with a firm command: “Don’t make a sound.” Her face is an entire diatribe, but she is silent.
I wait. After a time, Calea begins to speak, but I cut her off. Ten minutes pass. The structure creaks. Wind whispers over the rooms. I am not satisfied.
I have been examining the room. It is an office, with two walls lined with shelves. The books are oddly disordered. Whole sections are untouched, while others lie in disarray across the floor. I cannot see it from where I am, but some form waits behind the desk. I stand, holding one of my knives. I’m certain the pistol is worthless now, its magic charges overloaded. I approach.
The form is a corpse. Another familiar face, a bookworm by the name of Julian. I used to see him in the common room, occasionally. His body is marred by scratches and bruises, but it is uncovered, so there is no evidence of what caused his injuries. It could mean a lot of things, probably, but to my heightened senses, it means this: he died face first and someone turned him over.
“Let’s get this done,” I say. I lift Calea in my arms. She does not protest much.
“What do you think--?”
“I’m carrying you. I’d like you to walk on your own two feet as soon as possible.”
The floor seems uncertain beneath me. The Academy stands, but the foundation has shifted beneath it, somehow. All the well-defined passages have been shaken.
The door to Calea’s labs is open. I stop at a distance and set her down in the frame of a neighboring door. She does not ask what I am doing. She senses it too.
I have a knife in each hand, now, and a third in my belt. After the encounter with mercenaries three years ago, I taught myself how to hit a target at thirty feet. A Select with a grudge is likely to snuff me out without getting close, but I’ll make him hurt.
I step into the room, silently, listening. Muffled voices slip in from the connected room. Stepping carefully, I cross to the next door. I peer around. Two men in dark uniforms wait at the door to Calea’s storage room. They are exchanging words quietly and looking in. Military. A third and fourth exit from storage, one holding a cylinder between his thumb and forefinger for the others to see. Calea’s newest battery. He places it in a padded container with a dozen others of various sizes.
It is time for me to go. I need to return to Calea and hide her.
I step into the room. “I can’t let you leave with those.”
They raise their guns at me. I walk toward them. The guns are useless. I think they are useless. “Those don’t belong to you.”
“We outnumber you. Leave us be, and you’ll live.”
“As I see it, you may very well be responsible for the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Jalseians. I’ll take my chances.”
“This isn’t your fight.”
I laugh. He doesn’t know how wrong he is. I sold my life to Calea. It was my choice. I don’t back down from a choice.
“You have ten seconds,” I say.
“We’ll shoot.”
“You’re Select. Thyrion wouldn’t send less. And I’m still living. You’re powerless. Five seconds.”
I sense the move before I see it. My first knife leaves my hand just as it begins. The commander falls, the pack of batteries going down with him. My second knife lodges deep into the abdomen of the man beside him as the first man hits his knees. I rush in, barreling with all my weight into the third, smashing him against the wall. He’s dazed. I have a moment to grab the batteries--but the remaining soldier has already taken them. I lunge for him, but a hand grasps me from behind. The soldier with the batteries retreats from the room as I turn to face my attacker. Though dazed, the third man is flailing, trying to keep me busy and perhaps land a punch. He tries to pin me and I let him, using his momentum to my advantage. I force him around, press him to the floor, and choke him out. It takes no time, too much time. I should have pulled my third knife.
A solid weight slams against me. Slippery hands grasp my throat, knees press into my back. His grip is strong but slick, and I pull my head free, forcing my elbow behind me with all the force I can manage. It connects solidly. I gain my moment and scramble away.
I turn, lifting my knee. It slams into bone. I kick with my other foot. Solid contact. He falls to the floor with a squeal of pain. Only then do I realize who it is I’m fighting. It’s the commander; my borrowed shoes have dug into the knife wound. The knife itself has fallen out, apparently.
I take a second to breathe. It’s a mere moment. I have to contain three men or I need to leave them and return to Calea. They are incapacitated for now, I decide, one unconscious, one twice beaten, and the last pale-faced in the corner. My aim was good.
I hear her scream. Perhaps I’ve been hearing it, but it finally registers. A spike of panic lacerates my insides. I am already at the door, in the hall. Calea is writhing. I see a form racing away in the darkness. I throw my final knife, but it is too far and I am moving too fast. He escapes.
Calea is screaming, holding nothing back. It is full of pain and anger. I see the wound in her side first, a nasty, bloody gash. Her hand is pressed against it in agony. I retreive towels from the bathroom in her lab. She has quieted
a little, but she is cursing, mostly at me. Nothing coherent, just vile, hateful words. I place the first towel against the wound and press firmly. She intakes a painful breath before swinging her arm at me.
“Stay still,” I command.
“Let it bleed, let it! Let it run, let it spurt, let me die!”
I know why she is saying such things. It is not the pain. In a little bit, she will tell me it does not hurt. I see what is missing. I saw it at first, but it was not the most pressing matter. Her leg and arm have been stolen. The stubs glisten with blood. The limbs were removed forcibly, the grafts cut through.
The last soldier--he took my knife from the commander’s body. My knife did this.
I let her wear her tongue out against me. I place another towel on as the first soaks through, and then another. The flow is slowing. I need to move her as soon as I can, but where will I take her? It is a long way over dangerous ground to anyone who might have the skills and resources to help.
“Why won’t you let me die?” she cries. “You’ve failed. It’s over. Now or in a few hours, I die. Let me die. There is nothing left.”
I do not resist. I change the subject. “What will they do with your limbs?”
“Who cares? Study them, wear them, hang them on a wall. The world is ended because of me. Let me die with it.”
“It’s not your fault. Thyrion doesn’t have the resources to destroy a well, and they certainly didn’t do it to get to you.”
“Quiet! Idiot! Fool! Someone destroyed it. Someone did it. Who else? Thyrion is covered in blood, from beginning to end. ‘Red as blood, red as blood, the Thyrion soldier comes.’ They are taking everything with them, all the resources, all the ideas, all the brains they lack.”
“I’ll get you out of here, and when you’re better, you can move to another well.”
I am putting her into a fighting mood. Her words become less emotional, more emphatic, as she argues. “You think this is the end? If they control who has wells, they control who has power. Will they let me live quietly near some backwater pool of a well? No! And I wouldn’t. I will be free to work and to use magic. But Jalseion is dead and the idea of Jalseion is dead and I am dead. You are lying to yourself and to me. Everything I have has been taken from me. You started this journey by coming to find me--you should end it. Take your knife and finish it.”