by T. C. Edge
I carry a slightly secretive walk, as if I’m up to no good, my keen eyes searching for any guards as I move straight for the main foyer on the floor and the lifts that give access to the rest of the building.
I reach them without encountering a soul, only the faintest sounds of noise still issuing from the main atrium below. Managing a war, it seems, is a 24-7 affair, the main hall now a relentless hive of activity at all hours of the day and night.
Above, however, most of the floors are being used for sleeping and private meetings. I step into a lift and hit the button for floor 12, the elevator doors shutting with an appealing hiss before quickly drifting gracefully up through the core of the structure.
It takes mere moments to cover the levels, the doors hissing open with that same satisfying sound, and the dimly light space appearing before me. I move into the central square, once giving passage to the offices of some of the more high profile officials of the City Guard, and make way towards the purpose of my visit.
The floor is empty, lit only by security lights that pepper the walls. To my eyes, however, the murk is easily penetrated, the room marked ‘Archives’ quickly coming into view.
I hasten my step until I’m at the door, and reach for the handle. I turn it down, and find that it’s locked.
A muted curse word escapes my lips, even though I half expected this.
Thankfully, I’ve come prepared. From the holster on my belt, I withdraw my pistol. I fiddle with the settings and ensure that the silence feature is enabled, before aiming it right where I assume the locking mechanism to be.
I step to the left, aiming at an angle, and then fire from a mere metre away. The bullet rattles loudly off the metal door, pinging off down the corridor before eventually embedding itself in some surface soft enough to accept it.
I swear under my breath again as I look at the damage. There’s little more than a scratch and small dent, the pistol clearly insufficient to penetrate the lock.
I look around the wide corridor, just checking to make sure there’s no one around. Then, aiming at the same spot, I fire off another two rounds, both bouncing off the silver façade before dancing off down the passage as the first one did.
I inspect the lock again. They’ve had some effect. A smile works up my face, and I go again.
A few more rounds are emptied from the clip, battering the lock and spiralling off down the corridor. By the time the gun runs dry, the lock appears to be weakening.
I check my surroundings again, and try to push the door open. It creaks and moans, clearly upset, but refuses to fully surrender.
My boot has a go, kicking hard. The door grumbles and groans, weakening further. Then, with a final effort, and charging my body up with all the energy I can muster, I thrash hard and the thing gives way, the lock cracking and splintering and the door swinging open.
I let out a long breath, my head aching from the effort, and send my Hawk-eyes off into the darkness as I step over the threshold. My eyes begin to adapt, but don’t need to work too hard as I turn to the wall and find a light switch.
Pressing my thumb to the little screen, the room blazes, filling with a bright yellow and while glow. I squint at the sudden change, and see a large space coming into view, tall pillars of filing cabinets spreading down one side, with other units and grouped banks of monitors and screens on the other.
All the electronics appear to be dormant, shut off and powered down. I move towards the cabinets, fitted with slim, sleek draws around their four sides and labelled with the information they hold. Within each draw, a single electronic tablet lies, a record of each man and woman, past and present, who has represented the City Guard.
Standing there, I whisper the name of my father.
“Maxwell…”
It’s all I know, other than the fact that he was a Hawk, and had old Dasher blood in him too that never manifested. It’s all Mrs Carmichael could tell me, her knowledge of him kept from her for the very purpose of keeping me safe.
I quickly begin looking down the labelled names, the large cabinet ahead of me listed in alphabetical order. I’m at the first one upon entering the room, the names all beginning with ‘A’. I scan all sides of the pillar, and find that I’m still on the ‘As’ by the time I’m done.
The next pillar is the same. And the next. Hundreds of names beginning with ‘A’. I move down the line, working deeper into the vast network of eight foot pillars that stretch to the ceiling, until I reach the names beginning with ‘M’.
But, there’s a problem. A big problem.
All of these names, listed alphabetically, are surnames.
And I only know my father’s first name.
I stop my brief search, and consider returning to the start. If I check each name, I’ll find him eventually, I reason.
But that will take hours. Many, many hours. Perhaps I’d get lucky and find that his surname began with ‘A’. Perhaps the opposite would be true, and I’d only find him somewhere way down the line.
Or, perhaps I’d find a dozen men with the first name of Maxwell, and have to go a level deeper: check what their enhancements were, see what their records say.
My father, who I only know as Maxwell the Hawk, will have been taken to the REEF for execution once his treachery was discovered. The ‘treachery’ of falling in love with my mother, a Savant, a Mind-Manipulator like me.
An illegal pairing that led to my birth. And Zander’s birth.
And their death.
My mother remains just a face to me. She doesn’t have a name, just a beautiful face with warm brown eyes that make it clear she was never like the rest of her kind. That she was more like Adryan, imbued with the emotion and feeling that other Savants don’t possess, capable of falling love with my father, of bearing two children that she knew, deep down, she could never have kept.
I stop as my mind works away with thoughts of her, and him. I know what their fate was. Finding my father’s file, and seeing it in electronic print, won’t change that, it won’t help that.
“What am I doing here…” I whisper, shaking my head.
I start to turn, moving back towards the door, resigned to the realisation that I’m just opening up an old wound right now. A wound that’s been sewn shut by this war, by the constant concern for my friends, the fighting, the killing, that’s demanded my full attention.
I don’t need to think of my past again. I don’t need to add that muted pain, that longing, to the very real and fresh grief that now resides constantly inside me.
So I turn, and head straight for the door, before stopping as I reach the threshold.
From nowhere, another name, another curiosity, stamps itself down onto my head. I hover for a second and then turn, moving straight back into the field of filing columns, scanning quickly and carefully for a single name.
My pulse begins to thud as I find it, and open up the drawer. I take out the electronic file and press the little button at the bottom, and the screen begins to glow, set with a name, rank, identification number, and host of other details.
I look at the name with a growing scowl.
Artemis Cromwell.
I flick my finger across the touchscreen from right to left, and the contents page of the file appears. Dates of his ascension through the ranks of the City Guard are listed, his many accomplishment and accolades, all the way up to his time at the summit and his position as Commander.
But it’s not the achievements and ladder climbing of Cromwell that interests me. It’s the little section entitled: “Next of Kin” that demands my focus.
I dab my index finger to the title, and the file begins to load up the appropriate content. I find my pulse lifting, beat-by-beat, as I scan the words that appear before my eyes.
Wife: Cornelia Orlando, it reads.
Enhancement: Savant.
Current Status: Fugitive.
Fate: Taken to the Reconditioning, Examination, and Execution Facility for termination.
Crime: Ai
ding a fugitive.
Daughter: Elisa, surname given as Munroe.
Enhancement: Savant, Mind-Manipulator.
Current Status: Deceased.
Fate: Taken to the Reconditioning, Examination, and Execution Facility for termination.
Crime: Illegal relationship with Enhanced (Hawk), Illegal procreation.
Fate of Offspring: Unknown.
I stare at the screen, my heart slowing to a sudden crawl. My eyes drift from the details of Lady Orlando to her daughter, Cromwell’s daughter, and don’t go any further.
I fix my gaze on the name, Elisa, and the details, and a terrible realisation forms in my mind. A terrible truth.
Elisa; a Mind-Manipulator, who fell in love with a Hawk, who had illegal children.
A mother, a lover, killed by the doctrines of a father.
A mother…
My mother…
“She was my mother…” I whisper.
And as my words drift into the room, a final thought comes, bringing a horrible grimace to my face. I shut my eyes, ball my fists, and feel sick to my very stomach.
Artemis Cromwell is my grandfather.
The Enhanced will continue in Book Eight…
Next Up - Avenger
Hello dear reader!
Hope you enjoyed the book and that final reveal caught you by surprise. Now, we have some big questions to answer in book eight, which will be out real soon (June 1 to be exact)!
It’s called AVENGER, and you can go right ahead and preorder it at the link below:
Pre-order AVENGER now!
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Thanks for reading!
Author Notes
Written 3rd May
Well well, I hope you didn’t see that one coming!
I did say in my notes at the end of Renegade that I enjoy a good twist. Hopefully this one caught a few of you out!
If I lured you right into that one, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email at [email protected] and let me know.
I also went into a bit of my ‘process’ as a writer last time. If you missed it, let’s just say that I don’t tend to plan ahead too much, and ‘fly by the seat of my pants’. In other words, I’m a ‘pantser’ and not a ‘plotter’, and a lot of what happens in my stories probably surprises me just as much as it does you!
That said, I knew all along what Brie and Zander’s heritage was going to be, and wanted to leave it until way into the story before that little detail came out. Now, of course, it leads into plenty more questions, ones that I’ll be exploring in book 8 – AVENGER – which will be releasing on June the 1st.
So, when will it all end?
Good question, and given my aforementioned pantser tendencies, it’s one I can’t answer right now.
I guess you could say that the main arc for the story is starting to come to a close, what with the control of the city changing hands, Cromwell scuttling off into the outerlands, and Brie finally discovering some of the truth of what happened to her parents, and who they were.
But, as they say, as one door closes, another one opens, and the same is definitely true of this. Given the continued and humbling support I’m getting with this particular yarn, I’m certainly keen on keeping it going. So, don’t expect the series to end at book 8, because it most certainly will not!
I also mentioned the idea of a spinoff in my previous author notes.
Well, that’s definitely in the pipeline, and right now I’m probably going to be releasing the first of those after book 8 comes out, and before book 9 (although this isn’t completely, 100% confirmed…yet).
I don’t really want to give much away right now, but after reading this one, you might be able to guess where the spinoff might lead and whose story it will tell. Again, feel free to drop me an email if you want to pick my brain on that.
The thing is, this entire story has been quite different from my previous series – the Watchers Series – in certain narrative ways. That story was set in a future version of the USA, but never really ventured beyond the borders of North America. It did, however, go from coast to coast, and included a number of cities and settlements and covered a far longer period of time in its 6 book run.
This series, so far, has been mostly centred around a single city and the surrounding area. And, it has only covered a couple of months (or less) of actual time, which is pretty mad when you think about how much has happened. It certainly has more of a ‘real-time’ feel than the Watchers Series, which makes it far easier to create a story with a lot more books, some of which only cover a couple of days worth of actual time.
So, what am I getting at exactly?
Well, simply that there’s a lot to explore out there, and the first spinoff (yes, first – if that goes well, I’ll probably do others) is going to shine a light on some of it. The world, after all, is a very big place, and given how there have been plenty of hints already about other people far beyond Haven, I think it’s only right that I take you out there to find out just what that might be.
It’s pretty exciting, I have to say, and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into it. Time will tell whether you take to it too and it gains any traction, but I’m sure going to give it a try and find out whether that’s the case!
With that said, I want to extend another big thank you for getting this far. I hope my cliff-hangers aren’t irritating you too much, and always try to publish a new episode in the story every 3 or so weeks so that you don’t have to wait too long to find out what happens next.
Now, if the first spinoff goes down well, that schedule might change just a little bit. I’d probably be writing both side-by-side, and alternating between them, which would mean slightly longer waits between new books. Having said that, as long as the main series remains popular, I will always prioritise that, and will release new episodes as regularly as I can until the entire tale draws to a natural conclusion.
My overall dream with all of this is to create a wider universe, giving you a chance to find out and explore other characters and other parts of the world. That may include short stories too, several of which I’ve drawn up some ideas for, as well as the spinoffs I keep rattling on about.
In the end, if you’re enjoying it, then I’ll keep going. And, if interest starts to wane, then I’ll think up something new. For those who love my work, don’t worry – I’m always jotting down notes for new series and worlds and weird and wonderful characters.
So, thanks again for your great support, and feel free to tell family and friends about these books if you think they’ll enjoy them. Your feedback, whether in your reviews of the great emails I get, is hugely appreciated, so keep it coming and drop me a line whenever you fancy. I love engaging with my readers, and count some of you as my friends now, which is awesome!
In fact, I should probably focus on getting a Facebook page properly set up. I have one currently, although haven’t touched it for heaven knows how long, but it would probably be a good platform to enjoy a bit more direct chit-chat with you all, if you’re interested.
I’m just pretty useless on social media, whatever form it takes. One of many things for me to work on…
Anyway, I digress.
Time to wrap this up and get back working on book 8 :)
Thanks for reading, and you’ll be hearing from me very soon no doubt!
With love,
Toby
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