by T. C. Edge
It baffles me, really, how any of the remaining City Guards can still remain loyal to him. Some, I suppose, have become so entrenched in the awful doctrines he’s expounded over the years that they will never betray him. His propaganda, masterfully manipulating the masses, has helped to ensure that many still side with him, even if they haven’t been reconditioned.
Those that have, of course, will have no choice but to obey. His Stalkers and Con-Cops, and any other agents who have ever visited the REEF or his new reconditioning facility, will be aligned to his wishes and those alone.
What he says, they do. No matter what.
The sky retains its swamp of dark grey cloud as we step through the gate and into the wide opening beyond it. Accompanied by an elite unit of guards, including Marler and several other skilled and experienced hybrids, we gather at the appointed meeting spot, the air damp with the threat of incoming rain.
Lady Orlando stands in the centre, marginally ahead of the rest of us, who fan out right and left and send our eyes down the wide path through the trees. Not too far ahead, the earth undulates just a little, enough to drop the road out of sight and conceal the view of any incoming cars.
At least, to us on the ground.
Up above us, perched on their walls, the calls come that a convoy approaches. A moment later, I hear the rumbling engines, and the first vehicle comes into view, followed by a short stream of others.
It’s a smaller force by the looks of things, yet a formidable one. About a hundred metres away, the first three cars pull up next to one another, and the doors open up. The black-cloaked Stalkers pour out, four from each car, setting up a protective cordon ahead as they line up on the road.
They begin marching, a dozen of them, as more vehicles begin to come into view behind. More of them come, a dozen more, two dozen more, perhaps fifty swarming into the nearby patch of earth that sits between the city walls and the forest behind.
All dress the same. All are elite.
I scan them and quickly compute that, should they wish to attack, they’ll overwhelm us. They have perhaps half our numbers, but many times our value. In a matter of quality verses quantity, they win hands down.
A nervous ripple runs through me. I look to my right, where my brother stands. He catches eyes with me and gives me a reassuring nod.
I hear his voice in my head.
Keep cool, sister, he says. This is a peaceful negotiation…
I look to the others too. They seem to share my brother’s sharp gaze and undaunted expression. All seem to trust that our enemy will adhere to the peaceful promise of this parley.
Again, my inner cynic can’t help but yell at me from the inside. I ignore her and turn my eyes back, just as a larger van appears. It slides to a stop, barely visible behind the forward batch of a dozen Stalkers at the front, and the many others now taking up position on the right and left flanks.
I watch the van carefully, and see the back open up. I see several figures step out, and amid the dark greens and browns, and the grey clouds above, the white stands out so clear.
They come forward, several men and women, ranging from middle-aged to elderly, moving right behind the Stalkers who protect them. I count seven of them, and immediately know, before they even get close, just who they all are.
Half the Consortium, five dressed in white, and one in a dark grey jumpsuit to signify his position as a captive. I look to the latter, and see an emptiness written across his face. It’s clear that Commander Leyton Burns has suffered some ill treatment.
The light grey suit, however, belongs to another: Agent Woolf, lifting a snarky, self-satisfied smile, approaches alongside Burns, walking at the flank of the group of dead-eyed Savants.
And in their centre, I see him.
He steps forward as the Stalkers part, moving aside with their weapons at the ready, creating a short tunnel through which he walks.
He comes, walking calmly, moving in like a terrible reflection of the woman he comes face to face with. The leader of two factions, once husband and wife, who share such a troubled and upsetting history.
He surveys the group so briefly as he approaches, his eyes flicking subtly along the line to see who we’ve brought to the party. Then, as he nears, his gaze fixes to his ex-wife, and her alone. And through my peripheral vision, I see that she’s doing just the same.
And stopping in the dirt, half a dozen metres away, a supreme silence falls, and within that silence, his smooth voice swarms through the air.
“Good afternoon, Cornelia,” he says. “It’s such a pleasure to see you again, after all these long years…”
10
Cromwell’s words hang in the air for a few long moments.
Lady Orlando doesn’t react, or answer, or give anything away except for the utter, all consuming loathing she holds for the man. It comes out through her eyes, her glare, written with a thousand awful memories of the man who once shared her life, and shared her bed.
I scan the Director, my grandfather, with a similar ire. Dressed in his white suit, he appears slightly different to when I last saw him. The pristine purity of his cloth has given way to a slight discolouration. His face, a strange mix of old and young, now leans heavily on the former, those seemingly clean and unwrinkled cheeks of his showing their age.
Life beyond the High Tower, it seems, doesn’t suit the man.
And the same goes for his companions, his fellow members of the Consortium. Their clothing is showing several days worth of wear, marked with dust and soot, and their faces crinkle with lines of displeasure at being reduced to what they now are: exiles from their own city.
The starkest change, however, is in the former Commander of the City Guard, Leyton Burns, now clearly discovered to be a traitor and dressed appropriately to display his criminal status. His posture appears a little bent-over, his eyes bloodshot and heavy, as if he’s been denied sleep and, perhaps, drugged or tortured during his time in the REEF.
As my eyes turn from one to the next, filled with hate and anger, they only fade to pity and sorrow at the sight of the man who, had I not failed at my original mission, would probably be Director himself right now.
And none of this would be necessary.
The thought brings the final companion of Cromwell under my gaze: Agent Romelia Woolf. A woman of such supreme mental gifts that she has regularly destroyed our plans, first saving her master from my assassination attempt, and then seemingly alerting him of the imminent topping of the High Tower and giving him a chance to get away.
Such has been her contribution to his cause that she now finds herself right along the other top luminaries on his side. And it’s to her that I gaze with a loathing only surpassed by my grandfather himself.
My grandfather…standing before me now.
My grandfather…who signed the order for the termination of my parents.
My grandfather…
I hold my thoughts at bay as I notice Agent Woolf staring right at me. I turn my eyes quickly from her and right to the ground. That slimy smile of hers slithers a little up her face, herself a rare case of a Savant showing emotion, gaining great pleasure from the torture and torment of others.
I want to call out to her, spout some horrible abuse. I want to do the same to Cromwell, to step forward and draw out my knife and slice it right across his throat.
But, I don’t have my knife. I don’t have any weapons on me at all. In fact, none of us do, the agreement of a ‘peaceful’ negotiation seeming to imply that arms cannot be carried by any of the two forward parties.
I wouldn’t need any blade or gun, though. My Dasher powers would be enough to drive my fist straight up into his chin with enough force to dislodge his smug old head. I can feel myself brimming with such a desire right now, my breathing beginning to intensify as the thought process rattles through my mind, and my eyes start to fix on him, and him alone.
And then, with a fresh silence dawning, his hateful mouth curls open, and his deep, glacially cold
voice shivers out and up my spine.
His eyes turn to me.
“Ah, Brie Melrose. Or, is it Shaw? Is your husband not with us this afternoon? Such a shame. I’d have liked to see him again.”
I, like my grandmother, refuse to answer. I stare daggers at the man and set my jaw to stone. My eyes don’t leave him until his scan the group once again.
“And who else do we have here? Aha, this young man must be the famous Zander,” he says, squaring his gaze on my twin brother. “I see the resemblance between the two of you. A handsome boy, there’s no doubt about that.”
His neck cranes to the far left, sweeping past Beckett and onto Rycard.
“I hear you were a member of my City Guard,” he says to the half-Hawk. “Sorry about the eye, young man.”
A devilish glint lights on his face. I look at Rycard to see his good left eye begin to blaze.
“What a talkative lot you are,” continues Cromwell, turning right and looking admiringly upon Freya, who towers over the rest of us a little behind. “An impressive specimen,” he murmurs. “You certainly are an odd looking group…”
“Enough.”
Lady Orlando’s croaking voice pierces the air. It draws an abrupt close to Cromwell’s opening monologue, his eyes swinging straight back to hers.
“So you haven’t lost your voice then?” he says, a strange smile hovering on his lips. “I must say, Cornelia, you’ve aged tremendously in the intervening years. The underlands, the outerlands…they don’t agree with you, my dear.”
“I am not your dear,” she seethes. “Now stop your nonsense, Artemis. We are here to treat, not toss around petty insults. I have no interest in spending any more time than I need to in your presence.”
The little icy circles in his eyes darken momentarily, before lighting back up as that odd smile lifts higher.
“Fair enough, Cornelia,” he says.
He draws in a breath, and a little lull falls. I can feel the tension in the air, thick and hot, not just between the old spouses, but all of those on our side of the assembly. Across from us, the rest seem to gaze on, mostly dispassionately, with only Woolf appearing to enjoy the exchange.
But the tension goes further. I feel it behind us too, where our own force of hybrids stare down their Stalker counterparts. And behind them, up on the walls, where our other soldiers fix their weapons at the enemy, their fingers hovering on triggers and so tempted to fire.
I feel the desire within several of them to shoot Cromwell down right now. All it would take would be a single shot, fired by a sniper, and he could drop dead before us, ending the war.
His Stalkers would attack, and many of us, if not all of us, would die. But sometimes, a soldier may not think of that in the heat of the moment. A soldier, perhaps, who has lost family and friends to Cromwell’s cause, who has seen people he loves killed or reconditioned and fashioned into a slave.
In a single moment, the desire for revenge can be a powerful impulse. Should a finger squeeze too tight on a trigger, all of this before us could escalate very fast.
That, of course, is why Lady Orlando has given the order to stand down, to only fire if fired upon. She made sure it was drummed into every single soldier’s mind, and that only those considered calm-headed and reliable were brought along.
But, I can understand it. I really, really understand just why someone might go off script right now.
It would appear as though Cromwell is thinking along similar lines. His eyes scan ahead, up on the wall behind us, perhaps seeing the flaming eyes and quivering jaws, grinding so hard you can almost hear them from down here.
“I trust your men can be trusted to keep their calm, Cornelia,” he says smoothly, guiding his gaze behind her.
“They can,” she asserts. “This is a peaceful negotiation, they all know that.”
“I do hope so. Because if I should fall, my men have their orders. And you know how much control I have over them. They will not turn like so many of the City Guards.”
“Orders to do what?”
His eyebrows drop into a menacing, but subtle frown.
“To kill,” he says. “My death will trigger a mass attack. All of my men will kill as many of your people as they can until they themselves are dead. So,” he says, raising his voice, and scanning our soldiers. “I am untouchable. I will not be assassinated.”
His final words drop his eyes back to me.
“You had your chance, and you missed it,” he says, directly at me. “And then you tried again, and in doing so killed thousands of my people,” he continues, now tightening the shape of his eyes and trapping Lady Orlando under his stare. “I have been forced to take pre-emptive action, this time. Kill me, and watch your people suffer and burn.”
My teeth clench together as he speaks. My heart rattles and thuds and tries to press itself out of my chest.
He’s got us on that one. He’s just made himself immune.
Damn.
“Now,” he continues, lightening up his tone a little. “Shall we speak, Cornelia, about all of this mess you’ve made?”
My grandmother doesn’t bite.
“I’d suggest we are both to blame for the state of this city,” she says coolly, conceding her part.
“Truly? All I see is a rebel faction who have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people. This war is only happening because of you, my dear. And that’s to say nothing of the destruction of the High Tower.”
Still, she doesn’t bite.
I, unfortunately, cannot hold my tongue.
“Stop spouting that bullshit,” I say as plainly and calmly as I can manage. His eyes swing straight to me, as do all others. “I heard all your rubbish when you held me captive. Don’t make me listen to it again, you piece of…”
“Brie,” says Zander, right next to me. His eyes glare, and in my head I hear his harsh voice.
Let them speak. We need to hear him out. Don’t butt in.
He’s probably right.
I shut my mouth and swerve my eyes back to Cromwell’s. I think he quite likes being challenged. I can tell from his self-satisfied little smile, perpetually planted on his thin, pale lips. He wants to get a reaction.
Lady Orlando’s voice fills the air again. She’s a master at maintaining her calm, even in the face of such a man. With lives counting on it, she has to be smart.
I guess, so do I.
“Artemis, we have opposing views,” she declares. “You believe that the Savants are the saviours of the world. That emotion is a dangerous tool. That everyone should have their place, their role, and be unable to deviate from their path for the greater good.”
He nods as she speaks, only lightly, but doesn’t cut in.
She goes on.
“We, on the other hand, believe in equality. We believe that all of the people of this city, of this world, should be allowed equal footing within it. We believe that your doctrines go against what it means to be human.
“As with you, we fight for what we believe. That is the nature of war. Opposing sides always believe in what they’re trying to achieve. In the end, only history judges them. But we are here, right now, to determine how that history will play out. So, Artemis, you made the call. You requested this meeting. Tell us exactly what you wish to happen?”
Her words fade away. A new silence dawns. I look at her with an approving eye, wishing I could behave in such a manner and speak with such eloquence and control.
One day, Brie. One day…
Cromwell takes a few moments to himself. He sways his eyes over our throng once more, slowly and in a measured fashion so typical of men like him. Then, his head starts to shake, only subtly, but visible to us close enough to see.
“I agree with everything you’ve said, Cornelia,” he admits. “I know my history. You may see me as a tyrant. In the future, however, it may be you who takes up that mantle. This war of ours is only serving to weaken us both. And in such a state, we are all vulnerable.”
La
dy Orlando crinkles her brow.
“No, Artemis, you are mistaken. We are not weakened. We are growing stronger by the day. What does it say to you that so many of your City Guards have joined our cause? Only those who have fallen under your spell remain at your side. These men and women,” she says, turning her eyes to the Stalkers to the left and right, “ are slaves who have no means of thinking for themselves. And nor do all the thousands of Con-Cops who remain under your control. Those who are able to form opinions are collectively coming to the realisation that you, my old husband, are a despot. And nothing more.”
The shaking of Cromwell’s head grows less subtle and more obvious. His eyebrows descend a little lower as she speaks, yet he waits his turn and lets her finish.
Then, with almost a huff, he simply says: “You misunderstand me, Cornelia. You have destroyed the beacon at the centre of this city. You have killed many of my men, and I have killed many of yours. And now, the light that once drew people here has gone out. We are in darkness, my old wife. And in that darkness, the shadows are starting to creep…”
His words are ominous. They send a shudder through me. I feel a similar sense pervading all.
His eyes turn to the woods to the right, to the left, filling the world at his back. Then, they come right back to us all.
“We are not alone in this world,” he says, his voice deepening with every syllable. “And as we fight for this city, we grow blind to what lurks behind us.”
He takes a tiny step forward, and seems to lean in.
“Soon, Cornelia, these so-called slaves of mine may prove very valuable to you. Soon, my dear, we may well need each other.”
11
It seems, to me at least, as if the air around us has been sucked clean of half its oxygen. There’s just not enough of it. My breathing rate has increased. My lungs are starting to burn.