On the chair, a blue uniform waited, neatly folded, reminding him of a nagging worry that had chewed at his stomach for hours. Scythe couldn’t imagine working for Keyrin again, despite what he had told Anora, despite his deep commitment to his Blade brothers. He had tried to prepare himself for the inevitable departure from his newfound home...even though he had no idea where he would end up...but now that the time had come, he didn’t feel ready at all.
His heart jumping, he strode back to the door and opened it to find that Keyrin’s expression was just as he had predicted: calm, confident and a little amused.
“I thought I’d head you off, knowing you the way I do. I even put off my debriefing with Leandra, which didn’t go over well, I assure you.” He waited, gauging Scythe’s reaction.
Scythe had thought a lot during the long trip back from the city about what it would be like to confront Keyrin, a man he had admired, even loved, someone he considered a mentor. He thought he would become enraged at the sight of the man who had manipulated the truth and involved himself with the experiments of certainly the Humans and maybe even the Kin. He had rehearsed in his mind how he would accuse the older man, demand the truth from him, and expose him to his father who, to their knowledge, was unaware of his son’s activities. However, now that he was standing there in front of the man who had embraced him when he returned to Poinsea and given him a place there, he found himself strangely cool inside.
Keyrin tilted his head, frowning a little, “I half expected to find you searching for the Humans by now...” When he still drew no response from the younger man, Keyrin said with a sigh, “You always did fail to react predictably, Scythe. I never know what you are going to do. Come, let’s talk.” He motioned for Scythe to join him in the hallway and then tilted his head toward the two Red Guard. “My guard aren’t comfortable with our meeting like this; they think you are a threat to me.”
Scythe, having already assessed the two guards who fell into step behind them, responded, “I’d feel the same. Look, let’s cut to the chase, can we?”
“Scythe, why so angry? I’ve kept my word to you...”
“You lied to me,” Scythe said bluntly, enjoying the reaction to the heavy insult by the guards and, surprisingly, by Keyrin.
Keyrin raised a calming hand, although the guards had made no discernible move toward him, “I did not lie, ever. Although,” he admitted, acknowledging Scythe’s tight lips and narrowed eyes, “I did allow you to come to the wrong conclusion. It served my purpose at the time, and I do believe that I have always been straightforward with you in one respect: I will always put the well-being of Poinsea above all else.” He raised his hand and gestured to stop Scythe when he headed in the wrong direction, “This way.” He led them down a side corridor.
Scythe, looking at Keyrin’s back, took a short second to resist a slithering voice, This man is dangerous. Let’s cut out his lying tongue. Scythe reached for the cool and found it.
“‘Their lives are over,’” Scythe whispered.
“That’s right,” he said, nodding. “Now, they merely await death. Think of it as if they had died when their filthy hovels were raided; they’d be dead just the same, only this way they serve a purpose first, an important purpose for Poinsea. Now there’s just the dying left to do, really.” He paused, “I told you, they are not people, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Where are we going?” Cold. Cold. Cold. Scythe pushed away thoughts of his vision of people in cages, of Lena in a wheelchair, and of Mercy’s hands touching his, revealing her inner terror. He pulled on the cold cloak because he could feel something else making its way forward inside of him. It had its uses, too, but it could be unpredictable. The cold was control.
“We are going to see them, of course. You won’t be able to rest until you do, I imagine. Anyway, we are about done with our research. There are only a few left.”
The voice at the back of Scythe’s head started to laugh, I told you. Let me have him. Scythe was finding it difficult to distinguish between his desires and those of the voice.
Scythe stopped walking, “I need a little space.”
“I understand,” Keyrin smoothly replied without skipping a step. “It’s right up here. I need to make sure things are ready for you, so you’ll need to wait for a bit anyway. I’ll signal my men when I want you brought in.”
Scythe leaned on the wall, bringing the guards behind him who had paused at a safe distance into view, and took a few deep breaths.
“You are younger than I thought,” one of the Red Guard commented after a minute, crossing his arms.
“Don’t be stupid,” the other one said, keeping alert. “You read the report.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve written some reports that were exaggerated, so, whatever. It seems like a lot of bullshit to me.”
Scythe didn’t respond. His energy was channelled into keeping a rising anger at bay, anger that was looking for an outlet.
Show them! Just a little demonstration, nothing too bloody...
The first guard, mistakenly sensing weakness, said, “Keyrin won’t mind if we rough him up a little. That’s why he left us alone with him.” Still, he didn’t move forward, assessing Scythe’s reaction. “Did you know that, boy?”
Breathe. Breathe in the cold.
“He wants you a little less arrogant, more...respectful. So,” the guard shrugged his shoulders, “take away the Blades, and give you a little workout to remind you of your place.” He stepped forward.
Scythe looked at him sideways, his eyes fierce, and a deep voice crawled up his throat and down the hallway, “Stay. Back.” The last of his will to avoid a fight seeped out of him with that declaration.
I like the heat, the voice laughed, and the cold evaporated.
The man froze instantly, his eyes widening when Scythe turned to face him fully.
“Or. Come.” His heart quickened, finally, in anticipation, and he let them see it in his eyes. With a quick smile, he added, “All of you.”
The part of his mind that was still available to analyze his situation noticed that it was taking less and less time for his body to go from in to barely in control. The rest of his mind didn’t care. His blood ran with a molten fire that he suddenly welcomed because the fire burned away the pain that had been filling him.
“What the hell?” the second guard said, pulling out a short metal stick.
“You first,” Scythe said, “Limpy.”
“What? I don’t limp, dumbshit.”
“Not yet,” and he barked a rough laugh at his own joke. No more talking. I want them!
“What did he say?” The first guard asked, backing up one step to speak to the second.
“He’s crazy. Good job, asshole. Now do you believe the report?”
“Let’s go. I need to learn my place.” Scythe stalked toward them, pulling a knife from one sheath in his pants and making another slide out at his wrist.
“Okay, maybe I was...” the first guard protested, lifting his hands.
“Too fucking late,” Scythe threw the small blade between the men, forcing them to jump apart and press up against the walls in the narrow corridor. Bursting forward with incredible speed, he plowed into the second guard, knocking him into the wall and then riding him down to the ground where he cracked the man’s hand into the wall to dislodge his weapon. That gave him a clear view of the guard in the shadows behind him, stepping away from her friend, whose hand covered a bleeding shoulder. Both wore camouflage mud and carried rifles.
Scythe, his knife at the man’s throat, said to the woman, “Is this really part of the plan?”
She leveled her rifle, narrowing her eyes, “I told them you’d smell the guns, but they seem to think...”
Carefully controlling the pressure of the knife in his hand, Scythe kicked out to his right, sweeping toward the first guard’s leg, then changing direction and knocking the knife out of his hand. A third kick deadened the man’s weight bearing leg. He sent the man’s knife sl
iding down the empty half of the hall before the man hit the ground.
These guys are slow.
“Your buddy doesn’t seem to value your life much,” Scythe commented to the man beneath him, holding up a second knife.
“Oh, shit!” was the only response. The man’s eyes were riveted to Scythe’s neck scars.
“Don’t worry, I got ya,” Scythe said companionably, before plunging the free knife into the tendon above the first guard’s knee.
The man grabbed his leg, gritting his teeth. “You little shit, I’m gonna kill you.”
And stupid.
The threat, along with the smell of blood, almost sent Scythe over the edge. He managed to pull a smile around his teeth, “I’d like you to try, Limpy.”
Please try. Try now.
“Don’t push it, Limpy,” the woman ordered forcefully.
Despite his boast, he decided that Scythe wasn’t someone he wanted to go up against after all. Limpy grit his teeth, pressing hard on his wound, “Can I get some help here please?”
“Okay, Limpy, just keep your pants on,” the remaining able guard said, moving forward but stopping some ten feet away. She looked at Scythe, “You done?”
Too slow and too stupid. Scythe calculated, smoothly wiping the bloody knife on Limpy’s pants and secreting it away in his sleeve.
“If you are,” he replied without moving.
“Okay, get on, then. It's not good to keep him too long. I’ll clean up here.”
Scythe looked down at the man beneath him and commented, “You guys seem a little slow for the Red Guard.” He nodded to the loudmouthed man. “I know he can’t be one of you.”
When the man didn’t answer, beyond a hard look, Scythe got up, pulling the man up with him. “Bait,” he pressed on the man’s neck with his knife, finally drawing a little blood, and looking down the corridor. He thought about how Keyrin’s words seemed so callous and how they had affected him. “Why?”
“You need to go now,” was the woman’s only reply. “Turn right at the end and take the third door on the left.”
“You gonna shoot me?”
“I should, but I won’t,” she answered.
“Because?” he prompted, finally stepping back from a relieved guard who clutched at his neck.
“Because I was told not to.” Pursing her lips, she continued, “Maybe tomorrow, though.”
Scythe nodded, backed away a few feet and then turned and strode down the hall. On the way, he picked up the discarded weapon and carried it loosely in his hand. He easily followed Keyrin's scent and within moments, he entered the room that he recognized from Lena’s vision. The cages along the wall were all but empty, just as Keyrin had said. Five cages held Humans, only one of which looked up when he opened the door. The elaborate holding pen that was constructed for Lena had been disassembled, although the examination tables, bank of computers, and various machines were where he remembered them. Scythe wasn’t surprised to see his current doctor, Jenna, in her lab coat conferring with Keyrin and a few others he didn’t recognize.
“Ah, here he is,” said Keyrin, turning to him. “How did it go?”
“What is going on?” Scythe asked, looking from Keyrin to Jenna.
Jenna gave Scythe an apologetic look before asking, “May I take some blood?”
“This whole thing was another experiment...on me?” Scythe asked incredulously.
“We’re just updating our information on your condition, and the doctor thought that the data would be more accurate from a real threat than from a simulation,” Keyrin explained. “So, if you would,” he motioned to a chair, “before too much time passes.”
Scythe shook his head, “No.”
“No?” Keyrin asked, raising his eyebrows. “Scythe, I am sorry about the circumstances, but I’m afraid we value the information on you highly...”
“I am not...just...a test subject,” Scythe protested. “I have rights.”
“That is true. You absolutely have rights. If that is true, then you have responsibilities as well, don’t you?
“What do you mean?”
“Your rights come at a cost. You have a responsibility to Poinsea, its people, our community...”
“What has that got to do with it?”
“Our research, all of this, has been for a purpose, Scythe. That purpose is the survival of our settlement.” He held up his hand when Scythe began to interrupt. “Let me finish. I told you before that we always have a few plans in the works to keep our city independent. We are always under attack, under threat of being absorbed by neighboring alliances. It is only by political manipulation that we have been able to stay free this long.
“The research that we are doing here, the study of Human gifts and their implications for the Kin, is going to become the key leveraging point that will keep us afloat for another fifty years. With it, we can solidify our position as one of the few remaining independent settlements. That is fifty years of freedom for our people, Scythe. Your responsibility is to assist us in obtaining that freedom by contributing to that research, starting now.” He laid his hand on the back of the chair and waited expectantly.
Scythe shook his head again, “This isn’t right...”
“No?”
“No. What are you planning on doing with all this data? With my data? Kin don’t even have gifts...”
“Yes, they do, Scythe.” Keyrin leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “The blood of the Kin can support Human gifts. You’ve proven that.”
Scythe stilled, his face suddenly icy. He looked from one face to another, the panic spreading through him. “How is that?”
“You have a gift, which manifested some months before your hospitalization by the Humans and which you used extensively during your last trip. It is well documented, I assure you, Scythe.” Keyrin said smoothly.
Scythe wondered who among his comrades gave out information about him. They were so careful to interrogate people without witnesses, but maybe they missed a surveillance device... “What kind of gift?”
“Come, let’s not play games. We are friends, from long ago.” When Scythe didn’t respond, Keyrin folded his arms smugly. “Your gift is mind reading as well as manipulation of the mind to control your subjects, a powerful tool in the right hands.”
Warming to the topic, he continued, “Imagine, Scythe: Poinsea will be the only city, in all the world, with gifted Kin. Kin who can move things with their thoughts, or control people, or read minds. We’ve discovered gifts in the last few months in these Humans that would amaze you, Scythe! Precognition, manipulation of energy fields, even healing the ill. The blood of the Kin, powerful as it is, will be even more glorious, and we will have the key! We’ll crush our enemies, and build a power base to rule the next five hundred years!”
When he finally noticed Scythe’s silent disgust, he cut short his obviously well thought out speech and leaned back. “For Poinsea, you will step forward and do your part, Scythe.”
“How...have you learned a way to...transfer the gifts?” Scythe asked, appalled at his own curiosity.
“Unfortunately, no,” Keyrin admitted, clearly disappointed. “That was our goal for a long while, but we couldn’t find a way to do it. So, we’re on a new path, now. Well, two paths, really, and both of them were results of studying your data, Scythe.”
“This is...that’s what they told me in the hospital...” Scythe stuttered, the horror of his abduction coming back to him in an instant. Involuntarily, he stepped back, his eyes darting around the room.
“Yes, and your team kindly brought all of that data back with you.”
“My Lord,” Jenna interrupted, “each minute that passes...”
“Yes, we really must have your sample now, Scythe. Otherwise, we’ll have to run a simulation of some sort, and I don’t think that that is what you would like right now.”
“So I am just another rat to you, is that right?” Scythe tried to push away the fear with some anger, but, for once, it was out of
his reach.
“No, of course not.” Keyrin laughed before leveling a stare at Scythe. “Right now, you are the rat, but you don’t need to be in a cage.” He said and gestured at the Humans. “You can have it however you want it. You can live like you have been, with your freedom and a place in the Blades, and submit voluntarily to periodic testing, or you can be locked up, drugged and we’ll do it anyway.”
Locked up...and drugged… The thought of it made his stomach clench. Keyrin smiled confidently at Scythe’s wide eyes and involuntary gasp; he knew already how things were going to turn out.
“What about the 'Blood of the Kin’? Was that all a bunch of crap?” Scythe spit out, stalling for time to think.
“Of course not,” Keyrin objected, clearly stung. “There is no doubt that the Blood that every Kin shares is what empowers us and, since you carry it, you belong to the dominant, superior civilization on this planet.”
“But...”
“No more stalling, cousin. You need to decide now.”
“If I be your lab rat, then, I can do what I want?” Scythe evaluated and reevaluated his options, calculating the odds of attaining his larger goals. None of the situations involving incarceration seemed like productive paths. Even with his 'freedom,' it seemed unlikely that he would be able to achieve the protections he wanted for his friends as well as the justice that he still craved.
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