by J. L. Lyon
“I see you found your way here at last.”
301 whirled around in the direction of the voice, gun drawn and ready to fire. But all he saw was darkness, and he cursed himself for being so stupid. There was only one exit to this room, and if the speaker was an enemy 301 was an easy target. The light of the monitor might as well have been a spotlight.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” he demanded, brandishing his sidearm at the black pit in the hall. “You’re the one who led me here.”
“There are things in this building that you need to see.”
“Agreed. Show yourself!”
“Put away your weapon,” the man replied, “and perhaps I’ll be more comfortable doing so.” 301 hesitated, and the voice continued, “Have you forgotten what it is to trust, Specter Captain?”
“No,” 301 said. “I am simply well-acquainted with betrayal.”
A short, half-hearted laughed echoed off the walls, “I suspect that is true. Luckily I’m not here to betray you. I only want to talk.”
“Tell me who you are, and we’ll see about the weapon.”
Silence reigned for a moment, and then, “We were very close once, you and I. In fact, as a caregiver I was second only to your parents. But as I had no son I held none above you.” Despite the fact that 301 had not yet holstered his weapon, the man appeared in the doorway and emerged into the monitor’s eerie glow, lowering his hood as he came forward. 301 felt something tingle at the edge of his mind upon beholding his face, like a memory hanging just out of reach.
He could tell that the newcomer was a hard man, cool and calculating—a dangerous man. Yet for some reason he found himself trusting him…or was it Eli who trusted him? Either way, he lowered his weapon and returned it to its holster, “You knew my parents?”
“I did,” the man nodded. “I was with your father on the day he died, when he ordered us to leave him behind while he blew up the first Specter Spire. He died saving the lives of all those in the Silent Thunder dome. And your mother…well, I knew her better than almost anyone.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ellis Crenshaw.”
301 breathed out a long sigh. Of course it is. “Ellis Crenshaw,” he said dryly. “The man I left Grace with on the night I set her free…a rebel leader yourself, no doubt.”
“Yes, I am a rebel against this government,” Crenshaw replied. “And you, a son of rebels. That fact alone will be your doom, if Napoleon Alexander ever learns of it.”
“If you’ve come here to recruit me, don’t waste your breath. Jacob Sawyer already tried that, and I’m not interested in joining a losing side.”
“I’m not here for you at all,” Crenshaw said. “I actually came upon you in the tunnels while searching for Grace Sawyer, and followed you here. But our meeting is an event long overdue, Shadow Soldier, and we are running out of time.”
“Why? What am I to you?”
“Your mother,” he said quietly. “What do you know of her?”
301 paused. Truthfully, he knew very little…only what he had read in history books—tales tainted by the propaganda of the World System. He had spent so much time trying to run from the truth of his past that he hadn’t taken much time to think about the people in that past.
“She was Lauren Charity,” he said. “I know only what the World System has told me.”
“The world knows her as Lauren Charity,” he said, and a deep sadness settled on his brow. “But for the majority of her life she was Lauren Crenshaw, my sister.” 301’s eyes widened in shock as the rebel leader went on, “I am your mother’s brother…your last living relative. I fought with your father in both the great wars of our time, through fire and blood and betrayal and despair…until that final moment when he asked me to leave him. ‘Take care of Eli and Lauren,’ he said. Your mother I never saw again, but I sought you out for years after her death, even abandoning my men and the war I had sworn to fight on the merest chance that you were still alive. Three years I looked before giving you up for dead, adding you to the list of names I would one day avenge. So when I finally learned of your survival it took everything in my power not to seek you out and tell you everything.
“I watched you in those days, during your progression through the Great Army, and I saw nothing of your mother and father in you. You were a shadow of what you could have been, a tool in the hand of your enemies. It nearly destroyed me, seeing this cruel twist of fate. But I held on to hope that you could be turned, even after Jacob’s death, even after your denial of Grace on that Tower…but now, seeing you here without her, I can only assume you gave her up in exchange for your own life. And if that is that case then my nephew is truly gone. I need you to tell me what happened down there, Specter Captain. Tell me if my nephew, the last of my blood, is dead within that husk of the World System’s machine. Tell me if my dreams have all been a waste.”
301 struggled with how to respond to Crenshaw’s despair—a mirror image of the pain and loss he himself had felt when Grace was taken away. And strangely, even though Crenshaw would undoubtedly—and rightfully—blame 301 for her capture, he sensed a camaraderie with the man. They had common interests...goals that for the moment seemed joined. He could use that to his advantage.
“Grace has been taken,” he confessed. “A few hours ago, in the tunnels. My partner was on to me and knew I would go after her, so he enlisted Specter’s help to follow me. I led the entire force straight to her. When they revealed themselves I nearly tried to kill them all, but Grace…she stopped me. She went with them willingly, to save my life.”
“And the lives of everyone at the Command Center,” Crenshaw said dryly. “If you had led them to the end of that trail, you would have been responsible for the destruction of the entire 2nd Battalion. I suspected as much.”
“Is that true, what you said?” 301 asked.
“Which part?”
“That you searched for me for three years,” 301 said. “That you gave up everything and everyone just on the chance you might find me.”
Crenshaw looked away uncomfortably, but he could not hide the sadness in his voice, “Yes, it’s true. Jacob and I had quite a falling out about it. He thought I just wasn’t willing to let go. So, when we also disagreed about whether the war would be won through violence or through intelligence it became a breaking point. We went our separate ways. I continued to search for you for a long time afterward, but I based that search on a faulty assumption: that no one could ever hack into the System’s central computer and replace an identity, as the Discipliner of this orphanage did with you. He meant to hide you not only from Alexander, but from me as well. Lucky for him he is not here, or I might be tempted to repay him for his trouble.”
301’s fists opened and closed, and he shifted his feet uncomfortably, “I thank you for that. I don’t remember much about those days, but I do remember feeling that someone was out there, searching for me. Knowing it was true…well, it changes things.”
Crenshaw nodded, “So what was your plan? What did you hope to accomplish walking right into our midst?”
301 paused, kicking the concrete beneath him with his shoes. For some reason he felt guilty admitting the truth to Crenshaw. Here was the man who had searched for him—perhaps the only other person aside from Grace still alive who had known him as Elijah Charity. How could he tell him that he had wanted to leave it all behind?
No, not just leave, he corrected. Run away. I wanted to run away.
“I have seen that man you spoke of earlier,” he said at last. “I have seen clearly what I was—to an extent, what I still am. But I don’t want to be that man anymore. So I decided to leave. I came to ask Grace to leave the city with me.”
“I see,” Crenshaw said. “Take it from an old man, Specter Captain: you can’t run from your problems. They will chase you wherever you go, and eventually…they will find you.”
I never even made it out of the city, and they already did. “It doesn’t matter. Grace is probably in
the palace dungeon now, if she still lives.”
“Alexander won’t let her die before making a public mockery of her,” Crenshaw assured. “I know him better than most as well.” 301’s eyebrows rose in question, and he saw a sudden flash of the message carved within that giant Spectral Cross: Libertas, Glorificus may have fallen, but you are not the last. Renovatio. But Crenshaw did not elaborate. “I presume you have a plan?”
“The beginnings of one,” 301 replied. “I will return to the palace and learn what I can about Napoleon Alexander’s intentions. Then, I will save her.”
“From the palace?” Crenshaw winced. “You may have gotten her out once, but back then no one paid her a second glance. You don’t have that luxury this time.”
“I’ll think of something,” he said. “But first, I need something. Before I can go back in there, I need to find myself again…my true self. The matron suggested there might be clues hidden in this room, and I assume that is why you led me here.”
Crenshaw nodded, his lips pulled tight into a grim line, “Not long ago Grace and I came here to learn what happened to you fifteen years ago. The information contained in this room…are you sure you’re ready?”
301 set his gaze on the glowing monitor, “I may not have another chance. And I need to know.”
With some reluctance—which 301 thought strange, considering how he had ended up there—Crenshaw pulled a disc from the pouch on his belt and held it up to the monitor. A stream of white light shot out from the screen and scanned the disc, and the walls ignited with eerie light as the monitors came to life.
“Welcome, Discipliner.”
Crenshaw returned the disc to its pouch and stepped back to the doorway. “Computer,” he said. “Pull up special cache for case file 301-14-A. Play all.”
The central monitor on the back wall flickered and displayed a recording of that very room. The chair sat in its center just like in the present, only in the recording there was also a little boy sitting in it. A man paced back and forth before him threateningly—a man he knew all too well: the Discipliner of the Capital Orphanage. He was a man with no name, and he had no need for one. What he did was his identity, and how all the children had known him.
The Discipliner asked in a cruel tone, “Tell me now, boy: what is your name?”
The child spoke bravely, “You already know my name.”
“I want to hear you say it,” the Discipliner stopped pacing and towered over the boy. “You will tell me your name.”
“I won’t!”
He struck the boy across the face so hard that 301 recoiled with disgust. He averted his eyes briefly at the boy’s look of pain, and let his gaze rest on the bottom right corner of the screen, which read Session 40, Case 30114Z.
The Discipliner’s scream caught his attention again, “Tell me your name!”
“I know what you want me to say!” the boy yelled. “And I won’t say it!”
The Discipliner struck him two more times—blows that would have made a normal child burst into tears. But 301 could see this was no ordinary child. Despite the superior size of his adversary and the hopelessness of his situation, he laughed. “You can’t keep me here forever. I’ll get away.”
Kneeling in front of him, the Discipliner replied in a sinister voice, “Your parents are dead, child. Everyone in this world thinks you are dead. You have nowhere to go, and no one is coming for you.”
“Someone will come,” he said with confidence. “They won’t forget about me.”
“You might be right that they won’t forget you,” he got back to his feet and cracked his knuckles. “But all you will ever be to them now is a memory. Which is, unfortunately, more than you will have of them. I’m going to destroy you. I’m going to erase you. Your body will remain on the earth, but your mind…I’m going to lock it away, never to return.”
“You will never destroy me!” the boy yelled. “My father is with me! He won’t let you!”
“Your father is dead!” the Discipliner backhanded the boy across the face. “He can’t stop me!” He struck him again. “You can’t resist me!” And again. The last blow produced a quiet whimper, but before the man could be satisfied with the reaction his beatings had made, the boy came back with strong, cutting words.
“Even if you win, I won’t be gone forever. When I grow up I’ll remember, and then I’ll come for you.”
The Discipliner paused, seemingly impressed by the boy’s continued defiance. “If you only knew what was ahead, you would not speak so bravely.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” the boy screamed.
“You will be, you foolish child! Now, tell me your name!”
“My name is Elijah Charity! My name is Elijah Charity! My name is Elijah Charity!” The boy continued to shout at the top of his lungs until the enraged Discipliner beat him relentlessly into submission. 301 wanted to look away but made himself watch, trying his best to feel the emotions that the boy felt as he faced down the Discipliner. For on closer examination he realized that the boy was Eli—the boy was him. The screen flickered and jumped to another recording. The bottom right corner of this one read: Session 173, Case 30114Z.
Once again, Eli sat in the chair. And once again, the Discipliner paced before him. But the mood between the two had changed. Instead of hostility and tension, there seemed to be an atmosphere of resolution. The Discipliner stopped in front of the chair and asked calmly, arms crossed over his chest, “What is your name?”
Eli muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and the Discipliner struck his jaw with an open palm. He did not raise his voice, but only repeated the question again, “What is your name?”
301 watched with increasing sadness as Eli spoke—broken, defeated, and almost beginning to believe—“I have no name. I am 301-14-A.”
301 felt something tug at him, a subtle pull on his heart and mind that connected him to that battered child. Even after Jacob Sawyer had revealed his heritage, even after Grace confirmed it, he had held on to fledgling doubts that perhaps there could be some mistake. But seeing Eli there on that monitor, declaring himself 301-14-A, was enough to shatter that possibility. It was real. The boy in that chair was him. That was the day Elijah Charity died…the day 301-14-A was born.
The monitor changed again, and it appeared the Discipliner was showing him something using the monitors in the room. Session 201 ended with his dejected declaration, “No one on the outside knows me. I am a shadow to them.”
Session 203, “This orphanage is the only home I have ever known.”
Session 221, “I never knew my parents. I was left on the doorstep because of the war.”
Session 239. The Discipliner spoke, “Tell me, 301: do you know a girl named Grace Sawyer?”
Eli looked up at him with desperation as though pleading for him not to take this memory. But the Discipliner got right in his face and yelled, “Do you know her?”
“No,” he shook his head fearfully. “I do not know her.”
“And your uncle,” the Discipliner went on. “What was his name again?”
Eli struggled, visibly shaking with the effort of forcing his mind into conformity. “I don’t know my uncle. I don’t have one.”
“So he is not coming to save you, then.”
“No,” Eli said sadly. “No one is coming to save me.
“I am a Shadow.”
The cache playback ended, and silence reigned for several moments. The feeling of 301’s pounding heart was all that tethered him to reality as he considered the meaning of what he had just seen. All this time he had been so concerned that the truth of his past would destroy everything he had become, but he never stopped to consider that he had been destroyed once already. The Discipliner had seen to the summary deletion of every memory—every person—he held dear, and changed him into something he was not.
But that begged the question of who he really was now that he knew the truth. Was he 301-14-A, the arrogant and cold-hearted warrior? Or was he E
lijah Charity, heir to a legacy of freedom fighters who would stop at nothing to bring down the World System?
I am in between, he realized. I am at once both and neither.
So much emotion in so short a time. But he was not done, not yet. There was something here the matron had wanted him to see, and he doubted this cache was the full breadth of it.
“Computer,” 301 spoke. “Open Session 201 of case file 301-14-A.”
“What are you doing?” Crenshaw asked from behind him.
“He was using something on me,” 301 explained as the feed came back up. “Matron Young said if I can recreate an event parallel to my lost memories then I might be able to undo these sessions. Whatever he was using then might be valuable now.” He stepped closer to the screen and tried to make out what was playing on the walls, but the poor video quality made it impossible to discern.
“Computer, pull up the file playing at the exact date and time of Session 201 as shown.”
A small symbol appeared on the screen, a circle of bars that he suspected meant the computer was searching for the file. After a minute or so the computer replied. “File found.”
“Play it.”
34
EVERY MONITOR IN THE room ignited with a vision of the Central Square, but it was different than the one he knew. Many of the buildings that surrounded it were incomplete, while others were simply missing, but the greatest difference was the large platform that stood at its center. The sounds of the crowd filled his ears, and it was a familiar sound—as though it was seared into his mind despite him no longer being able to remember it. He struggled to make out their shouts, a continuous chant that sounded over and over again: “Charity! Charity! Charity!”