Asher presses his face against her hip. He shakes his head, holding back his tears as fiercely as she holds back her own, and he moans, “Martha...”
One more. She will give him one more chance.
“Daddy, it’s Martha,” she says carefully, giving him no choice but to hear her. “Dad, please. You have to know me.”
He smiles dreamily. “Martha. Yes, Martha. Hello, dear.”
She offers a shaky smile, feeling Asher’s hand clench compulsively on her thigh. “Hi dad.”
He takes her hand, more carefully than before. “Please, Martha,” he says, looking so much like himself, “Please. I think my injectors must have run dry. Will you check for me?”
Her heart hardens. The general’s raiding party had been captured only a week before; she hadn’t expected them to have the injectors put in place so quickly. Chemical augmentation can be given through any number of means – syringe, IV, pills, even, by mouth - the implanted injectors are the most permanent. They aren’t given to prisoners until enforced citizenship has been granted.
This is an obstacle she had not expected.
With numb fingers, forgetting that her brother is at her side, she reaches out for the general. He closes his eyes serenely as she pulls down the blanket. With slow, infinite care, she begins to lift the hem of his plain grey gown.
When Asher catches sight of the vicious little machine, he gasps. He slaps one hand over his mouth, stifling the sound.
After only days in their care, the general’s ribs are pushing up through his flesh. The spots where the injectors have been inserted are still swollen and red, the machine attached very small, very smooth, and shiny black. Martha can see the four vials inside through a window, the vials that some nurse will come and fill with the strange chemicals and hormones that have turned the general into a shadow.
When she pulls his gown back into place, gently tucking the sheets up around his shoulders, and he realizes his injectors will remain empty, the man in the bed – a stranger – begins to scream.
“Fucking bitch! Just give it to me, you know I need it, I need it, why won’t you give it to me?” And then his screams drop into an unintelligible gurgle. He doesn’t fall silent, but no words escape the strange language of pain he has created. No one comes running. These are sounds they must be used to.
Martha feels Asher’s nails tearing through her flesh, grabbing at her arms and legs and scrambling to find purchase on her clothes. Although she is a million miles away, wrapped in a cottony blanket of numbness, she reaches out and wraps her arms around his head. She presses his face against her ribs so that he can see no more, thinking fleetingly, The Councilwoman was right.
“Come on, Asher,” she says, taking her first step back, away from the bed. “We’re leaving.”
When he speaks, she can barely hear him above the sounds from the bed. “What about dad?” He lifts his head from her hip and stares at her with wide eyes. This day has been irrevocable; he will never be the same. She knows this.
“That’s not him. That’s someone else.” She takes another step away, pulling Asher with her, turning her back on the general. “Come on.”
The boy peers over his shoulder fretfully. He whispers, “We can’t leave him here.”
But when Martha speaks again, her voice holds all the authority of their father. “Asher. We’re going home.” She tugs the shoulder of his shirt, turning him back to the door. “Now straighten up.”
There is no further discussion. When Martha moves toward the door and lets herself into the hallway, where the Councilwoman is waiting, Asher follows her soundlessly. He looks back only once, as the heavy wooden door closes behind them.
For a long time, the two women stare at each other, speaking volumes without words. Finally, Martha says quietly, “Get us out of here.”
They march down the long hall in silence, and when they pass through the door, the guards only nod. Even the dogs at their feet remain quiet. Soon they have reached the steel doors that lock them inside the womb of the elevator.
Their ride is uninterrupted.
Back above ground, Councilwoman Hart leads them past her office, past the long desk, and down the first entry hall, lined with its tall, elegant columns. She takes them all the way to the fresh air outside, and stands a moment with them on the menacing marble steps.
She asks, “You’re leaving?”
Martha nods.
“You’ll go straight to the gates?”
“Yes.”
“Martha?”
She turns to find the Councilwoman looking at her with sympathetic eyes. Through all the exhaustion that scars her face, through the fog of drugs that she must endure, she is regretful. Genuinely. “I’m sorry,” she says.
But Martha can only nod. Her words are lost.
The woman asks, “You know the way?”
Martha nods again. And then Councilwoman Hart is gone, and they are alone on the steps before City Hall. In the centre of the street before them, a large screen rises from a slot in the pavement. The citizens gather around it, pausing in their comings and goings. At first the screen fills with a wash of blue, and then Martha sees wisps of cloud creep in at either side. The blue slowly changes, turning purple and then pink and then orange as a setting sun begins to slide in from the top of the screen.
The walls of Invictus City are too high to ever show the sunset; the sunrise. The same screen will lift in the morning, to show the sun creeping back up over the horizon. And then the citizens will return to their paths, the way they already have. The screen is sinking back into the pavement. When it is gone, there is no trace that it was ever there.
Martha tows her brother through the streets of Invictus City, towards the gates that will release them back into the woods, back to the monsters that lurk in the dark. But those monsters are not nearly so terrible as the monster in the bed. They are not nearly so terrifying. And Martha has her rifle. At least in the woods, she can take aim at the things that threaten. She can blow them away.
She leads her brother back to the Outlands, and she remembers that some battles are lost before they are ever fought.
The general taught her that.
A lifelong lover of literature, Alyssa Cooper was first published at the age of eighteen. Her passion for the written word started early, and as a child she would carry her mother’s novels as part of her wardrobe. She has dedicated her life to developing her voice and pushing the limits of her craft. She is the author of three traditionally published books, Salvation, Benjamin, and Cold Breath of Life. Her first foray into independent publishing, The Motel Room, will soon be published in a full length collection of speculative fiction, along with Whispering Peak. She currently resides in Belleville, Ontario, where she lives with her typewriters and a personal library.
For a list of available works, visit Alyssa’s Amazon Author Central.
To learn more, visit alyssacooper.ca
Published by Alyssa Cooper
Belleville, ON K8N 1N4
www.alyssacooper.ca
Whispering Peak, Copyright 2014 by Alyssa Cooper
Cover art and design, Copyright 2014 by Alyssa Cooper.
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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