Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  Jacobi could feel Sarazin staring daggers at the side of his head. “I never knew he was coming. It didn’t go through me. And as soon as I heard they were here, Wilcott was sent to intervene. As a result, the prisoners said nothing at all, much less anything potentially damaging.”

  The CEO laughed. “I bet our boy Aubrey gleaned enough from their saying nothing to do us plenty of harm.” Sarazin continued, “So when he and his sidekick were invited to come visit the Keep by your esteemed colleague, I extricated the riot plan from my back pocket and put it into motion.”

  “All this was just some sort of backup plan?” Jacobi gestured again to the scene beneath them. As if on cue, a scream reached them from below. Both men looked to find its source. Five levels down, a naked woman ran along the catwalk, her bald head dripping lines of blood, more crimson oozing from gashes in her back and from between her legs. As quickly as she appeared, she vanished into a corridor. Three men entered the catwalk carrying metal hooks and shivs and disappeared down the same corridor as the terrified woman. A shiver coursed up the back of Jacobi’s arms and legs.

  “You are certainly a strategist, Sarazin, I’ll give you that but this seems a little excessive. I think there was more to this than just a contingency plan.” Jacobi locked eyes with Sarazin, who said nothing and made no visible reaction to the accusation. The Member shook his head in consternation. “But you won’t tell me what that is, even if I’m right. Do me the courtesy of answering one question though, will you Sarazin? Why did you have to bring those assassins here? They’re outcasts of the Order. Why did you have to use them? Couldn’t you find other killers to do your bidding?”

  “They’re very efficient and highly effective.” Sarazin’s cold eyes stared back into Jacobi’s. “And I always knew I’d probably end up here, so I needed people who knew this place inside and out. I needed people who didn’t possess that all too common and ridiculous fear of you and your people. They were more difficult to find than your average bloody-minded hitman. I had to scrape the dregs of the underworld, but I knew they were out there, so I kept looking—not an easy thing to do without exposing myself, but I managed to turn them up.” Sarazin’s eyes narrowed and he jammed a finger into Jacobi’s chest. “I needed a very specific type of job done, and you’ll have to forgive me for not giving a fuck about your precious sensibilities.”

  Jacobi felt his face go slack. The look in Sarazin’s eyes was one he’d seen before in Members of the Order. The ones who’d enjoyed the act of killing a little too much. It was an obsession. An addiction. A compulsive, relentless attachment.

  “How many Members of my Order were you prepared to murder? Where’s the line? What if fifty had known something about your little scheme? Would you have destroyed the Order and with it the entire system of justice we uphold?” Jacobi could feel his knees shaking and his lip quivering with a mix of anger and fear.

  Sarazin visibly relaxed and placed a hand on Jacobi’s shoulder. “Let’s not trouble ourselves with hypotheticals.” The CEO brushed unseen dust from Jacobi’s chest and straightened the front of his cassock as if he were adjusting a necktie. “We’ll get through this, old friend. Don’t worry.” He released Jacobi and reached into his own pocket. Pulling out his phone, he read the screen then looked back at Jacobi with a huge grin. “Excuse me a minute. Ventana business doesn’t stop churning just because I turn on my out-of-office. Know what I mean?”

  Jacobi watched Sarazin walk away typing messages into his phone. The Member Principal returned to the scene below. It was like a bad movie he couldn’t turn away from. As much as he hated it, he had to watch. If nothing else, to get a sense how many Members may have been killed by inmates. He was already thinking about the impact on recruiting neophytes for the Pupil’s School of the Order.

  A strange scraping sound got his attention. He spun around to find Sarazin approaching, ten feet away, staring down into the Great Atrium. Jacobi turned his attention there too. They watched in silence.

  “Jacobi, you’re right, actually,” Sarazin said. “This was more than a back up plan. I had no idea how widespread Alkorn’s stories might go. I had no idea who Wilcott might talk to or who else might turn against me. I had to have something in place to eradicate any and all possible loose ends.”

  Ice ran down Jacobi’s spine. He stood frozen to the floor.

  Sarazin continued, “And to answer your question from a moment ago: how many Members was I prepared to kill?”

  Jacobi turned to face the man. Sarazin shrugged and his hand slid from behind his back revealing a short red fire extinguisher.

  “I was prepared to murder all of them, and you.”

  Jacobi flinched just as the red metal cylinder swung toward his head. His face met the glass floor and a veil of black smothered his vision.

  * * *

  As soon as Member Principal Jacobi woke up, he knew he was not in his top floor chambers any longer. The smell wasn’t right. The light wasn’t right. The temperature wasn’t right. The sounds reaching his ears weren’t right.

  For a moment, he thought it was a trick of the brain as he emerged from the fog of unconsciousness. The image of a red metal cylinder hurdling toward his head swam to the front of his mind.

  That bastard.

  Jacobi lifted his aching head. He was in a passageway. Gray walls. White tube lighting overhead. The wall to his left was painted with a stenciled 47. He was one floor below his quarters and exposed.

  A throbbing in his left hand got his attention. He lifted it. Examined it and his mouth dropped. A long slit down the back of his hand oozed blood.

  “No.”

  He struggled to his feet only to immediately fall to all fours. The world spun around him. His stomach doubled over on itself and he vomited. He kept vomiting until he had nothing left but dry heaves.

  Finally, after several minutes, he was able to stand. He stumbled to the stairwell door. Leaning his right hand on the wall to steady himself, he lifted his bloodied left hand and dragged it across the square panel leaving a bloody trail like a morbid slug.

  The panel did not change.

  The door locks did not disengage.

  He tugged on the door handle, but it didn’t move.

  “Sarazin, you goddamned bastard.”

  He slammed a bloody fist against into the wall. His chip had been removed. He was trapped out in the open.

  * * *

  From the forty-first floor, Aubrey, Malina, Francesca, and Rudolfo climbed up the east stairwell toward the top of the Keep. They’d avoided further trouble since leaving forty-one. Francesca and Rudolfo’s chemical weapon attack in the mess hall had the effect of renewing, if not escalating, the fear Members inspired in the inmate population. The stairwell had been clear all the way to the landing on forty-seven where the stairs ended.

  “Other than the elevator, the west stairwell is the only access to level forty-eight.” Rudolfo pressed an ear to the door while he spoke.

  On the way up, Aubrey had listened to Francesca recount how they broke out of the maintenance closet, found the drums of bleach and ammonia, and concocted the plan to gas the gang members in the mess hall. He was impressed to learn that the gas attack had been Francesca’s idea and judging by the look on the old Tapper’s face, Rudolfo was as well.

  “We’ll have to cross the ward to get there, right?” asked Aubrey. He’d had enough of this prison and the murderous inmates that inhabited it. The idea of traversing the deadly ground in his current state of exhaustion and pain did not appeal to him in the slightest.

  “Yes.” Rudolfo ran his hand across the square panel next to the door and opened it slowly, peering through the crack as he did so.

  The two Members and Aubrey stepped out first, setting up a rough defensive perimeter. Francesca and Rudolfo had their spears and Aubrey his axe; it had been recovered along with Malina’s gear after the battle on forty-one. Malina followed them, scanning her equipment for possible threats.

  “This floor is pretty
clear. If we stick to the outer passageway and avoid the mess hall, we should be okay.”

  “We can go through the barrier on the opposite end of the ward from the mess hall,” Francesca said.

  “Yeah, that should be …” A staccato of gunfire interrupted her. They all exchanged looks of concern.

  “Wherever it’s coming from,” Aubrey said, “I think it’s below us. We should be okay for the moment.”

  “Okay, let’s just go,” Malina said.

  The group moved at a jogging pace, careful to consult Malina with her tablet each time they crossed a corridor. Before long, they reached the barrier; a black wall stretching across the gray floor. Rudolfo lifted his hand to open it, but stopped and glanced at Malina. She searched her tablet, squinted and said, “We’re good, but …” She paused mid-sentence.

  “But what?” Aubrey asked, moving toward her. She pointed to a man in a white prison uniform running down a corridor in the east ward; his right arm was wrapped in some sort of sling. “What? Just an inmate. What’s wrong?”

  “He has hair,” Malina said. She gave Aubrey a look of profound confusion.

  Francesca approached and scrutinized the tablet. Her eyes narrowed. “Sir, you need to take a look at this.”

  Rudolfo stepped toward them, a wary expression on his face. Once he saw the tablet and the man on screen, he cursed. Everyone looked at him in surprise. “Jacobi,” he said. “The Member Principal.”

  Realization dawned on Aubrey. “You and Francesca go get him. We’ll get Sarazin.”

  Rudolfo opened the barrier for Malina and Aubrey then stopped. “You’ll need me to get through the stairwell door.”

  Aubrey patted his backpack filled with a dozen welding strips. “I’ve got a master key. We’re good.”

  “The hinges have actuators to close them. You must cut the hinges and the lock.” With a nod, Rudolfo set off toward the corridor where they last saw Jacobi.

  Francesca stood there for a moment, watching her Mentor go. She turned to Aubrey and Malina and said, “Good luck.” Then turned to set off after Rudolfo.

  * * *

  Jacira, Balthazar, and Oona tore through the stairwells on their way to run down their quarry. Thwarted by the impromptu barrier on level forty-two, they took a path around level forty-one to the east stairwell.

  Level forty-one had been a hornet’s nest of activity when they entered it. In a show of force, they wasted every living soul that presented itself, threat or not. They took turns at point and watching their rear, rotating like a deadly clock every few paces. Crossing forty-one was slower than Jacira had wanted, but they made it with only a few dozen rounds expended between them.

  She knew level forty-seven would be a dead end when they reached it. To reach Jacobi’s floor on forty-eight, they’d have to cross again. They’d sent Sarazin a message shortly after setting out, so she felt comfortable that he would be somewhat prepared. She’d told him of a few items in the bags they left behind that he could use if a fight came to him. They hadn’t left any guns, but there were plenty of useful toys.

  In the outer passageway of level forty-seven, she stopped and checked her scroll tablet. Then she rechecked it. The feeds from forty-seven showed her something she wasn’t prepared for.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Balthazar stood with hands on his hips catching his breath after their quick run up twenty-three floors.

  “They split up. Tappers went one way. The civilians went another.” Jacira took the opportunity to catch her breath also.

  “Where did the civvies go?” he asked.

  “Toward Sarazin, I think.” She gazed down the passageway to her left, toward Aubrey and the girl.

  “And the Tappers?”

  She pointed her chin in the opposite direction. “That way. Not sure what they’re after.”

  “Well,” Balthazar said, turning his head in either direction, “who do we hit first?”

  * * *

  Francesca saw Jacobi turn the corner into passageway two. She didn’t know how he’d ended up in an open ward or why he was alone, but she thought his attempt to disguise himself in an inmate’s uniform was a wise choice. Why he hadn’t used his chip to open the stairwells or even the elevator, assuming he had special access, was a question she couldn’t answer. Somehow, he’d managed to get himself into quite a bit of trouble and she intended to find out why.

  Several inmates walked alone in the corridors and passageways but bolted the minute they saw her or Rudolfo. Thus, they tracked Member Principal Jacobi unmolested.

  She peeked around a corner and watched Jacobi dart into an open cell about halfway down the passageway. She motioned to Rudolfo and together they moved toward the cell.

  Ten feet short of the door to Jacobi’s cell, Rudolfo placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

  He leaned in close. “Let me go in first. You can listen from the door, but … I need to hear this from him. I need his confession without coercion.” He eyed her spear.

  She nodded quickly and watched Rudolfo enter the cell.

  Francesca stood just outside the door with her back against the wall, listening to the two men talk.

  * * *

  Jacira watched the young Apprentice Member in a small window on her scroll tablet. “What the hell is she doing?”

  Balthazar looked over her shoulder. “Where is the old man?”

  She searched the camera feeds until she found a view from inside the cell the Apprentice stood next to. Rudolfo stood in the center of the cell speaking to an elderly inmate who sat on the edge of a bed. Something was off about the prisoner. Puzzled, Jacira zoomed in tight on the inmate and realized what was wrong—the inmate had a full head of white hair. She recognized the Member Principal instantly.

  “That’s Jacobi,” she said. Both Oona and Balthazar craned their necks to see the camera feed. “What is he doing in there?”

  “Audio,” Oona said.

  Jacira had forgotten about the audio. With a quick tap, sound emanated from the tablet.

  ” … everything. I had no choice, Rudie,” Jacobi said. “It was never supposed to get to this point. I could never have imagined it would have become …”

  “Many Members have died today.” Rudolfo’s voice came through the tablet in an even, almost monotonous, tone. “Many more prisoners.”

  “Lest you forget, Rudie, our job is to kill prisoners. If they didn’t die today, they’d die later.” Jacobi stared at the floor. “I care deeply about the lost Members, however. I take their deaths heavily. But we will rebuild, of that I am certain.” He scratched his chin and looked off into space.

  “How did it come to this, Jacobi? I’ve never been so naïve as to think the Order was infallible or without corruption in the rank and file. This, however,” Rudolfo gestured to the prison outside, “is an otherworldly level of deceit.”

  “You always had a way with words, Rudie.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I told you. He was going to expose everything if I didn’t comply.” Jacobi pointed skyward.

  “Who was? And what is everything?” Rudolfo inched closer. “Tell me.”

  “I thought you weren’t naïve.” Jacobi smiled at Rudolfo and let out a slight chuckle. “Just know that it wasn’t ever about me. If I got in trouble, so what. But he … he could have brought down the entire system. The entire Order would have crumbled. Imagine the implications, Rudie!”

  “Who? Who would bring it down?” Rudolfo’s voice elevated for the first time, surprising even Jacira.

  “Sarazin, of course. James Sarazin. The man behind the magic pill. If he takes down the Order, the ripple effects would be felt through all levels of society in ways we could not claw back from. Believe me, old friend. I had no choice.”

  “Sarazin.” Rudolfo paused. “Ventana, Inc. The four scientists … and … Brother Wilcott. That was him?” He paused again. “No, that was you.”

  Jacobi faced Rudolfo open mouthed. His eyes drooped. “Yes. Wilc
ott. He did not have to self-select. I did not order that of him.”

  “Tapping the scientists, though. That was you. You made him do that.”

  Jacobi physically recoiled at Rudolfo’s words. “Rudie, please don’t use that term. So crude.”

  “You don’t deny it?” Rudolfo took a step toward Jacobi, who eyed him warily.

  “No. No, I don’t deny it. Had to be done. I tell you, Rudie, if Sarazin had gone public it would have been catastrophic to our way of life.”

  Rudolfo took another step toward Jacobi. “Tell me everything. What would have been made public?”

  Jacobi stared at Rudolfo for a moment then looked away, shaking his head. “Common practice. It was common for all Members Principal for decades. I never thought anything of it, but …”

  Rudolfo moved closer still, his voice became louder. “Tell me everything.”

  Jacobi closed his eyes. “The orphans. All Members were once orphans. Myself included.” He pointed at Rudolfo. “You included, Rudie.”

  “Yes. That is the way. Orphans no one else claims, no one else can care for are taken into the Order.”

  “Yes, that is the way. Do you really think we get the best orphans?” Jacobi looked up with a knowing smile. “Or, I should ask, do you think we would have got the best orphans?”

  “I don’t …”

  “Rudie, you’re being naïve again.” Jacobi touched his own chin. “Imagine some smart, kind, well-rounded kid is at the orphanage. Been there a little while, seen a lot of potential parents, but no one wants them. How could that be? How could a great kid like that get passed up? Not given a home?” Jacobi paused as if waiting for an answer. “They don’t, Rudie. They don’t get passed up. We intervene. We bribe. We make deals. We cajole.”

  The confession seemed to animate Jacobi, who gesticulated wildly as he spoke. “It’s been done for decades and for good reason. We need the best people possible to do this job. We need the brightest, most even-keeled, sharpest thinkers we can get. Imagine, Rudie, if we took only the children no one wanted? What would we do with the dregs? The Order couldn’t function. It couldn’t provide the …”