Strangeways

by Matthew Samm

  “So, this is my fault. What happened to you is because I wouldn’t hurt my own brother?”

  “Don’t act so high and mighty, Alix! I’ve protected you as well, you know!”

  “When have you ever done anything to protect me?” she balled at him, the echo amplifying her anger, but not managing to break through his defenses.

  “I could have killed you. Out in the forest. If the other guy I was with had seen, he would have.”

  “What do you mean?” Alix asked, genuinely curious.

  “What? You don’t think I saw you lay down in the forest when I went past with that body? Of course, I saw you! You never were much good at hide and seek. I could have snitched on you right then, but I wanted you to do what Jack wanted and get me in fully.”

  Alix was stunned, her mouth agape at this revelation. “You saw me?”

  He nodded, his face a pointed look of incredulity. “Yeah! Obviously!”

  Alix turned away, regretting pushing for this conversation. “I can’t believe it, Isaac. When did you become so lost?”

  “I’m not lost, Alix. I’ve just got my eyes open. You don’t know what I know, and you don’t see what I see. But soon you will. Soon the truth will come out.”

  “What truth, Isaac? Just tell me now!”

  “I can’t. You won’t believe me if I did. You’ll just have to wait. Soon you’ll find out and then…Well, I guess then we go our separate ways.”

  That ended their conversation. Alix couldn’t even reply to him. She turned over in her bunk and heard Isaac do the same. As she closed her eyes, she knew sleep would evade her. That didn’t matter. She wanted it to. She had plans to make.

  Her brother was lost and her urge to kill Mad Jack had never been so strong. They’d meet again. Whatever the reason was they were being kept alive; she knew she would be taken to Mad Jack again soon. When that happened, she would have her chance.

  He was too strong for someone like Isaac, someone who lacked the swift footedness she possessed. She would have to use all her training, all of her natural athleticism to get close to him and then, there would be one chance. Kill him. Take him by surprise and end his reign of terror and his hold over her brother. She had to. Isaac might not want to be part of the family anymore, but it still meant something to her.

  She would get her revenge for what Mad Jack had done to Isaac. She would get revenge for the plans Mad Jack had for Isaac. She would get revenge because Mad Jack had taken her brother from them when he’d already taken their mother and their sister. She would get revenge.

  It would be another three weeks in the cave before she got her chance.

  16

  Three weeks. Three weeks of thinking about nothing else than feeling her fist connect with Mad Jack’s jaw, watching him as his senses vanished and he collapsed to his knees. A part of her wanted to carry on using the full five minutes of the round to truly hammer her message home, but there was another part that carried the old Alix, the part of her that still existed in New Manchester. She never used the full five minutes. It was cruel to attack someone who might not be able to defend themselves. Even if they were criminal scum, she was better than that.

  As soon as a criminal was defeated, as soon as she felt justice had been done, she would remove herself from their body and wave off the round. She was known as one of the merciful amongst the Wardens. Some thought she was weak, that her kindness and mercy were characteristics to be exploited. She disagreed. It was what separated them from the animals; the ones they punished.

  Since her talk with her brother, three long weeks ago, they’d barely spoken, and she’d felt the darkness begin to close in on her humanity. There was no stimulation when they stopped talking. They just had their thoughts. They just had the same darkness.

  There were times when they would turn away from each other and face the wall, just so they could feel that they were alone in the cave. The urge to take their anger out on each other was strong in each of them, but the memory that they were related stayed each hand.

  It was when Alix felt like she couldn’t take it anymore, as she finally found her will crumbling that she heard the footsteps. At first, she thought it was in her head, but then they began to get closer. Her hallucinations only ever lasted a few seconds before her sane mind kicked back in and she realized her mind’s trick.

  Not this time. The footsteps continued and they grew progressively louder. When she heard the iron door begin to ring and screech, jarred bolt scraping on warping socket, she gasped and shrank back against the cave wall.

  Isaac was facing away from her in the corner, having some private time. He was almost completely covered in shadow, the light from the tiny window failing to penetrate his area of the cell. She knew he was there, but she couldn’t see him.

  The door creaked and screamed open. The man with the scarred face stood before her. He paused for a moment in the door frame before slowly walking forward into the cell.

  Alix tried to repress herself further back against the wall, not knowing or being able to compute what the scarred man was going to do. For the last six weeks, he’d simply opened the service hatch and thrown food in at them. Each dawn and dusk, they pounced on the rancid nutrition like the starving rats they were.

  As the weeks passed, they’d slowly lost more and more of their courtesy. At first, they shared, splitting the ration equally between them. Alix even gave Isaac the lion’s share at first. After a few weeks, they began taking more than they should, sometimes sneaking an extra bite before the other could grab the dish; other times, actively holding the other off while they ate far more. It was cruelty to just give them a single dish.

  With the scarred man before them and not throwing food into the cave, they became perplexed. The status quo had been shattered, the change in routine balking.

  Alix didn’t move, even when the scarred man shone the torch directly into her face, the light blinding her and leaving a white light consuming her vision even after the source had been removed.

  Despite her fears, the scarred man didn’t advance on her. He entered, but then moved to one side, stepping back against the wall and allowing others to enter the cell.

  As soon as her eyes refocused and the agonizing white light faded back to color, she saw him. Mad Jack was in the room, struggling to stand comfortably in the small confines of their cell. His shaved pate scraped the ceiling, the non-existent neck swelling onto his shoulders that filled the entire doorway and then some.

  Alix shot to her feet, as quickly as she could, the atrophy from six weeks confinement stopping her muscles from moving as they should. Her mind knew the movements she wanted her muscles to make, they simply refused to comply. In the end, the slowness of her standing was embarrassing.

  Mad Jack stared at her, his eyes narrowing in pity. He pitied her! He pitied the person she had become in that cave and the hatred swelled in her. She tried to scream in his face, but her voice refused to work, the sound tearing at her vocal cords like a wind-whipped desert. The attempt made her choke on nothing, setting her off coughing, the act tearing more chunks from her already ravished throat. The pitying looks intensified. She hated him!

  “I see you’re no worse for wear for staying here, Alix,” Mad Jack said. “That’s good. I’m glad to see you’ve survived with no ill effects.” He smiled. It was a joke and his smirked was meant for his own entertainment only. He didn’t care that she didn’t laugh. She couldn’t even if she’d wanted to.

  Alix considered making an attempt at her plan. Take him by surprised. Attack when he was least expecting it. Kill him, before he knew he was dead. She decided against it. Of course, she did. She couldn’t, not in her condition. Her struggle to simply stand had set her mind racing and blossomed the seed of self-doubt that had been rooted six weeks ago.

  She’d been able to ignore her fears for the six weeks, even though they plagued her thoughts every second, but not now. They weren’t fears anymore; they were made flesh. At this point in time, she w
as a useless husk of her former self. She couldn’t attack him even if she’d wanted to. Her movements were so slow and slumberous, she might as well send him a postcard with her intentions.

  To her surprise, Mad Jack soon moved to the side as well, stepping to the opposite side as scar man. Alix’s hatred ebbed for a moment, replaced with more confusion.

  This whole time, Isaac remained in the shadows. From her feet, Alix couldn’t even see him, although she was pretty sure he’d turned to face the room, probably extending his legs under his bunk to do so.

  Alix’s confusion only deepened as she saw the third man down the rocky hallway. They had left the door at the end of this pathway open and the light streamed through the opening and shone down the passageway, the light dying as it entered the cave.

  The light silhouetted the man, she was sure it was a man, and stung her eyes as they were forced to do something they hadn’t done in a long time: focus.

  The footsteps began again, a single pair this time. The shoes made a different, softer sound. They were higher quality than what Mad Jack and scar man wore.

  Slowly, her eyes remembering their old ability to zero in on detail began to pick things out. He was strangely familiar. His movements made sense. She’d seen them before, she was sure of it, even though she could only see little bits of movement in the silhouette.

  Eventually, the figure came into the light and Alix broke down in tears, the emotion and relief leaking out of her eyes, welling up from deep within her. It was like each cell was wrung out and the built-up fear, anger, frustration and hatred all squeezed out into those salty droplets.

  “Hello, Alix sweetheart,” said the man as his face entered the floundering daylight. “I’m here to take you home.”

  Alix staggered towards him, the joy flooding from her face and when she reached him, she threw her arms around him. He returned the gestures, but without as much exaggeration. He was pleased to see her but didn’t like the joy she’d used. Had Alix been thinking clearly, she’d have been aware of his disappointment that she had broken to such a degree.

  “I knew you’d come, father!” she croaked, the words finally breaking through their scratchy barrier and making a coherent sound as they entered the air.

  “I’m here now, sweetheart, don’t you worry.” He brought her closer to his chest and wrapped his arms around her, one hand snaking through her hair.

  She felt safe then, but safe as a little girl would run to their father after skinning their knee. She wasn’t acting like a Warden right now. “Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, my business took a lot longer than I’d hoped, but I’m here now.”

  They held each other for long moments, the cave full of their relief as it washed out of the open door and emptied into Strangeways.

  When they finally released, Alix took a step back. If she wasn’t holding on to her father, she didn’t want to be anywhere near Mad Jack and once the initial shock and joy had passed, the feeling of hatred began to grow again. Her dad was here now. She wanted to be the one to punish Mad Jack, but her body wasn’t working properly at the moment, so her dad might have to do it.

  Her father looked over at Mad Jack. “Have her brought out and put on my hovercraft. The rest of the supplies will be offloaded then.”

  Had her father bartered for her freedom? It looked that way. She was to be released and in return, Mad Jack would receive additional supplies.

  Mad Jack nodded to her father, but he gave off an air of someone who had taken a step back from leadership. He wasn’t owning the room currently as he had elsewhere. He was very much the beta to her father’s alpha.

  “Do you want it in the usual place?” her father asked.

  Alix scrunched up her face in confusion. The usual place?

  “Yes, and we need a few more personnel. We need two more breeders and at least two more warriors. Those crates of yours keep killing my men and women. We need more.” Mad Jack gave his demands to her father like a shopping list. Did they already have a relationship? Did they work together?

  “Don’t worry, Jack. Don’t you always get the best? I’ve got some lined up for you, especially the breeders.” Her dad looked over at Mad Jack for the first time. Alix thought she saw a faint smile cross his lips.

  Mad Jack remained impassive, his dark eyes unblinking and not a single emotion flickering on his face.

  “Alix, you come with me now and we’ll get you home,” her dad said, beckoning her towards him, his cufflinks glinting as he extended his arm and they caught the light.

  Alix felt drawn towards her father, her legs, the feeling and the muscle memory just starting to return.

  It was at that moment, that Isaac struggled to his feet. He’d been completely silent. He hadn’t uttered a sound or moved a muscle.

  Immediately, the scar man flashed his torch over to the shadows and Isaac’s gaunt face appeared in the circle of light. Isaac covered his face with his hands and Alix saw, for the first time, that Isaac also now sported a scar down his face. It seemed to circle his left eye like the remnants of some goggles.

  Alix remembered the damage those eyes had suffered in that beating all those weeks ago. They had been so swollen, and, in the darkness, she’d struggled to tend to him at all medically. She must have missed how badly he was actually cut underneath all that swelling. Six weeks later, the cut had etched itself permanently onto his features.

  The scar man lowered the torch almost instinctively as Isaac shielded his eyes and Alix looked back at her father, expecting and hoping for the same reaction she’d got when he first saw her. She knew that their father loved Isaac. Her dad was just living in an impossible world, where he had to govern a massive organization that played such an important role and one day, they’d be expected to take over as well as participate in the meantime.

  They had to be challenged. They had to be tested. Now, though, after six weeks, knowing that his son was safe, Alix felt sure her father would throw off that mask and embrace his son like he should. Just for once, perhaps, he’d show Isaac how much he truly cared and how glad he was that he was still alive and well after being taken that night.

  No outpouring of love came.

  Alix watched as her father’s face darkened. There was no love there and Alix saw the truth for the first time. Isaac was right. Their father didn’t care for him at all. There was no giveaway of relief that he was safe.

  “I see you’ve failed me,” their father said.

  Alix was about to leap to her brother’s defense, not entirely sure her voice would be up to the task, when she realized, he wasn’t talking to either herself or Isaac.

  He was talking to Mad Jack.

  “He’s been punished,” Mad Jack said. “I thought I’d give you a chance to change your mind.”

  Alix watched as her father turned towards Mad Jack, his face full of fury, transformed into something from the netherworld, both inhuman and uncaring.

  “How dare you speak to me like that!” he thundered. “You don’t give me a chance to do anything. I give you the chance to live, and you do it on my say so!”

  Mad Jack remained unmoving, his eyes continuing to stare into her father’s. If her father was trying to cower him, it was not working.

  “I’ve had regrets, Lucien. You might have as well,” said Mad Jack, his tone level and firm.

  “My only regret is that I trusted this task to you.”

  The shouting subsided for a few moments, just enough for the echoes to fade and silence to return to the cave. Her father had been looking at each of them in turn, his mind expertly running through the different strands of time, trying to see into the future and analyze the contents of each one. He was making his plans. Alix could see his mind turning, she just wasn’t sure of his goals.

  For her, they were simple. If you made a deal with Jack for her freedom, get Isaac and herself on the hovercraft and leave Strangeways. Then give him whatever you’d promised him. The words ‘breeder’ and �
�warrior’ came into Alix’s dim, deconditioned brain. She wasn’t completely sure what they were and why her father would have them.

  In the doorway, her fathers’ face changed; softened. He had made his decision. He beckoned Alix over. She walked to him without the same enthusiasm as she had moments before. He placed his arm around her shoulder and turned around so that she was facing the open doorway.

  Momentarily, Alix felt a jolt of giddiness. She was leaving the cave, she knew it. She would see daylight again and feel the grass on her toes and feel sunlight on her face. She was going to be free.

  At the same time, there was a tiny part of her that felt like the cave had become home and that leaving it was to enter a terrifying world; one that she wasn’t entirely sure she understood anymore. She would leave first. The walkway to daylight was not wide enough for them to walk side by side.

  From behind her, she heard her father speak. “Bring him out, Jack,” her father said, his voice far more level and calm now.

  Alix didn’t hear anything in return, but there must have been some signal from Mad Jack. She felt a gentle nudge in her back and ordered her legs to start moving down the passageway. As she walked, her arms felt the walls on either side. She needed the support to get down the passage in fluid movements.

  As they walked, she allowed herself to ponder how quickly the body deconditions. How a killing edge is lost in just a few weeks of inactivity. Her hatred still burned for Mad Jack and she would have her revenge, but how was less clear. She would have to return to Strangeways soon and do what had to be done. There was a good deal of training to be done before then.

  As they reached the end of the passage and daylight intensified, Alix paused in the doorway, using one hand to shield her eyes. She’d thought the torchlight fierce, but this was something else. It made her eyes sting, as if she’d just woken up and opened her eyes to find someone shining a flashlight directly into them. She felt her father gently push her in the back and she let go of the walls. He instantly moved next to her and she reached out to him, grabbing hold of his arm to steady herself.