by CJ Brightley
“Yes.”
“Tell me.” He leaned forward.
She raised her chin. “Not unless you put away the gun and get him a proper bandage.”
Gabriel stared at her, then smiled tightly. “Done.” He nodded to Eli, who left the room. Gabriel put the gun in a lower desk drawer and closed it, then clasped his hands on the tabletop.
“I take it you’re not afraid of him then.” She was proud of how her voice didn’t waver.
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t have shot him.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need to defend myself to you. You came to tell me something. What is it?”
Aria looked at Owen.
He blinked slowly, as if dazed, then said quietly, “Tell him.”
“He removed my tracker about a week and a half ago. I didn’t notice anything different at first. Yesterday I was talking with Niall, and he asked whether I remembered the violence.” She shook her head, the images rising again.
Eli entered at that moment, and she watched while he handed a roll of gauze and medical tape to Niall. The boy positioned himself between Gabriel and Owen as Owen pulled off his shirt. She couldn’t see the wound itself as Niall worked on it, but she did see Eli wince with involuntary sympathy.
“I didn’t. He was surprised, and prompted me, and everything seemed to come flooding back. It’s all jumbled now, but I’m putting things in order. I remembered a lot. I’d forgotten I had a brother.” Her throat closed with sudden emotion, and she stopped, unwilling to cry in front of him. “How my father died. Things like that. I remembered when they put the tracker in.”
Gabriel studied her, and she wished she could read his expression.
After a long moment, Gabriel asked, “Eli, did you ever have a tracker?”
“No.”
“Hm. Nor did I.” Gabriel tapped his fingers together as he thought. “Do you know the memories are true?”
“Yes.” Aria blinked at him. What kind of question is that?
He glanced at Owen and said, “You know he could have changed them. He has that power.”
“I did not.” Owen’s voice was low but clear.
“Can I believe that?”
Owen put out one hand and moved Niall aside so he faced Gabriel squarely. His bare chest was streaked with blood, but the bandage was taped on securely. He leaned forward slightly, and Aria shivered at the cold fury in his quiet voice. “Have I ever lied to you, Gabriel?”
Gabriel swallowed and looked down. “No.” The denial was soft, ashamed. “No, you have not.”
After a tense silence, Eli ventured, “The only one I know who had a tracker was Aaron.”
Gabriel sighed. “Hm.”
Aria wondered what that meant. Niall pulled a clean shirt from Owen’s rucksack and helped him put it on. It didn’t conceal the blood streaking both their hands, though.
Gabriel gazed at Aria thoughtfully for a long moment before standing. “You should see him. You will understand why I find this difficult to believe, and more difficult to plan around.”
Aria nodded and rose. Owen stood too, only to stagger into the desk, barely catching himself with both hands on the edge. Niall glared at Gabriel as he tried unsuccessfully to get Owen to lean on him.
Gabriel paused, halfway to the door, and glanced back at Owen. “You’re not up to your usual.”
Owen shook his head, blinking dizzily. “No.”
Gabriel led them down the long hallway and down a flight of stairs, then another. Owen stopped at one point to lean against the wall, eyes glazed, and Gabriel waited three steps below, neither impatient nor sympathetic at the delay. Aria offered her arm to Owen, but he shook his head, only resting one hand on Niall’s shoulder as they continued downward.
Beneath the hotel was a cavernous room that had once been an underground concert hall. The chairs had been removed, though numerous small holes remained to show where they had been bolted to the concrete floor. The floor dropped toward one corner in deep arcs, with a larger flat area at the bottom. Groups of men and a few women were scattered across the open space, sitting or laying on bedrolls. Some were cleaning weapons, some reading, and others talking quietly with each other.
At Gabriel’s entrance, two sentries straightened to attention, then relaxed.
They wove through the groups of people to a door at the far side. Aria tried not to stare, but they caught her attention. Everyone looked tired, worn. Most were between thirty and forty-five, and nearly all had the bearing of soldiers. Who are these people?
They went through another door into a darkened hallway, and Gabriel stopped at a door.
“We’ve been calling him Aaron, but we don’t know his name. We think he might have been a journalist. He was caught in the middle of a battle between us and the Rev Forces. He lost his arm and nearly died. We saved his life, but his mental state has never been stable since. He might be mad. He’s a liability, but we’ve done our best by him. It was partly our fault he was injured, and you know what they do to cripples. Most times he’s not violent, but he’s unpredictable, so we have to keep him contained.” He gestured toward the door. “For his own safety, as well as ours.”
They nodded, and Gabriel slipped a key into the lock and opened the door. He peered through the crack before opening it all the way. “Come in.” He closed the door behind them.
The man was perhaps forty-five, but he looked older. A worn shirt hung on his thin frame, and graying hair hung ragged over his eyes. He sat on the edge of a cot, rocking slightly, staring at a spot on the carpet some three feet in front of his bare feet. The scar tissue on the bare stump of his right arm glistened in the light of an electric lantern set on a table by the door. He made a low, monotonous moan as he rocked, and gave no indication that he noticed their entrance.
“Aaron, you have visitors.” Gabriel stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder firmly. “Look at them.”
There was no change at first, but then the man looked through his tangled hair and stared at them, focusing on Owen for one long moment. “I haven’t seen one of your kind in years.” He blinked, then his gaze shifted slowly to the far wall, ignoring Aria and Niall completely. “They came!” He shrieked and threw his one arm over his head protectively, hurling himself away from them into the far corner. He shuddered, rocking and moaning more loudly. The sound made Aria cringe.
Gabriel grimaced. “You see. It will be difficult to get many answers from him.”
“Let me help him,” Owen said.
“How?”
Owen turned to stare at Gabriel for a long moment. Gabriel said finally, “Very well. Shall I stay?”
“If you wish.”
Gabriel sat at the end of the cot and leaned against the wall. He gestured to the place beside him, but Aria shook her head, preferring to sit on the carpet with her back against the door.
Owen knelt in front of the man, who flinched away from him, sheltering his head beneath his upraised arm. He spoke softly, and after a minute or so, Aaron relaxed, his forehead resting on his bony knees.
Owen turned to Niall and said something in Fae, which caused Niall to frown.
Then, “I’m trusting you with them, Gabriel.”
Gabriel met his eyes for a long moment and then nodded.
Owen placed one hand on Aaron’s head and began to sing.
Aria closed her eyes as his voice threaded through the air. Sweet and clear, the song wove up and around her, the words made of sound and rushing water and spring sunlight. She found herself breathing more deeply, slowly, at peace. Owen stood in the middle of the mountain stream, water rushing past his knees, looking in her direction but not at her. A sudden smile, white teeth in his pale, handsome face. He cupped the water in his hands and offered it to someone.
Hours might have passed; Aria couldn’t tell how long it had been. Owen’s voice faded, the sound hanging in the air, waiting for the next note. He started again, then stopped, and she opened her eyes to see him cr
umple. He fell forward, his head hitting the concrete block wall next to Aaron’s shoulder with a sickening thunk. Niall pulled on Owen’s shoulders, and then Aria helped him carefully roll Owen to his back. Aaron sat in the same position, head down, unmoving as a statue.
Gabriel stood over them and stared down at Owen’s supine form.
“What did he do?” He sounded concerned.
Aria might have been gratified at his change of attitude if she hadn’t been so worried herself.
Niall waved an irritated hand at him and bent close to Owen’s face. He was breathing shallowly, eyes closed, but did not so much as twitch when Niall ran a small hand over his head, feeling the bump that was already appearing at the hairline. He pulled up Owen’s shirt to check the blood-soaked gauze, and then studied him again from a distance of about six inches. Finally, he went to the rucksack and pulled out one of the notebooks and sat down to write.
Everyone started when Aaron looked up and asked, “Where am I?”
Gabriel answered, “You’re in the Resistance Headquarters. Do you remember I’ve told you that before?”
“Yes. You have. And you are Gabriel. Who is he?” Aaron looked toward Owen.
Aria answered, “Call him Lord Owen.”
Aaron stared at him a moment. “Is he dead?”
“No.”
He cocked his head to one side. “I saw him singing in the forest. I remember now. Too much.”
“What is your name then?” Gabriel knelt in front of him.
“Joshua Whitemarsh.”
“How did you lose your arm?”
“It was crushed. Someone cut it off.” He blinked. “You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Joshua considered Owen again. Aria asked Niall quietly, “What did he tell you before he started?”
Niall was scribbling furiously, but he stopped to write at the top of the page. He said, “Trust me.” He also forbade me to use any, he hesitated, then wrote a Fae symbol. He looked up at her hopefully, but at her confused look, he wrote, “magic” on his behalf. He said I am not yet recovered enough.
“And you’ll obey him?”
Always.
He finished the other piece that he was writing and slapped the floor to get Gabriel’s attention, then turned the notebook toward them.
He needs food and time. Silence. Sunlight. Take your conversation outside and give him peace. Bring him food.
Gabriel nodded. “Agreed.” He looked to Aria. “You come with me. There are things to discuss.”
Several people stood when they saw Joshua emerge from the hallway behind Gabriel. “Look.” The curious murmurs were quiet, but in the cavernous space, the sound carried.
Gabriel took them to a small alcove with a set of double doors that had been left standing open. He pointed across the hall to several people and motioned them to join the little group. He sent someone to get food for Owen and Niall before they closed the doors and spoke by the light of a flickering fluorescent bulb above a battered conference table.
“Joshua, tell us what you remember.”
He took a deep breath and rubbed the stump of his right arm. He began hesitantly, “I used to be married.” And there he stopped, staring at the table for so long that Gabriel leaned forward, about to prompt him for more.
Another deep breath. “My wife was killed in the last days of the Revolution. It was an accident; our neighbors next door had been denounced and she was coming home from work when their apartment was stormed. She was caught in the crossfire. I went a little mad. Ran out into the street. I was furious and terrified in equal parts. I’m not sure what I intended to do.
“They put the trackers in by city blocks, because there were so many to be done. We lived in the North Quadrant, near the western side, and were some of the last to get ours. I knew they were doing something strange, but I didn’t know what. The reports were vague and spotty. The soldiers had come to our section to install the trackers and caught me then. It’s a small metal object, like a pill capsule. After it was inserted, I went back home. I remembered little of my wife’s death, barely remembered I’d been married. I scrubbed the blood out of the hallway myself.” He stared at the center of the table for a long moment without continuing.
“It didn’t bother me at the time. I went back to work. I wrote for one of the science magazines, Nova. But it had been closed for months, and I hadn’t had paying work. We’d been scrimping and saving but were close to the end of our money. I was told to appear at the Office for Revolutionary Affairs and given a job in the propaganda office. I wrote pieces for the radio.” He stopped again, his gaze distant. “I don’t think any of them ever aired. I think they wanted to keep me busy. I worked there for about a year.”
“You remembered none of this before?” Gabriel leaned forward intently.
“I remembered blood. My wife’s face as she was shot. Tanks. The pain of my arm.”
“Do you remember those things now?”
Joshua said, “Yes, but now they’re memories, not an ever-recurring present.”
Gabriel sat back. “Thank you. We have much to learn from this. Does anyone know anyone else who had a tracker? Ever?”
Silence.
“We’d assumed the trackers were used only for identification and location tracking. But we’ve wondered why no one seems to remember what happened. We’ve talked about brainwashing. Drugs. Perhaps the trackers themselves exert some sort of control over the mind.”
“What about the delay then?” Eli asked. “Aria didn’t have any flashbacks for days, and for Aaron, I mean Joshua, it’s been nearly a year.”
A woman from the back spoke up. “Joshua had raving nightmares for weeks after losing his arm. We assumed it was a result of the trauma, but perhaps some were actually flashbacks. He might have retreated into a few memories rather than dealing with all of them.”
“And now he can deal with them? That’s strange, don’t you think? What happened in there?” This from another man, who looked from Joshua to Gabriel skeptically.
Gabriel rubbed a hand across his face. “Owen sang. I have no problem believing there’s healing in that. I’m unsure what to do with the knowledge. If the trackers are exerting some type of control, we should remove them. But that might not solve our problems.”
“Why not?” This from a fierce-looking woman who loomed over Aria’s shoulder.
“Is it drugs? Is it magic? Is it an electronic signal? If we don’t know how it works, we can’t counteract the effects of removing it, which may be severe.”
“It’s not drugs,” Aria spoke up. “If so, it would have to be recharged or reinserted after a while. Right? That never happened. It was only the one insertion years ago.”
Gabriel tapped his fingers on the table. “We haven’t kept up with the propaganda. It’s hard to keep abreast of it while keeping our heads down. Does it change? If so, do the trackers update? How? Can that be manipulated?”
Aria thought before she spoke, feeling the weight of their eyes on her. “It does change. At one point I remember Governor Matthias was a war hero, and later he was a criminal and was executed.”
“That happens in every war. Heroes and criminals change places all the time.”
“Yes, but someone should have said something about the change and his downfall. There should have been new information to change everyone’s perception of him. It wasn’t like that. It was just that he was favored for months, and then he was, and always had been, a war criminal, and weren’t they glad they finally captured him? It was as if he’d never been a hero at all.”
“Was it just rhetoric? That can also happen in war with a powerful regime. No one wants to voice their doubts.” This from another man in the back.
“I don’t think so. It was as if everyone truly believed it, like the past had changed. I didn’t even remember that he’d been cast as a hero until after my tracker came out.”
Gabriel grunted acknowledgment. He stared around the table for a
long moment. “Think on it, everyone.” He rose, and everyone began to file out.
“What now? I can’t leave with…” she gestured helplessly toward Joshua’s room.
Gabriel frowned. “Joshua, we’ll keep you in your room one more night, to be sure you’re stable. We’ll move Owen out here unless there’s an empty room.”
Most of the rooms were filled with supplies, but there was one that was nearly empty, only one wall taken up with a ceiling-high row of stacked boxes of military rations.
“I think he’d rather be in here by himself.” Aria felt confident stating that much. “And you promised food.”
Gabriel gave her a sidelong look. “You’re pushy, you know that?”
She gave him a cheeky grin. She couldn’t maintain the cheerfulness, though, and her shoulders slumped. “At this point, I have nothing left.”
Gabriel clapped her on the shoulder. “Help me move him, then come eat with us.”
When they opened the door to Joshua’s room, Owen lay in the same position she’d left him, as white as death in the stark electric light. Niall had moved the lantern closer and was writing in the notebook. He let her lean over his shoulder, but it did no good; all the writing was in Fae.
Where is his food? Niall wrote.
“It’s coming. We’re moving you to a different room for tonight.” Gabriel considered him for a moment, then stepped out the door. A moment later he reappeared with another man, who took Owen’s legs. Gabriel lifted him under the armpits and they carried him down the hall to the chosen room, where they laid him on the floor again. His head fell sideways, limp.
Niall followed, kneeling by his uncle anxiously.
Gabriel nodded the other man out, then said quietly, “I’ll be back.”
He returned in a moment with an electric lantern and a bedroll. “Do you want a bedroll? And one for him?”
Niall shrugged, then shook his head.
Someone knocked on the doorframe, and Gabriel turned back toward them. They offered him two paper bags. “Here.”