Monster of the Dark

by KT Belt

  “Until today, I’ve never killed someone Ramses didn’t tell me to kill,” she said. “I was only defending myself. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t even attack the suppression team or Captain Logos.”

  “So, Ramses told you to kill him?” Carmen pointed out.

  She couldn’t see it, but Artemis’s eyes narrowed. “He had it coming,” she said, her voice sounding harsh for the first time in their conversation.

  “That doesn’t absolve anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Artemis agreed, her eyes dropping again. “…I don’t care. So, are you going to kill me?”

  Carmen looked away from her and took a deep breath herself. “I don’t know,” she muttered.

  “And what’s the cause of your mercy?” Artemis asked, some sarcasm bleeding into her voice.

  “I never wanted to fight you. Ever,” Carmen said as she slowly looked away. “I never wanted to fight anyone,” she added softly.

  The comment made Artemis turn her head slightly. “Then why are you here?”

  Carmen shrugged weakly. “Someone had to be. They said you went crazy and killed people.”

  “Of course you believed them,” Artemis remarked bitterly.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Carmen retorted. “Why would anyone who knows you not believe that?”

  Artemis sat silently for a long while. It seemed like she was considering what Carmen said, though not completely. Whatever went through her mind, she sat still and stiff until, at last, her eyes narrowed while she took on a particularly ugly sneer.

  “But you don’t know me,” she finally said.

  “You’re right,” Carmen said after a pause. “I don’t. Never had the chance. But since I don’t know you, I need to know why. Why did you do it? Our group is going to graduate in a week. Why did you do this now? Why didn’t you try to escape? Why…why did you stay just to do makeup?”

  “I had to do it,” Artemis said, her words firm and even. She turned to look at Carmen fully as she spoke. “I had to let them know. Twelve years,” she added grimly. “Twelve years of it. I had to let them know they couldn’t hold me in that room forever—that they couldn’t just make me what they wanted and then release me when they wished. I had to make them know I could have escaped anytime I wanted to, and there was nothing they could do to stop me.”

  Carmen nodded slowly. “So, what now?” she asked.

  “Now?” Artemis questioned. “Now I don’t know,” she said, looking away. “I’m not going back. If you expect me to go back, you should just kill me. Whatever my future is, I’m going to live according to my own will…wherever that leads me.” She looked at her fellow one-percenter again. “You should come with me.”

  Carmen shook her head. “I can’t.”

  Artemis looked at her with utter disbelief. “You’d rather go back to that shit? I don’t know what we’d do or where we’d go, but come with me. Anything is better than going back.”

  “I can’t,” Carmen said again, shaking her head once more. “I didn’t know you, and you don’t know me. I…I’d fight you if you tried to stop me from going back.”

  “Why?” Artemis shouted.

  Carmen shook her head for a third time. “I have to go back. I have to let them know that, after twelve years of doing everything they could to make me what they wanted. After doing everything they could to break me. After doing it all, that in the end, I’m still able to smile.”

  Artemis heard her words, and when they reached their conclusion, her eyes fell. “Edge, you’re stronger than I am,” she said mournfully. “We should have been friends. …I think I’ll hate them most for that.”

  “We still can be,” Carmen offered.

  Artemis looked at her peer and then stood. The two girls embraced each other then. No words were said. They held each other fully, deeply, and with eyes closed. They felt no pain from their bioelectric fields. Eventually, they let each other go and took a step back.

  “What are you going to tell them?” Artemis asked.

  Carmen shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What else could they do to me?”

  Artemis nodded slowly. “I’ll see you around, Edge.”

  “I’ll see you around, Artemis.”

  They embraced each other again, and then Artemis shot off into the distance. Carmen watched her go until she could no longer be seen. It only took a few seconds. Then she sat on the ledge herself and watched the sun set over Haven City.

  19

  The Beginning of Hope

  Carmen lay awake in bed. She hadn’t slept all night, and she guessed it was roughly morning.

  No one would be coming for her. Not Kali—not even Janus. She stared at the ceiling as she had for the past twelve years, her mind blank. Today would be the last. At least, the last day she’d ever lie in this bed, staring at this ceiling. She was sure the nightmares would stay with her, no matter where she slept, but some things did in fact end.

  She sat up and looked around her soon-to-be former home. The place seemed to wrap around her like a blanket that was both ugly and uncomfortable.

  She went to the set of clothes folded on her table. She’d been allowed one set of clothes of her choice for this day. The attire the assets wore was no longer appropriate. Prior events inspired her to pick a deep purple skirt and matching top. Kali said the choice didn’t really suit her, but they fit Carmen perfectly nonetheless.

  She looked at herself in the mirror that had been provided for this day. Something was missing, though. She didn’t look bad—well, she didn’t think so anyway. And despite Kali’s opinion, what she was wearing was as much her as her left foot. She rolled her eyes when the obvious dawned on her. The issue wasn’t the clothes. She retrieved the tie for her hair and put it up in a ponytail as she had countless times before.

  “There,” she said softly to herself.

  She was tempted to smile but couldn’t bring herself to. Instead, she turned to face the door and walked toward it with short, tentative steps. The door opened easily. She’d been told she would be able to open it from the inside, but the process was dramatically more anticlimactic than she expected. Perhaps her door had always been unlocked; she never tried to open it before.

  Another asset stood in the corridor. His idea of how to dress himself was a bit grander than hers. He wore a dark grey suit that made him look like he had just stepped away from a dinner party. He looked at his door and seemed just as amazed as she had been at how easy it was to get out.

  He gave her a nod when he noticed her presence. She returned it before looking toward the elevator at the end of the corridor. She gestured for him to join her, and the two began walking. They said nothing to each other. Everything was a little too surreal to shatter the perception by speaking. For what it mattered, she was somewhat sure she’d never seen him before, but she could be wrong.

  When they got into the elevator, only one button was lit. He pressed it, and they went on their way. In not too long, they were deposited into the long corridor that exited the indoor part of the facility. He took the lead this time, but Carmen had already forgotten about him.

  He entered the courtyard of the facility and then stopped for some unknown reason. She was a few steps behind him, and when she saw what he saw, she stopped as well. Maybe two dozen or more assets were already there, all dressed in spectacular array. In contrast to the dull sameness assets always wore, not one color or style was repeated.

  She shook her head and was no longer mesmerized. Then, with no aim or destination, she walked into the courtyard as she had countless times before. No handlers were present. Carmen took to a quiet spot in the courtyard and waited.

  Over the next few hours, the assets of her release group slowly exited the facility in the same dazed fashion as she had. Eventually, their number could not be easily counted. They all waited, for what they did not know, but none felt prompted to leave. Then the door opened again with an entirely different group. Slowly, all the handlers marched into the cou
rtyard in double file. Carmen looked for Kali and didn’t see her, but she could sense her.

  The handlers made their way to one of the gates in the wall and walked through it. All the assets looked at each other. Some were also dressed like they were going to a dinner party, some like they were going to take a walk in the park, and others in a…less dignified manner. One of them made the first move, though Carmen didn’t see who. After that unsaid cue, all of them followed the handlers out the gate. No one stopped them. No one required that they be signed out before they left. There was a gate guard, but he only smiled and nodded at anyone who looked in his direction.

  The handlers were waiting for them on the other side. They formed two columns, one on each side of the gate. Their attire was all in the same general style, but it was not the uniform normally worn by handlers of the facility. The clothes were ugly to the point that they didn’t even look terran in origin—like whoever made them had contempt for the terran form. Moreover, they were dirty and well-worn in places. Some were too small for their wearers and others too big. All had distinct numbers on their chests.

  The handlers’ expressions, however, were not anywhere near as homogeneous. A distinct majority seemed to have no more care for the event than when seeing an ant make its way across a sidewalk. There were a few, however, who, for lack of a better description, actually came across as proud. A couple others clapped as the parade of assets walked by. She didn’t know handlers could have such countenances. Once again, she looked for Kali, but she couldn’t be seen.

  The assets walked on. At the end of the columns, a man stood on a large stage.

  “Such as it was then, such as it is now, Clairvoyant releases and welcomes Clairvoyant into an unknown world,” he said. “You are not the first. You will not be the last. As it was then, the galaxy trembles in anticipation of your will. Now and for the first time, you are able to act on its own accord. Of this, I offer one last bit of counsel. We, servants of the Dark, are not creatures of it. Meet insult with temperance and wrath with discipline but violence with the inevitability of reprisal. Hell—all hells—are prisons locked from the inside.”

  He said nothing else. Carmen and every other asset slowly looked away.

  “Just like that,” she said softly to herself, “it’s finished.”

  Smiling wasn’t the first thing that came to mind, though nothing did. The others seemed just as confused as she was. In turn, each of them, including Carmen, looked at the handlers. The handlers did nothing but stare back with arms crossed.

  She didn’t see Kali; she didn’t need to. The point the handlers made came across clearly to everyone. She swallowed hard as the familiar dread of not knowing took hold. But this time, it wasn’t off in the future to be feared later. It was all around her.

  It was then that Carmen noticed some of the assets were wearing Space Force or Sol SDF uniforms. That group flew off toward Haven City when it obvious they need not stay for anything else. Some of the other assets, lost and alone though traveling together, simply started walking. They looked back at the group a few times, and then they were gone.

  She watched them go but had no mind to join them. For whatever reason, she couldn’t bring herself to. Her first instinct was nothing of the sort. She began walking and was the only asset who went in that direction. She could have found the bluff with her eyes closed. When she reached the edge, Carmen looked down to the churning water below. Then she sat down and looked at the town far away on the horizon, the destination of her first flight. She knew she was still technically on the grounds of the facility, and that seemed fitting.

  “I knew you would come here,” someone said behind her.

  It was Kali. Carmen didn’t turn to look at her.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to me?”

  The woman sat down next to her. “You’re just not my charge anymore. No one said I can’t talk to you.”

  Carmen nodded glumly. She glanced at Kali, who was unsurprisingly dressed like all the other handlers.

  “Why are you wearing those clothes?”

  Kali looked down, as if she had forgotten what she was wearing, and then looked at her former charge. “This was what the sortens had us wear. These are the same clothes I wore when….”

  “When what?” Carmen asked when she trailed off.

  “When I and a group of other Clairvoyants escaped the compound the sortens were holding us in.” She looked away, her eyes becoming glassy and distant. “I remember when we stepped out of that place. We killed all the sortens—most of them, anyway. We were alone and had to fend for ourselves for the first time. I’d never been so scared in my entire life.”

  Carmen looked at her. Right as she was about to say something, Kali shook her head, and the memory seemed to pass.

  “You figure out what you’re going to do?” she asked.

  Carmen frowned, feeling a small taste of what Kali had felt way back when. “No,” she said. “I have no idea.”

  But just then, she thought she heard someone call her name. Not her Clairvoyant name, but her name.

  “What was that?” Kali asked with a start as she turned around. There were still several handlers and assets in the area, making it difficult to see anything.

  “Carmen!” came the call again.

  “I don’t know,” she said as she stood.

  “Carmen!”

  She began walking toward the sound, and Kali followed. It was hard to make out who it was with this many Clairvoyants around her. But there was exactly one individual present who was not a Clairvoyant, and the direction of the voice and that individual seemed to coincide.

  Almost painfully slowly, the crowd in front of her cleared enough to catch a glimpse of who it was. She stopped in place, as if she were rooted to where she stood. Kali’s mouth fell open. When the rest of the crowd moved out of the way, Carmen’s heart skipped a beat. There was a feeling—it started in the pit of her stomach and spread outward from there. Her toes curled, and her fingers tingled and went numb. The sensation rushed up her neck like flowing lava. When it reached her lips, they broke into a smile that gave no evidence of just how long it had been since they were last graced with pure joy.

  “Michael!” she said, more in shock than as a call to him.

  She hadn’t seen him since that night and had tried not to think of him since Kali fired his family the day after. Yet here he was, among Clairvoyants who could crush him with a mere thought, his eyes only looking for her. He looked exactly how she’d dreamed.

  They moved toward each other at a rush. She grabbed him and kissed him hard on the lips. It was her first, and part of her worried she could wake before she got the chance to. Michael stiffened at first, surprised by the action, but then he submitted to it and held her close. The feeling that had started in the pit of her stomach now began at her lips and flowed the other way, every part of her body responding like before.

  They moved apart, and Carmen looked the impossible in the eye. She felt a tear form. She wiped it away with a finger, shocked it was actually possible to cry from happiness. Kali looked at the two of them. For a moment, it seemed like she wanted to say something, but no words came forth. She instead shook her head and smirked pleasantly. Carmen smiled back. The exchange was the last goodbye between handler and charge.

  After that, Carmen embraced her future, still able to smile.

  Epilogue

  Subject: Edge Age: 19 Status: Released

  “Carmen, Carmen, slow down. I can’t keep up,” Michael said.

  She smirked and only half did as he asked. She wasn’t really holding the box she was carrying; that was only a formality. Unfortunately for Michael, he had to struggle with only sheer muscle strength. They couldn’t afford drones to move all of their belongings—well, mostly his belongings—to their new place.

  He only got a few steps before she alleviated him of the burden telekinetically. As they waited for the elevator, her box and his box floated together side by side.
>
  He looked at her, breathing hard. “Why didn’t you do that before?” he asked.

  “You didn’t ask,” she said, shrugging, as they got in the elevator, her tone light and cheerful.

  “…Stupid me.”

  She smiled but could think of no reply to keep the joke going. When the elevator opened, they started toward their new apartment. Their new neighbors were in the hall, talking, and they looked Carmen up and down as she approached. Then they hastily went back into their room. Michael didn’t notice. He usually didn’t, and she wasn’t in the habit of telling him.

  “Now, where’s that key?” he said to himself as he rummaged through his pocket.

  Carmen opened the door telekinetically and stepped inside before he retrieved it. She’d soon learned, after she was released, that mechanical locks were no barrier to her. This was an older, cheaper apartment and still used physical keys. She’d read about them in history books.

  “I know it’s not much, but—”

  She silenced him by placing a finger on his lips before she kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” Carmen said softly.

  Financially, at least, their relationship was rather one-sided. It was difficult for her to find and keep a job. She just wished he could hold her when they slept. He said that, almost every night, she fidgeted and made noises like she was having nightmares. But he’d get shocked by her bioelectric field every time he tried to touch her. She couldn’t control it while she was unconscious.

  Carmen moved into the room and gave it a quick once-over. Then she turned around to see what Michael thought and was surprised to see he was still at the door. In fact, he rested against the door frame, still breathing heavily. There was even sweat on his brow.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  The box wasn’t that heavy. She’d never tell him, but she partially supported the box even before she took it completely from him.