by Alex Fedyr
“You can’t be serious.”
Lecia blinked. “I am.”
Kalei stopped walking and looked Lecia in the eyes. There was no way Landen Franklin was Estranged. The story went that after E-day, when the Estranged appeared in Celan and the ships stopped coming to port, the city’s economy nearly collapsed. Then Landen Franklin showed up, bought up some dirt-cheap property, and manufactured some of the first GPSs in the world. He made a fortune. And then he poured that money back into the city. He dredged up the East Lake, which had formerly been unusable as a harbor, and built a brand new port away from Downtown. Then he beefed up the existing railway system, he funded a dozen non-profits, he paid for a new town hall – after he was done, the new port was full of ships again and the city’s tech industry was booming. He saved Celan. And everyone in town considered him to be a hero for it.
And now Lecia was trying to tell her he was Estranged?
Lecia returned Kalei’s stare with a stubborn glare and said, “Don’t give me that look. Think about it: Landen Franklin has not been seen in public in fifteen years. Why?” She paused and gave Kalei a chance to respond. Kalei wasn’t biting. “Because he’s Estranged! He would look exactly the same as he did fifteen years ago!”
“Have you seen him in person?”
“Well, no.”
“Then how can you say for certain he’s Estranged?”
“Well— because—” Lecia sighed. “Look, why don’t you come with me and meet one of the Tusic guys? Ask them yourself.”
Kalei crossed her arms. “Why would I want to do that?”
Lecia shrugged. “What else are you going to do?”
Kalei considered her question for a moment, then unfolded her arms and said, “Fine. Lead the way.”
Lecia gave a small jump and shouted, “Yes!”
As Kalei followed, she said, “Don’t you ever get tired? It must be four o’clock in the morning.”
“Of course I do. I’m still an Untouched, silly. I’ve just switched my sleeping habits around is all.”
“An ‘Untouched’?”
“Yeah.” Lecia turned around and started walking backwards as she addressed Kalei. “Yeah, it’s what people on this side of the fence call non-Estranged. Wow, you really don’t know anything, do you?”
“And you really should watch where you’re going.”
Lecia continued to walk backwards, “Nah, I’m fine. I know this city like the back of my—” Sure enough, she tripped. Unable to offer any assistance, on account of Lecia being Untouched, Kalei sat back and watched as Lecia untangled herself from a fallen telephone pole. Kalei covered her grin with a hand placed casually across her mouth. The grin was quickly wiped away, though, as sudden burning sensation blossomed in her left lung, as though someone was pouring hot coffee into it. Kalei dropped her hand and remembered what she was.
Having finally found her feet again, Lecia stood up and resumed their journey. As Kalei stepped over the telephone pole, she asked, “If Tusic operates in the city, how does Landen keep his people from attacking Untouched?”
“Uh, well, from what I understand, Landen keeps them on a pretty tight leash. Rumor has it he’s brutal to anyone who break the rules.”
“How brutal?”
“I don’t know. The guys were too scared to tell me.”
Kalei scoffed. “They probably just fed you that bullshit to get rid of you.”
Lecia’s eyes widened and she looked at Kalei. “You really think so?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met the guys. But I know you, and that’s what I would do.”
Lecia huffed, “You’re so mean!” and picked up her pace, leaving Kalei to catch up.
As they walked, Kalei was... well, miserable would be an understatement. Her anger had subsided for the most part, but one other thing remained: the conviction that existence was futile. By allowing herself to live, Kalei could only bring death and despair to this world. But dying wasn’t an option because she still didn’t know how to kill her Estranged body. For the time being, Kalei was forced to accept that her existence was unavoidable. And if it meant bringing death and destruction to the world, then she knew where she would deliver it. But SWORDE would have to wait; she still had to find out what they had done with her family. If Fenn and the girls were alive, Kalei didn’t want SWORDE hurting them to get back at her. She had to make sure they were safe first.
Lecia and Kalei reached the edge of the city, where a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence overlooked the ocean and sealed off the old docks.
“Why did they bother to build a fence around the water?” Kalei asked.
“Well, the local fisherman kept finding people drowning in the ocean, and when they went to rescue the person, well, they died. Nine times out of ten, the drownee was an Estranged. There’s even one story that a couple Estranged were carried away during a storm and showed up months later on Dostralean Coast. SWORDE decided it was safer to extend the fence and keep the Estranged out of the water.”
“Ah.”
Kalei looked up at the fence. The metal seemed brand new, and a curling line of razorwire gleamed as it caught the light of a nearby streetlamp. A slight hum suggested it was electric as well.
Lecia noticed Kalei’s inspection of the fence and said, “They pump electricity through it around the clock to keep Estranged from trying to climb over. The razor wire is just for show. It wouldn’t really slow down an Estranged.”
Kalei looked at Lecia. “I already know that.”
Lecia smiled. “But what you don’t know is that I have a solution for electricity.” She pulled her book bag forward and started rummaging through it until she produced what looked like the clamps from an old jumper cable. Except, instead of a cable connecting the two, each of the clamps had their own homemade device jerry-rigged onto them. It looked like someone had taken the battery pack out of a half dozen cellphones and applied a lot of duct tape. “A friend of mine made ‘em for me,” she said proudly.
Kalei jibed, “What? Couldn’t convince the Wardens to let you in the front gate?”
Lecia giggled. “SWORDE frowns upon Untouched visitors.” She chuckled some more at her own joke and then walked over to the fence. A narrow hole had been cut through the chain-link, although both sides of the hole still came together and prevented anyone from passing through without touching the fence. Lecia reached out her hands, held the clamps to either side of the gap, and, turning her head away, she quickly clamped the devices onto the metal. As she did so, she hastily jumped back, shaking her hands as though trying to get something off. Lecia took a look at the hole, and then at Kalei. A broad grin spread across Lecia’s face. “There.” She proudly placed her hands on her hips. “The clamps have negated the electricity around the hole. After you!”
Kalei wasn’t exactly comfortable with going first, but if anyone was going to be a guinea pig against an electric fence, why not the undying? She got down on her knees and tentatively touched the metal. It felt warm to the touch, but it didn’t bite.
“Well, go on,” Lecia urged. Kalei shot her a glare before pushing back the chain-link and crawling through.
On the other side, the vast stone walkways spread out for about a quarter mile to Kalei’s left and right. Jutting out from the walkway every few hundred feet were massive concrete docks reaching out into the water until the dark night consumed them. The water seemed dark and menacing as it swirled and crashed against the man-made structures, slowly ripping them apart piece by piece. On the nearest dock, Kalei could see that the sea had already claimed several feet of the pier where the cement had cracked and fallen away. The pieces that remained jutting above the water’s surface watched her with gleaming barnacle eyes. Kalei turned away and watched Lecia crawl through the fence. She had no clue where the small woman planned to take it from here.
Having safely cleared the fence, Lecia brushed herself off and led Kalei to the next dock over. Taking a flashlight out of her bag, Lecia turned it on and took a small set o
f service stairs down to the water’s surface. There, sheltered in the shadow of a massive, rusting cargo ship was a small dingy, bouncing and bobbing on the waves, a bright counterpart to its companion.
“Ta-dah! My ticket in and out of Downtown! Isn’t she a beauty?”
The dingy was built entirely out of wood, and from what Kalei could tell in the light of the flashlight, someone had tried to paint it blue. But the paint had been applied haphazardly, missing wide sections here and there, and whatever paint had managed to make it onto the boat was already peeling away, exposing the dark, rotting wood underneath.
Kalei replied, “Yup, a real beauty.”
Lecia pulled the boat closer and climbed in easily. Kalei took a long, wary look at the craft before climbing in after her, struggling not to let the boat tip under her added weight.
Once they were out on the water, Kalei started to realize what a bad idea this was. Not the fact that they were a couple girls taking a small wooden boat out onto the deepest lake-harbor in the entire continent, although that was plenty stupid in and of itself. But she was more worried about what would happen when they landed in the city. There were real people out here, and if Kalei was among them... then they could die.
Lecia had only just pushed the boat off the rocks when Kalei started to climb out. “I’m going back.”
“What?” Lecia struggled to keep her balance as Kalei moved across the dingy. “No! Sit down. You’re going to tip us over.” But the boat was moving fast, and already they were a few feet from the rocks and drifting. With the cargo ship blocking out most of the light from downtown, the water looked cold and sinister as the tips of the waves caught the stray orange light from Lecia’s flashlight and reflected it back at them. Sitting back down, Kalei resigned herself to the journey.
“How far away is this meeting spot?”
“Not far. After we land, it’s just a couple blocks that way,” Lecia said, pointing into the night.
As Lecia rowed away, Kalei warily watched the hulking, groaning hulls that made up the Ship’s Graveyard of Westlake.
Eighteen years ago on E-day, the docks were one of the first places to be attacked. Caught unaware, and unable to pull out on the low tide, many of the ships lost half their crew to the Estranged before an alarm was raised. According to the stories Kalei had heard, most of the survivors had made it out by sheer luck.
Moments before the first attack, one man had jumped off the bow of a cruise liner, showing off at a party. When he came to the surface and heard shouts up above, he had assumed it was in reaction to his spontaneous leap. But when the shouts turned to screams, he quickly realized something was wrong and managed swim to shore before any of the Estranged spotted him.
Others were less lucky, sealing themselves into watertight holds to wait for help, only to suffocate before anyone arrived.
Kalei’s eyes skipped from one hull to the next, dozens upon dozens of boats and ships, and she was reminded of just how many people had lost their lives in this place. A cold shiver ran down her spine. Even Lecia had the sense to keep the silence as she quietly rowed the dingy past the floating graves.
Eventually, they broke free of the docks and ventured out onto the open water of the harbor. The boat rocked and swayed, often tipping to alarming degrees as it was caught by the larger waves, but overall the trip was uneventful. About twenty minutes later, the floor of the dingy gave a muffled protest as it hit rock and sand.
“Here we are!” Lecia announced brightly.
While Lecia camouflaged the boat, Kalei waited and watched the bright skyline of the new city, clenching and unclenching her fists as she eyed the gleaming lights of the new skyscrapers.
When Lecia was ready, they climbed up the rocky shore and entered the part of the city known as “The Grey Zone” because of its proximity to Downtown. The most notable aspect of the district was its dirt-cheap property prices because the area was known to get occasional Estranged attacks from Downtown escapees. Only the truly desperate dared to live here. The shops and office buildings were only marginally better maintained than the buildings that populated Downtown. In this late hour of the night, the streets were empty.
Until, true to Lecia’s word, they saw a man just a couple blocks in from the water.
The guy wasn’t much to look at. He leaned with his back against one of the brick buildings and one leg up against the wall. He was skinny and wore only jeans – no shirt. With no muscles to display either. Along his right arm, a tattoo of a Chinese dragon wound its way up to rest its oversized head on his shoulder; on the left side of his exposed chest, a cluster of three small black stars had been inked in. His head was bald, aside from a short Mohawk down the middle.
With black-nailed fingers, he pulled an unlit cigarette from his mouth and threw it on the ground as he demanded, “What the fuck is this about, Lecia?” He stomped on the roll of tobacco and rubbed it into the pavement with his shoe, making eye contact with Kalei. She met his glare with her own.
With a hesitant glance over her shoulder, Lecia pointed at Kalei and said, “I, uh, have a friend here who’s interested in the Tusic Organization.”
The man broke eye contact and looked Kalei up and down. “What the fuck do you want with Tusic, bitch?”
Kalei stood her ground. “I was thinking about joining up. But after seeing your sorry ass, I know I have the wrong place.”
That didn’t go over well. Pissed, he started to cross the distance between them, spitting and cursing until his phone rang. She never knew a gangster to stop in mid-rage to answer his cellphone, but this one did. He glanced at the caller ID and blanched. Suddenly shaking, he tapped the screen and answered the phone. In a tone far more polite than the one he had used with Kalei, he said, “Hey, um, ahem, hello, Boss. What? Oh. Uh huh.” He grew a few shades paler. “Right.” He turned to Kalei, and with an apologetic, “He, uh, wants to talk to you,” he offered her the device.
“Who is it?” Kalei asked, not even reaching for it.
His lips curled back for a moment, but then he quickly stuffed the snarl away and said in a controlled voice, “You want to join up with Franklin so bad? Here he is.”
Confused, Kalei took the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Kalei. Landen Franklin here. Sorry about my associate. Recruits are in short supply these days. So what can I do for you?”
Landen Franklin had a distinctive voice that could make anyone optimistic just by hearing it, and this was definitely it, but there was no way the man himself would be calling her up in the dead of night on some punk’s phone. Voice changers were easy to acquire these days, and it wouldn’t be hard to get a voice sample for a famous person like Franklin.
“What kind of game is this?”
“Excuse me?” The voice was genuinely confused.
“Why the hell would Landen Franklin be calling me up? You’d better drop the act, asshole. I’m not gonna play.”
She heard a laugh on the other end as the gangster frantically mouthed, What the fuck are you doing!
The voice said, “Sorry, there seems to be a misunderstanding. What can I do to convince you that I’m Landen Franklin?”
“You could start by getting your ass down here.”
He laughed again. “Sorry, I can’t do that. How about this? Just a second.” There was a pause as she heard his phone hit a hard surface, and then a beep went off in her ear. His voice was more distant when he said, “Okay, Kalei. Look at your phone.”
Confused, she did as he asked. Somehow, he was able to remotely activate the video chat on her phone. And there he sat, Landen Franklin, the spitting image of his portraits from over fifteen years ago. Only, instead of shaking hands with someone important, or signing a big check for the needy, now he was lounged back in an office chair with a shuttered window behind him. A lamp on the desk lit his face in a soft orange light. “Okay, so now you know that I am who I am, and obviously you are still you. So, how is Estranged life treating you?”
Kalei was a bi
t bewildered to be talking to Landen Franklin, but that didn’t change anything. “Cut the crap. How do you know me?”
“Your grandfather and I go way back. And right now, I need your help.”
“Which grandfather? My mom’s side or my dad’s?”
“Last name Demir, your mom’s side. I’m guessing you never got a chance to meet him?”
“Of course not. He took off when my mom was a baby. Not exactly a great guy.”
“Well, you didn’t know him like I did. Before I started Tusic, your grandpa taught me everything I needed to know. In fact, if it wasn’t for him and his partner, I would never be where I am today.”
Kalei eyed him warily. His body language told her he was telling the truth, but... “There’s no way you and my grandfather were buddies.”
Franklin shrugged. “Sorry, Kalei, I don’t have the time to dig into the past and explain to you what did and didn’t happen, so let’s move on to something I think you will understand. SWORDE is too powerful. They have too many secrets, and for the sake of this city, we need to take them down.”
Kalei wholeheartedly agreed with him, but she needed to see where he was coming from first. “What makes you say that?”
Franklin leaned forward onto his desk and said, “You ever hear of SWORDE’s Victim Protection Program, Kalei?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know what happens to people who are entered into this program?”
Kalei swallowed a batch of saliva that had become uncomfortably wedged in the back of her throat. “No.”
He studied her closely for a moment, both hands interlocked in front of him as he watched her through the phone. It was true, his nails were black. Then he unlocked his hands, leaned back, and said, “Neither do I. Of course, I’ve heard some rumors, I have some ideas, but the truth is, no one knows. And that’s how SWORDE operates. With secrets. When they confiscate the body of a victim, it is never seen again. When they arrive on the scene of a crime, nobody is allowed beyond the tape. Even the Wardens themselves all wear masks. That is not how a branch of the government should operate. This city deserves to know who is entering that burning building to save their child. When a family member dies, they should be allowed to bury the body and properly grieve their lost loved one. Or if the person has turned, they should know that too so they can protect themselves from a possible attack. SWORDE is protecting nobody with these secrets, least of all the people in the Victim Protection Program. For all we know, those people could be dying at the hands of the very same Estranged who are supposed to be protecting our city. But I want to put an end to all of that.”