by Alex Fedyr
Kalei clenched her jaw, and she felt her jaw muscle flex and strain beneath her cheek. When he paused, she asked, “How?”
“I need someone to get into SWORDE and start uncovering those secrets. I’m working on a device right now that, once plugged into SWORDE’s main computer, will upload all of SWORDE’s files directly to the 39th district police station. It’s going to take some time to get the device ready, but it will also take time for this person to get close enough to SWORDE that they can gain access to those computers. Will you be that person for me, Kalei?”
“What makes you think I’m the one to do it?”
“There are people within SWORDE who want to see you become a Warden. You won’t have any problem getting in.”
“Who?”
“The less you know, the easier it will be for you to avoid suspicion.”
Kalei’s jaw flexed and relaxed. Flexed and relaxed. Here was an opportunity to get everything she wanted. As a spy, she could find the whereabouts of Fenn and the girls. By exposing SWORDE, she could take them down. But it seemed too good to be true. “What’s in it for you?”
“A safer city,” he replied.
“One where you’re in charge of the policing with your Tusic group, right?”
Franklin sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you, Kalei. Right now, that is the plan. The truth is, I just don’t trust anyone else to do it.”
“And why should I trust you?”
“Why not? You’ve seen what I’ve done for this city. I’ve been in every magazine, every newspaper, I’ve been on every channel. Out of all the things you’ve read or heard about me, do you have any reason to think that I’m not fit for the job?”
Kalei recalled the stories. In them, she had heard inspiring tales about Landen Franklin, of course, but there were also character flaws she tended to disagree with, such as his lack of funding for SWORDE and other anti-Estranged groups. Although now, she could see why. If she had to choose between the two Estranged, between him and Flower-boy, the answer became clear. “No. You seem to be the better candidate.”
“So, will you do it?”
“Sure.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Recruited
Kalei returned to SWORDE. Stepping over the threshold again, the knot in her gut pleaded with her to turn and run the other way. This was a bad idea, and she knew it. She was never a good liar, she was never particularly good at being stealthy, and now she was going to be a spy in the home of a murderer? She could feel her hands shaking. Kalei clenched them into fists. She had to do this. It was a necessary evil if she wanted to take down SWORDE.
A new person was at the front desk, a young woman with storm clouds on her fingernails. She was happy to escort Kalei to Erit, stepping out from behind the desk and leading the way with a warm smile. She didn’t even ask Kalei for her name.
The warm welcome set Kalei further on edge. She expected she was being led to an ambush. Down one of these halls, a door would open and she would find herself overwhelmed by hungry Estranged, and they would drag her away to— Kalei stopped her imagination from carrying the nightmare further. They wouldn’t ambush her. Surely, they wouldn’t? She remembered what Franklin had said; someone in SWORDE wanted her to become a Warden. It must be someone with some pull in the organization. She remembered how sincere Erit had been when he had offered her a chance to become a recruit. Could he be that person? Or was he a puppet for someone else’s agenda?
They arrived at the conference room. Kalei recognized it as the same room from her last visit. The woman smiled and left Kalei with a warm “Best of luck.” Kalei wondered why the woman thought she needed luck. What did this training involve?
Kalei swallowed back her concerns and opened the door. She was surprised to find Erit and the old woman exactly as she had left them, sitting at the end of the table, working away at their lessons. Did they ever sleep? Then it occurred to Kalei, she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept since becoming Estranged...
The boy looked up from his work and said, “Ah, you’re back. Always a pleasure to see you. Have you changed your mind about becoming a Recruit?”
Kalei paused. This was it. Time for the lies to start. Time to become a SWORDE Recruit. She swallowed hard, trying to mask her nerves with a more cheerful tone as she answered, “Yeah, I did.”
“Excellent! Come. Have a seat.” He indicated the seat to his right with a smile and a light pat of his hand on the wood of the table.
As Kalei moved to take her seat, someone came to the door. It was the man from the foyer— the one who’d pinned her when she attacked the murderer. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, walking up to Kalei, still fully uniformed and holding a helmet in one hand.
Kalei remembered her first week at the police academy. Lesson one: don’t show weakness. She plopped down into her chair and looked up into his face as she crossed her arms. “I’m a Recruit,” she replied stiffly. “I hear you people are in short supply of ‘em.”
The boy said, “Walker, this has been approved. Now would you kindly leave us to our lessons?”
Walker replied, “Was approved, and then the girl refused and took off. I don’t think that—”
“Walker,” the boy interrupted again, retaining his mild-mannered tone. “If you have a problem with this, I suggest you take it up with Terin. You have no business here.”
“Erit, you know better than I do that—”
“Walker.” A slight edge crept into Erit’s voice. “Go.”
Walker shut his mouth and scowled at Erit, then turned and left.
When he was gone, Kalei asked, “Who’s Terin?” Let the spy work begin, she thought to herself.
The boy replied, “The Director. You may recognize him by the flowers in his nails.”
“Ah.” Kalei regretted becoming a mole already. She preferred to keep her demons anonymous.
And thus, Erit, the little boy with the arrogance of a teacher, took up his role. As Erit and Kalei worked, Mar, the old woman on the opposite side of the table, sat by and worked on some “exercises” Erit had assigned to her. From what Kalei could tell, all she did was stare at the wall. Kalei quickly dismissed the old woman as she tried to feign interest in her own lessons.
“SWORDE,” Erit intoned. “This, as you may know, is an acronym, standing for the organization’s full and official title: The Special Wardens of Retrieving and Detaining Estranged. Now, SWORDE has a long and tragic history, going back some eighteen years to when the Estranged first appeared in the heart of the city...”
Kalei lost track of his words. She was lost in her own mind as the calmness of sitting made it more difficult to block the darkness out. It drained her. She felt as though the darkness had grabbed hold of her existence and had begun dragging her down into the void...
Bang! Kalei’s reflexes kicked in and she jumped to her feet, knocking the chair aside. In front of her stood the old woman, with both palms flat against the surface of the table. A small crack in the worn wood spoke of the force the woman had brought to it when her hands crashed down. Mar lifted a veined, accusing finger to Kalei’s face. Kalei resisted the urge to knock it away. “You need to take this seriously, young lady.” The old woman’s hand shook, and her face flushed red as a snarl grew at her mouth.
Kalei looked straight into the woman’s craggy old eyes, “I am.” She turned away from the lady, retrieved her chair, and forced herself to sit back down. She looked to the little boy. “You were saying?”
Mar didn’t take kindly to being ignored. She lunged across the table at Kalei, but before her bony hands wrapped around Kalei’s neck, Erit stopped her forward momentum with a single hand on her shoulder. Then, using that same small hand, he pushed the enraged lady back into her seat as though she were the child. Kalei couldn’t be sure if this was a testament to Erit’s strength, or to the old woman’s weakness.
Through it all, Erit remained calm and amiable, a bemused tutor through and through. He patted M
ar kindly on the shoulder, set her back to her assignment with a few kind words, and then moved to stand behind his own chair. “So, Kalei, what can you tell me about the work SWORDE is tasked with?”
Kalei pulled away from her thoughts and begrudgingly took on the role of obedient student. “Basically anything the police are tasked with, except their jurisdiction, is Estranged. Any Estranged found outside of Downtown are to be collected by SWORDE. Any incidents caused by Estranged are handled by SWORDE. And once SWORDE has the Estranged in custody, they are tasked with keeping them Downtown and maintaining the peace within the fence.”
“We are tasked with keeping the peace,” Erit corrected as he stepped around the chair and sat down again. He leaned back and brought his hands up to his face, forming a teepee in front of his nose. He peered out at Kalei, studying her, deep in thought.
Kalei tried to ignore his scrutiny and found herself staring at the wall much like Mar was. Her heartbeat raced. She wondered if he suspected. Did he know about her meeting with Landen? What if...
He said, “You know, you handle the darkness remarkably well for someone who has just arrived.”
Kalei released the breath she was holding. “From what I heard, it’s been over a year.”
“Ah, hardly.” He leaned forward and waved his hand. “You were high for most of it—that does not count.” Kalei gave up trying to find out where he got his information. “Look at Mar here,” he continued. “She has been on this side of the fence for a couple years now. She has been working and learning with us for almost a month. Around the effort it takes to maintain control, she can hardly spare enough of her concentration to form a full sentence.” Mar glared at him out of the corner of her eye. “My apologies, Mar, I did not mean any offense. Would you care to join our discussion?”
She growled, “No. I’m not going to join your fucking discussion.” She seemed to be making a point of articulating a whole sentence. She returned to staring at her wall.
“It’s not that becoming Estranged makes us stupid. It is because the darkness is so vastly overwhelming. Not only do we have the addiction to contend with, but there is also the severe physical and emotional pain that comes when we don’t feed that addiction. The pain alone drives most people to exist in a constant state of high as a form of evasion, or coping. That aside, those who have the will and the genetic predisposition to resist the addiction have to fight with the darkness for control of one’s body and even of one’s own emotions. The expression of this conflict is different for everyone. For some, it manifests in violent outbursts.” He nodded to Mar. “In others, it becomes a debilitating depression.”
Kalei glanced up from her limbo. She knew which category she fell into.
“It takes a great deal of focus to function around such obstacles.” Erit paused and shook his head. “Alas, here I am rattling on while I can see you are slipping away from me. It is time to start with the more practical aspect of our lesson. May I?” He pointed to Kalei’s right hand and waited for her answer. Instinctively, she started to pull it away. He smiled genially. “I am not going to hurt you. And do not fear; I am not seeking a high. This is merely for demonstrative purposes.”
Kalei reluctantly held her hand out between them. He easily picked it up in his own and ... nothing happened. Kalei was amazed. For the first time since she had become an Estranged, she was touching the skin of another person without...anything. No surging high erupted at the touch, no overwhelming sensations, just...a touch. Kalei was relieved, even a little excited. Erit gave a small laugh. “That wasn’t the lesson. I was just taking a moment as I remembered something I had forgotten to— oh, never mind, I will tell you after.”
And then it happened. Something entered her body. It started where their hands touched and moved up her arm. It was like the darkness, but... different. Her own darkness grabbed and pulled at this new entity, trying to rip a piece free. But this thing resisted the attacks and instead pushed her darkness back. It felt... great. As Kalei’s darkness retreated from her arm, she began to feel relief. Her arm felt normal again. She’d forgotten what it was like to be without that deep, aching throb. Then, quite abruptly, the other force pulled out and Kalei’s darkness slammed back down her arm. A small cry escaped her lips as the pain came with it.
When she looked up, Erit was standing on the table, holding someone’s wrist. She didn’t think he was capable of being angry, but there it was, etched fiercely on his young face. She turned around to see whose wrist he held. A young woman — Kalei guessed she was in her late teens by the soft curve of her cheeks and tightness of the skin under her eyes – stood behind Kalei. She wore a red blouse that was a size too small and buttoned up more to support her breasts than to contain them. Her short brown hair sported streaks of black and fell into her eyes. She laughed at Erit. “Wha’? I just wanted ta say hi.”
Erit threw her hand away from him and stepped forward. “No. I believe we both know that was not your intention. Get out of here, Shenaia.”
Shenaia slowly moved backwards toward the far corner, hands up, a slight sway in her step. Half seductive, half seemingly intoxicated. “Is this far enough?” she asked silkily. Then she waved at Kalei and raised her voice in a mocking, “Hiii, Kalei! How’s it crackin’, sista!”
Kalei could have smacked her forehead into the table. Another person knew her name. “Does everyone in this fucking place know who I am?”
Mar shot a glare across the table. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, and I don’t give a fuck neither.”
Kalei saw Shenaia open her mouth to speak, but Erit interrupted, “Mar has it; not everyone knows your name. Although your show in the foyer a couple weeks back did nothing to improve your anonymity.” He had regained his composure for the most part, but he continued to glare at Shenaia.
Oh yeah. That. Kalei remembered screaming beneath Walker’s grip in front of a crowd of people.
Shenaia seemed perturbed by some silent exchange with Erit, but then she laughed and yelled, “Haha, dat was great! You were kickin’ and punchin’... an’ man, did you make Walker jump when you took a swing at Terin! Ha! Beautiful!”
“Shenaia was there,” Erit clarified.
“I gathered as much,” Kalei replied dryly.
Erit walked to the edge of the table and stood between Kalei and Shenaia. The fresh crack squeaked under his weight as he passed. “Okay, Shenaia, you’ve had your fun. Now be on your way.”
Shenaia pulled away from her corner. “I don’ think so.” She crossed over to the seat directly in front of him and sat down. “I wanna be a Recruit.”
Erit’s composed mask threatened to slip again. “Come, Shenaia. You are not interested in becoming a recruit. Recruits and Wardens alike are required to be sober around the clock. We both know you hold your precious highs too dear to give them up for a life of work, be it for the common good or not.”
Shenaia leaned back and crossed her arms. “Who says I need ta be sober ta be a Warden?” Erit didn’t give. Shenaia sighed and rolled her eyes. “You know what? It don’ matta.” She uncrossed her arms and held them up in surrender. “I can be sober.”
Erit jumped off the table and turned away from the young woman. “Hardly.” He began to walk back to his seat at the head of the table. “SWORDE doesn’t have any need for the likes of you.”
“Oh, but I think you do.” Shenaia leaned forward, her cleavage all too apparent through her red blouse. “I have knowledge and skills dat I know you would love ta use and abuse.” The little boy didn’t seem the least bit interested. “Besides,” she leaned back again and threw her arms behind her head. “Terin won’ say no.”
Lovely, Kalei thought to herself, disgusted. She must be sleeping with the bastard.
Erit conceded. “Fine.” He sat down, leaned forward. “Let me put this in terms you can understand.” Erit pointed his index finger at Shenaia’s face, pronouncing every word clearly. “You are to stay the fuck away from the other Recruits. Can you manage that?”
A cocky smirk crept onto Shenaia’s face. “Sure thang.”
CHAPTER SIX
Water on the Floor
Shenaia’s promise lasted all of five minutes.
“Sorry for the delay—” Erit began.
“Hey there, school boy, don’t forget to teach me too,” Shenaia called from the far end of the table.
“You are not forgotten, Shenaia. As of this moment, you are to wait until you come down from your high. Can you do that for me?”
“Roger that, Teach.” She rested her head on her hands and watched Erit and Kalei intently. Kalei turned away to face Erit, but she could still feel Shenaia’s eyes on the back of her neck.
Erit squared his shoulders as he continued to watch Shenaia, and then he broke his gaze and turned back to Kalei and said in a quiet voice, “Rule number one in SWORDE, Kalei. Never trust an Estranged.” Erit returned to his seat, casting another glance at Shenaia.
Kalei raised an eyebrow. “But—”
“You’ll recall earlier when I asked for your hand? Your hesitance was the correct response. Of course, given as I am instructing you, it is asked that you lend at least some level of trust to the validity of what I am saying. Then, one day when you are finished with your training, you will be assigned to a team, and that team will ask for some amount of trust as well. Nonetheless, to work and live among Estranged you must learn to never give your full trust to any one Estranged. When you work with an Estranged, you are not only dealing with the individual, a trustworthy soul perhaps, but you are also dealing with their darkness. The darkness is not an idle entity, Kalei. It works for its own ends. Much like any parasite, it wishes to thrive.”