Toward the back of the Institute lobby sat the entrance via hallway to the Inquisition offices, the former policing headquarters for Haven. Since the invasion, no actual Inquisitors had been present there. Most were now in the southern area of the city, supporting the efforts of the remaining Citizenship to take back the city.
This set of double doors lay wide open, and out of it spilled a long line of people: guards, patrollers, and the like, all waiting to give their reports to Sergei. Though she couldn't see him, Kaylee knew the co-leader was seated at the desk in a very similar lobby to the one in which she stood.
A table was added to either side of the entrance doors to the lobby, and racks of equipment and weapons were behind them. She deposited her submachine gun and radio without word to or from the passive woman on the right and took her place in the long line.
Aside from more armed guards positioned at various points in the room and facility, they preferred as few people as possible to carry weaponry when not on patrol or assignment. Those who did were hand-picked by Sergei and Isaac as the most loyal and trustworthy. The Old Haven Union had a more open policy to recruitment than the Citizens did, but they didn't want to risk any particular trouble, especially when it could result in the use of dwindling munitions.
Kaylee waited, impatient to get her half-minute conversation with Sergei finished. She wished she could simply pass along a message of, "Nothing happened," but Sergei insisted upon speaking to every person involved in a patrol or guard-duty, every day.
A few conversations were held as the line crawled along, but Kaylee didn't say anything to anyone. Friendly with few people and trusting fewer yet, Kaylee saw none of them in the line nearby. Folded arms and her scowling face discouraged any conversation directed at her.
Her involvement with the Old Haven Union was not of her preferred choice. When they had forced Rick to become their hated scapegoat, she would have been thrilled to leave with him. However, he had insisted upon her remaining, saying it was vital for her to be on the inside.
It's not like I'm important to them or anything, she thought. He probably just thinks I'll get in the way.
Even so, she played the role given to her: competent scout. In the wake of Rick's escaped execution sentence, she had just barely avoided being directly associated with the Elijah enclave. Some of her actions during the uprising had come into light, such as her killing of Isaac's former leader, Miguel, but they hadn't imposed consequences on those actions. They practically wanted to give me a medal for it, she thought, but their friendliness could change pretty damn fast if they find out I was connected to Elijah and Rick.
She heard low arguing from the entrance, recognizing the voices as belonging to the only individuals who knew of her former loyalties. A pair of people, one man and one woman, came into the lobby of the Institute.
"You must speak to Sergei and tell him our skills are of higher importance than this simple guard duty!" A feminine voice with prominent accent spoke sharply. Several in the line turned to watch the spectacle.
Tanya, a thin and fiery woman, brushed the blond hair from her smudged face, scowling at her companion.
Eugene, middle aged and thick in build, rolled his eyes, "For the last time, Tanya, we are at a period of calm. We and our leaders must be cautious."
"We are wasting our time. We should not be standing around waiting; action must be taken." She made a fist and punched him on the shoulder. "Why with all this defending of stupidity, Eugene? Are you trying to aggravate me?"
"I simply feel we must take care to choose our course."
"A very simple and evasive answer," Tanya replied, "but yet you provide no further insight into the obvious course: we stop fighting those idiotic cowards altogether and focus upon something worthwhile."
Kaylee was surprised that even Tanya found the war inside Haven to be a waste of time. In all other circumstances, Tanya had proven herself a bloodthirsty and capable fighter. She seemed to be thrilled by the thought of battle, but her distaste for how things were being run had proven advantageous to Kaylee.
She had run into the pair early on in the uprising campaign for the Old Havenites, and they were the only people who had definitive knowledge of her ties to Elijah, Victor, and Rick.
"Miss Kaylee," Eugene spotted her and called over, ignoring Tanya's latest ranting and cutting a few places in the line. "I trust you are well this evening. No trouble along your patrol?"
Kaylee shook her head, smiling at Eugene. Tanya, scowling at being ignored by her companion, stepped forward as well. "Yes, I'm sure her experience of crawling around the streets, terrified of the shadows went just fine."
Considering the constant jabs and insults whenever the two spoke, Tanya appeared to dislike Kaylee. This made the woman's refusal to tell Sergei and Isaac of Kaylee's ties to perceived enemies puzzling. I suppose she's hostile with everyone, Kaylee thought, considering the way Tanya usually treated Eugene. Even after months, she still didn't really know much about their personal relationship, but she assumed it was based upon some kind of shouting or bruises.
Eugene, on the other hand, always acted in a quite friendly and reasonable fashion, making their pairing all the more bizarre. Kaylee wondered if his influence prevented Tanya from ratting her out.
"Tanya here was just telling me how much of a coward I am," Eugene said, eyes dancing with laughter. "What is new with you, Miss Kaylee?"
His companion scowled. "I only speak the truth, Eugene."
All but ignoring Kaylee, they returned to their bickering again. In spite of only a few people staring at them like they were crazy, their loud argument dropped into harsh whispers. Kaylee smiled to herself. They may be nuts, but I kind of like 'em, she thought.
Kaylee was dragged into the discussion more than once while the line crawled forward, mostly by Tanya who wanted to insult someone besides Eugene. Eventually, they ran out of steam or topics, and the two lapsed into silence. Tanya had her arms folded and a bemused expression where Eugene simply appeared pleased with himself.
She reached the front of the line, and after a few moments, she was called forward into the Inquisition lobby, where Sergei had set up his office. The space mirrored that of the main lobby, excepting the set of three elevators near the back instead of another door and hallway.
The entire section was for Inquisition offices, including the subsequent upper floors. The middle elevator supposedly went all the way to the top of the spire, where some group of high-ranked Citizens did something or other way back when. The upper floors and middle elevator shaft were now abandoned and off limits, many deadly defenses protecting what everyone assumed to be Lange's tomb at the top of the spire.
"Good evening, Miss Kaylee," Sergei spoke, folding his hands and looking up. Seated at the reception desk with reading spectacles on his face, Kaylee still marveled at his transformation since the uprising.
Sergei had been energetic in spite of his middling years, and his forces, formerly criminal prior to the rise of the Citizenship, were known for their crushing victories within Old Haven. During the uprising campaign, Kaylee had seen the vigor and intensity of Sergei, which seemed to have dissipated somewhat behind this bespectacled man seated at the desk.
He had been wounded, very near to death, and, as Kaylee heard it, Isaac saved his life. Since the injury, Sergei had taken a partial backseat to actual fighting and worked on more coordination and planning. He seemed to have a knack for it, but as Tanya had whispered harshly to Eugene while they argued, Sergei had lost quite a bit of fire.
"I trust you are well?" Sergei favored Kaylee with an inquisitive expression.
"Just fine."
He glanced down at some of his paperwork. "You seem to have come back a little behind schedule; was everything all right with your patrol?"
Kaylee gave a nod. "Nothing to report, I'm afraid. I thought I saw movement once or twice, and being careful was why it took a bit longer."
"You saw nothing near the border area?"
Sergei scribbled something onto a sheet of paper. "Very well, you may go. Thank you."
She turned and walked out, hearing him speak as she left.
"Piotr, please take this set of reports over to be catalogued."
Kaylee smirked, continuing her walk without turning around. She knew, if she had glanced back, she would have seen Sergei holding out the papers to thin air before dropping them on the ground. Then, some helpful guard would sneak over, grab the files, and comply.
A bit off-balanced described Sergei well, and the person he referred to as Piotr apparently didn't exist or was some long-dead friend or brother as Kaylee heard it. Either way, she found his penchant toward imaginary friends amusing and troubling in equal measures.
With a parting nod to Eugene and Tanya, Kaylee moved past the line and over to the Natural Philosophy wing.
******
Former Citizen Gregory Michaels hunched over a table in his lab, reading over a series of scribbled notes. A frown drew lines on his aging face, and the wispy hair atop his head sat disheveled and unkempt. Rumpled clothing adorned his body, and dark lines lay beneath the peering eyes. As he stared at the notes, the frown deepened.
His recent research had not been progressing well.
Stretched out on the table in the center of the room was a young, shirtless man. Vacant eyes stared into the ceiling, and the half-open mouth and dumb expression on his face betrayed a simple mind. The man's chest rose and fell, and medical bags containing chemicals poured into his veins.
Michaels leaned down, peering into the man's face.
"What is your name?" he asked.
A mote of recognition flickered in the man's eyes. "Bill."
"Date of birth?"
Light confusion enveloped the man's features. "Uh..." He lapsed into belabored consideration. "December?"
Dammit, Michaels grit his teeth. Even worse than the last one.
He disconnected the IVs and taped bandages to the man. "You may go."
"Where?" the subject asked.
"Back to the barracks," Michaels said with a sharp tone. "Ask someone else to help if you can't figure it out for yourself."
The man shuffled out, and the former Citizen snapped off the gloves he wore and flung them into the waste basket. "This is getting nowhere..." he muttered, leaning over his notes and marking the failure of the latest compound.
The conditioning process he had pioneered to create docile servants for the Citizenship had been difficult to crack. His method of using various combinations of drugs and sensory bombardment caused the brain to regress to a simplified state. Unfortunately, a similar tactic with different approach did not seem to be assisting in any reversal of the brain-washing.
Several minutes of thought and documentation later, he heard the door open and close. Sighing, he didn't turn around. "For the last time: I did not administer the conditioning process to your loved ones or family. I don't know where they might be, and I haven't discovered how to reverse it as of yet. If you have any other questions, I don't care."
"Yeesh, doc, do you give this speech to everyone who comes in?" a feminine voice sounded from behind him.
His usual twinge of irritation at being interrupted was tempered by the individual whose voice he recognized. For whatever reason, Michaels didn't mind Kaylee's presence, at least not too terribly much. Though brash and not exceptionally bright, the girl seemed a far cry smarter than the rest of the idiots he spent his day placating.
Even so, he sighed. "Please don't call me doc. It's inaccurate, and my expertise and ability far outstrips any simple general practitioner." He eyed her with irritation. "And to answer your question, those bumbling Citizen rejects freed from the detention center bother me repeatedly throughout the day."
"Apparently," he continued, "the facility utilized my conditioning process on those who couldn't be rehabilitated normally, without my knowledge or consent, of course. Now every single person missing a father or sister still comes to annoy me about it every so often."
Michaels referred to the mass exodus of months prior when Isaac and Sergei gathered a large number of potential extra soldiers by raiding the detention facility. Citizens imprisoned for dissention and a myriad of crimes both real and fabricated joined the Old Haven Union in hopes of surviving or taking revenge on those who had put them there. Others had managed to get themselves into the actual Citizen camp, and some departed to places unknown.
"Can you blame them?" Kaylee responded to Michaels' statement.
"Yes, I can. I have no knowledge of or reason to care about their missing family members. I regret the Inquisition saw fit to remove them from society, but it was none of my doing."
Kaylee smirked at him, arms folded. "But the brain-wipe process was yours, so like it or not, you bear responsibility."
"Hm." He picked up a few of the vials sitting on the rolling tray table and replaced them in the cabinets. A familiar guilt settled into his thoughts. Not for the pathetic idiots from down below or even the Citizens who received his process. No, he reserved his guilt for former Citizen Claudia Laverock.
Claudia resided in moderate comfort within one of the offices of the Institute, neighboring his own. Formerly the head of the Experimental Design section, objections to creating a device for mass-murder during the days before the uprising led her to resign. The former and now-deceased High Inquisitor Julian Wresh took exception to this, having his people detain and administer the conditioning process to her in secret.
Michaels had arrived, with two other colleagues also killed in the uprising, in time to find her slack-jawed and half-brainless. Her sharp intellect and clever wit had been wiped clean by the process he created.
Everything I do now is to find a way to reverse it. I don't care whoever else makes use of it, he thought. I will find a way to bring her back.
"I'm continuing to work on the reversal-"
"Oh, I know, you don't have to tell me about it. Of course, I also know your reasoning behind doing this work, so you can't really pretend any kind of heroism or whatever for it."
Yet another reason he didn't entirely dislike her presence. Like Claudia but to a greater extent, Kaylee had a penchant toward, as she had put it a while back, "Cutting through the bullshit."
So much tired posturing and social convention had dictated the lives of the Citizens. Even though Michaels had been wrapped securely within his work for so many years, he still didn't enjoy the small interactions he had with his peers. Keeping things blunt, simple, and efficient provided a refreshing change.
Of course, her lack of training and intellect required him to explain things a dozen times over. It wore on his thin nerves, but he had grown accustomed to doing so with regular Citizens long before.
"Do the detention people really come in and bother you that often?" Kaylee asked.
Michaels touched fingertips to his temple. "A few each week, some more than once."
"Yeah, I can't say I'm too fond of them myself, but the extra troops sure are helpful."
"Ah yes," Michaels rolled his eyes, biting sarcasm forming in his tone, "this lovely little war. I can hardly think of any more important things to accomplish than mass murder. Certainly we couldn't be trying to restore power and functionality toward the entire city. Surely fixing the sterilization field would not be at all worthwhile."
Building in the rant, he flung his arms into the air. "No, no, of course not. What we should do is continue to fling bullets back and forth at each other until we finally run out of them. When that happens, we can all try to make more or focus upon clubbing each other to death with sticks. Better yet, we can hold a ceasefire and create manufacturing sectors to produce more ammunition."
He gave a sharp laugh. "Yes, I can see it now. The Citizens and this rabble of Old Haven will work together long enough to produce more of the means with which to kill each other."
"Hey, I don't disagree with you on anything there." Kaylee held u
p her hands. "Honestly, at this point I wonder how most everyone would fare outside."
Michaels raised an eyebrow. It seemed an odd question coming from her. "Truly? Hm. Interesting thought, considering the purported hazards of the world beyond our walls."
"Purported?"
Sighing, Michaels replied, "It means, alleged, supposed, or theoreti-"
"I know what the goddamn word means!" she interrupted. "Why do you say purported?"
He cleared his throat. "As the head of this formerly thriving department, I've never heard of or seen any actual studies which show any manner of threat in traveling outside of Haven. Conversely, I have always seen a policy of discouraging curiosity toward the world beyond these walls. All varieties of statistics flutter about in the reports, but none of it is scientifically generated."
"They make it all up?"
"So it would appear. In addition to the reports which were produced by who I assume was Lange himself or close confidants," he continued, "our ever-helpful Acquisition Squads would tell stories of nuclear fallout and scoured landscapes since the collapse of global society and our policy of isolationism. I suspect, however, it was part of their mandate."
Kaylee frowned. "Why?"
"Citizens were happy, but they were more satisfied in knowing," he placed exaggerated emphasis on the word, "nothing better existed. In addition, it seems Citizen One preferred to keep his subjects close at hand."
"Like as in why he set things up to trap everyone in here after he died?" Kaylee grit her teeth.
"A probable notion. Lange thought himself likened to a deity in his waning years. In his mind, his people couldn't possibly live without him in life or death."
Michaels glanced through a few sheets of his research as Kaylee paced about the room, examining objects and seeming lost in consideration. After a while, she turned and asked, "So what is the outside world like?"
Exodus (The Fall of Haven) Page 3