Nameless: Book Three in the Enhanced Series

by T. C. Edge

  “She was?”

  Such a thing shouldn’t surprise me. Recent events have changed that.

  “Of course. So was I! We sorted you out and put you back to bed. You were awake for some of it, mumbling about chases in tunnels and firefights and freezing water and all sorts of things…”

  “I was?”

  I rack my brain for some recollection. Nothing comes.

  “I guess it’s no surprise that your memory’s hazy. You were delirious.”

  “And did Tess hear?”

  “She heard some. I don’t think she knew what to make of it, though.”

  She shakes her head, exasperated, and her eyes turn from relieved to accusatory.

  “I swear, each time you step out that door you come back with some sort of nasty injury. And they’re getting worse every time. One day I’m going to come back to find you dead in the foyer,” she says grumpily. “But don’t worry…I’m not going to tell you to stop. I’m done trying to do that. Although I would like an explanation from your mouth…I’ve heard bits and pieces and put some of the puzzle together myself, but I want to hear your side.”

  “You’ve heard…what exactly?”

  “The attack on the prisoner convoy. It’s been on the news. They’re talking about it being the Nameless, freeing all these murderers and rapists, causing all this trouble. It’s all sanctioned by the Consortium, of course, but the people don’t know that.”

  “More fear mongering,” I mumble. “That doesn’t surprise me. That’s not exactly what happened, though…”

  I lower my eyes and her voice looms again.

  “It was you,” she starts. It’s not a question. “I mean, that’s obvious enough. You and Zander set free a bunch of criminals to get Drum back. OK, so it’s great he’s safe and all, but didn’t you stop and think…”

  Her words form in my head, but it takes me a second to react.

  It’s great he’s safe and all…

  Drum’s safe…

  “Hold on,” I say, cutting her off mid-sentence. “You said Drum’s safe?! Are you sure?! How do you know?!”

  On the table ahead of her is her usual buffet of cigarettes and whiskey. She’s been going hard on both since I arrived. The smoke used to bother me. Not anymore. Spending time around that horrendous toxic mist has toughened me up to anything less lethal.

  She tips the last sip of whiskey down her throat and sets the glass to the table.

  “Let’s just say I see the resemblance. I have no doubt now that Zander is your twin, much as I don’t like his influence on you…”

  “You met him! He came here?!”

  “Oh yeah.” She refills her glass. “He came looking for you yesterday night. He looked awful worried. And he looked like you…”

  My eyes are swamped in a frown.

  “Hang on…he came looking for me yesterday? But yesterday I was off with him, saving Drum.”

  Now it’s her brows that drop. Then they lift again in realisation and her head tips back.

  “Ahhh. You think you’ve been sleeping all day. Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ve been out since yesterday morning.”

  “What! I’ve been out for over a day?”

  “After what you clearly went through, that’s not too surprising. I was close to getting the doctor in to have a look at you, that’s how serious it was.”

  And that is serious. Mrs Carmichael abhors paying for medical treatment unless there’s severe need for it.

  “So, Zander came here looking for me, and you went down to meet him?”

  She nods.

  “He had given Abby a letter to give to you. When she came up to your room she found me in there, much to her surprise. I took possession of the letter. You’ll have to excuse me for opening it up. He asked to meet at the top of the street. He was rather shocked when I appeared in your place.”

  “He wanted to meet on Brick Lane? That’s odd…usually we creep off somewhere more private.”

  “Yeah, well, he seemed quite distressed. Told me he couldn’t contact you ‘in your head’ – I assume he was talking about some sort of telepathy – so came right down here to find you.”

  “And he was fine? Drum too?” my voice rushes.

  “Both of them…just fine,” she nods.

  I lean back and let out a long breath.

  “Thank you, Zander,” I whisper. Then I turn my eyes to the whiskey bottle. “Do you mind? I could really do with some of that.”

  She raises her eyebrows as she pours me a glass.

  “I’d urge you not to get a taste for it. It’s a slow killer. Although, I guess that won’t matter the way you’re going.”

  I stare a few daggers at her.

  “Brenda…”

  She slides me the glass.

  “You know it’s the last thing I want in the world. But there comes a time, Brie, when you have to be realistic. You’ve told me just what your mission is. It’s barely even gotten started and already I’m finding you at death’s door. I’ve got to be prepared for the worst. It’s easier that way. I know that full well.”

  Her eyes swim briefly with the memory of her husband, Derek, who died after a protracted battle with lung cancer. I always considered it odd that his death wasn’t enough to curb her own smoking habit. Then again, she was already too far gone in that regard to quit.

  “If I get it, I get it,” she used to say, talking of her husband’s illness.

  I found that odd too. Derek’s last few years, and months in particular, had been difficult to say the least. However, it did give her time to prepare for his passing. Now, perhaps, she’s doing the same with me.

  I take a sip of whiskey. It doesn’t burn like it has before. I guess I must be getting used to it.

  “So, what else did Zander say?” I ask.

  “Not a great deal, to be honest. He didn’t exactly seem pleased with all my questions.”

  “He’s just careful. I’ve told you how long he’s been with the Nameless. I guess when you spend your life running and hiding, you’re more selective with who to trust.”

  “Oh, I agree entirely. In actual fact, I was pleased with his cautiousness. He’s clearly a prudent young man. His distrust of me made me trust him more, conversely.”

  “So he didn’t say anything? Nothing else about Drum?”

  “He’s under the protection of the Nameless, that’s all he told me.”

  Good. He kept to the bargain.

  “But what I want to know is what happened with you after you split,” she continues. “Zander filled me in on a few details. He said the last he saw of you, you were safe in the tunnels and making your way back to the academy. Clearly you didn’t because you only got back the next morning. So where were you?”

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

  “I think you’d be surprised. Try me.”

  She leans forwards as I speak. When I say: “I was outside the city,” she hardly reacts at all. She merely dips her chin in a knowing nod.

  “I thought so,” she says. “I found your clothes. They were putrid, for want of a better word, soaked in mud and poison. Your hands too, all those blisters. I assumed you’d been in some heavy fog somewhere, and you only get that outside the city.”

  I purse my lips, impressed.

  “I think you’ve missed your calling, Brenda. You’d have made a great detective.”

  “I wouldn’t say it took much to work it out. The evidence was pretty clear. What I can’t figure out is how you got out there and how you got back in. Even my skills as an amateur detective aren’t powerful enough to untangle that riddle.”

  A smile runs up my face. She seems to be relaxing. I am too, my concerns for my friends now taking a backseat.

  So I go about telling her my tale. The Con-Cops and Stalkers. The raging river. The waterfall and lake and surrounding woods and marshlands. When I explain how I managed to gain re-entry, she looks almost disappointed that it wasn’t by my own design.

 
“You got lucky there,” is how she puts it. I completely agree with her.

  Once she’s satisfied that I’ve brought her up to date, she sets about unpeeling my bandages and checking on my hands. I’m staggered to see how quickly they’ve cured. The magical healing lotions that she uses never cease to amaze me.

  “And how’s the head?” I ask.

  She unwraps that too. I feel with my fingers and find that she’s stitched up the wound, and it too is quickly on the mend.

  “I hope you appreciate how good a job I did,” she says. “I did it all without disturbing your hair. Tess suggested I shave it, but I resisted the urge. Funny though it might have been.”

  She chuckles to herself and gulps some more whiskey. Meanwhile, my fingers rush around frantically, keen to decide for themselves whether my hair is fully intact.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she laughs. “I wasn’t going to mess up your mane. Not with all the important courting you need to be getting on with.”

  “Adryan?”

  “Yes, Adryan. We had another message this morning from our esteemed friends at the Council of Matrimony. Apparently, Adryan wants to see you again tomorrow night. As long as you’re up to it, that is.”

  I nod with some resolve.

  “I’m up to it. I’ve got no choice.”

  “Well…that’s not strictly true.”

  I don’t argue. She’s not aware of the bargain I struck with Zander. It’s one thing I’d prefer to keep from her.

  “So you’ve taken to reading all my mail now have you?” I bite with some false scorn. “First the one from Zander that you got from Abby…and now this. I never knew you to be so nosey…”

  “Desperate times, Brie. With everything that’s going on, someone’s got to look out for you. Consider me your personal gatekeeper.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “None at all.”

  I laugh and let the warming whiskey glide down my throat and settle my mind. And for a little while longer, we chat with an ease that spits right in the face of everything that’s going on right now.

  It’s a rare thing, and the sort of respite that won’t last long. So I cling to it for as long as I can, enjoying – properly enjoying – for the first time the scent of smoke in that little room, and the relaxing atmosphere that pervades it for a short time.

  And then it fades as quickly as it spawned, reality descending like a swamp to drown out the joy and laughter. I leave the room with a slightly heavy head and a slipping smile, cast away and replaced with the usual crinkle of anxiety that’s begun to shape a web of wrinkles on my youthful brow.

  It’s something I’m going to have to get used to. Right now, my youth is quickly evaporating.

  And if I blink too long, I’ll open my eyes an old woman.

  Yeah right, Brie. Like you’ll live that long…

  5

  I wake the following day with a voice in my head.

  Most people would consider that a sign of madness. And seeing what I’ve been through recently, you might forgive my mental state for slipping that way.

  I’m well aware, however, that the voice is that of Zander, guiding me out of another bout of sweaty sleep. It draws me from my nightmares, his face taking their place as I come back to consciousness.

  Brie…Brie can you hear me.

  It’s a sure sign that my head is fully on the mend. Though clouded, his voice is just about clear enough to identify. A smile dawns on my face and I sit up. Tess’s bed is empty.

  My first attempts to reply fail. Communicating telepathically takes practice, and I’m far from an expert yet. After a minute or two, however, my answer seems to find its destination.

  I’m fine, I say. Thank you for saving Drum.

  As yet, our conversations are necessarily brief. I’d love to ask some in-depth questions, but know that anything more than a few words – from my end at least – will be too indistinct for him to hear.

  So when his reply comes, it’s to no surprise that he suggests we meet. Nor is it surprising that the shelter in district 6 is discarded as a possible meeting point. The same goes for the waterfall cavern in the underlands, both of them now known to the Consortium and off limits.

  It’s disappointing. I’d grown quite attached to that subterranean garden.

  When I hear his voice again, there’s a sense of real urgency to it. Sometimes tone can be hard to gauge when speaking telepathically. Yet his next words rush with a clear tension.

  Meet me right now. Bottom of Brick Lane. I’m waiting.

  He’s waiting? This must be serious.

  With a burgeoning concern that something might be wrong with Drum, I quickly leap from my bed and pull on some clothes. As I do I take note that the muddy, poison-infused clothes that I placed in my wash-bag have been taken away. I can only assume Mrs Carmichael has seen to cleaning them.

  I spare little thought for it as I wrap up warm and rush down the stairs, out of the door, and down to the bottom of Brick Lane. The streets are busy at the intersection, where several routes along the Conveyor Line converge, and the large advertising screens glow with their colourful displays.

  The place isn’t short of Con-Cops and City Guards either, their increased presence becoming the norm. Ignoring them, I turn my eyes around as casually as I can manage, searching for the face of my brother.

  It’s difficult to see him among the crowds, so I begin meandering about, focusing on alleys and other little alcoves that cut away from the main streets.

  As I go, a voice sounds behind me.

  “Brie…”

  I make a move to turn but he speaks again.

  “Don’t move. Look up at the screen.”

  My eyes drift up to the largest screen ahead, fixed on tall pylons on the side of a building and attracting plenty of eyes. My breathing shallows a little as I see what it’s playing: footage of the attack on the convoy, clearly caught by some security drones high up in the sky.

  I watch the footage play out with a quickening pulse. Only the tail-end of the escape appears to have been captured, and not the initial attack. As prisoners rush from the backs of trucks, escaping into the dark night, I watch myself hovering over the downed guard, fetching the keys.

  Hidden under my jacket and hood, and with the gas mask fixed around my face, I’m impossible to recognise. As I stand and move to throw the keys into the rear truck, Zander emerges. He too is indistinct, hidden beneath his own hood.

  Then I look at Drum, standing silently and watching proceedings. He’s not so hard to identify. Not only will he be on the books as an official prisoner, but his giant frame makes him easy to distinguish.

  As we gather as a three and rush off into the shadows, disappearing from view, I begin turning to face Zander again.

  Once more, his voice stops me.

  “Don’t,” he hisses. “Too many eyes. Move to the alley to your left. I’ll see you there.”

  I do as I’m told, turning left and walking towards the first alley. I step inside and wait. A minute later, Zander joins me, his glowing hazel eyes hidden beneath his cowl.

  “Is Drum OK?” is the first thing I ask.

  He checks around us, notes that there are no Con-Cops or City Guards nearby, and leads me a little deeper into the shadows. He turns me to a wall and answers.

  “He’s fine. He’s safe in the underlands. But this isn’t about him. It’s about you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  He takes my hands and inspects them. The bandages have been removed, leaving only plasters on the more serious blisters. Then he asks: “How’s your head?”

  I reach up and feel the thin scar under my hair.

  “A lot better. I heard you met Mrs Carmichael?”

  “Yes,” he says bluntly. “She told me about your wounds. Brie, I need to read your mind, OK. I have to know what happened to you, and there’s little time.”

  “Why? What’s the urgency?”

  “Stay still,” he says. “I’ll explain in
a moment.”

  I prepare for the unpleasant feeling of having my mind infiltrated. He fixes me with an intense stare, and begins scanning my recent memory, discovering in mere moments what’s happened to me since we split up in the tunnels.

  When his eyes withdraw, they continue to stare, pinching together in an accusatory frown.

  “You told her everything,” he whispers.

  “Who?”

  “Mrs Carmichael. Brie, you need to be more careful. You should be keeping what you’re doing to yourself…”

  His voice is growing with rebuke, turning to a low growl.

  “Why? What’s happening?”

  “The Consortium are conducting an investigation into the attack. They’re going to be sending an agent from the SCU down to the academy today to interview the residents.”

  “The SCU?”

  “It’s the Serious Crimes Unit, an off-shoot of the City Guard.”

  “Right, that doesn’t sound good. And by ‘interview’ you mean…they’ll be reading minds?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who they’ll send, but you can be sure he’ll be a Mind-Manipulator and an expert at memory extraction. They know Drum got help during the escape, and they’re going to start by finding out if anyone at the academy has any information about who helped him, and where he might be.”

  “Oh no…”

  It dawns on me. If they read Mrs Carmichael’s mind, or my mind, they’ll know I was part of it. Our ability to lie will be irrelevant in the face of a Mind-Manipulator.

  “What the hell do we do?!” I stammer.

  “Calm down. We have a bit of time. The agent shouldn’t come until later on, when all residents of the academy are present. They have plenty of other people to interrogate, seeing as so many managed to escape. Your decision to release the others may just save us here. Do you know if Mrs Carmichael is at the academy right now?”

  “Um…I don’t know. Could be.”

  “We need to get her immediately. I’m going to have to alter her mind, and yours. You’re not ready to defend yourself against skilled mental infiltration. Go to the academy immediately. Bring your guardian back here. Go, now…”

  I turn on my heels without delay and start off at a jog. When I reach the crowds I slow a little, keen not to draw the eyes of any of the agents of Inner Haven. Walking with as much haste as I can manage, I return to the academy praying that Mrs Carmichael is present.