by T. C. Edge
Given a multitude of orders to impart, I succeed with each one. I have a grumpy, grim looking man widen his eyes, open up his mouth, and stick out his tongue like a child. I have another dance about like a chicken, clucking as he goes. I even get one elderly woman to stand, walk towards Zander on creaking legs, and slap him as hard as she can across the face.
That one I thought up all on my own.
Perhaps as retribution, Zander takes things up a notch. All those orders are easy enough to accomplish. They’re simple, and delivered to simple minds. The next stage, therefore, is to try to conduct some trickier experiments.
“Basic actions are easier to place into someone’s mind,” my brother explains, still rubbing the sting from his cheek. That woman really did pack a punch. “However, time-sensitive orders, and those that involve various stages, are much harder. And then there are those actions that someone would never take. Trying to get someone to do something against their nature is hardest of all.”
He gives the same example as he did the previous day. That of sending someone off to the other side of the city to fetch, say, a loaf of bread, before having them bring it right back here.
Standing down the alley occupied by another lost soul, Zander tells me to get the man to head to the inner district of the northern quarter.
“Tell him to leave from here ten minutes from now. Don’t worry if he doesn’t have a watch. His subconscious will actively estimate when ten minutes have passed. Make him go to district 2 of the northern quarter. There’s a little market there that should be active. Give him this money, and ask him to buy some bread, and return here immediately.”
I gulp, looking at the man nestled tight against a wall.
“That sounds like a lot. What about Con-Cop patrols? I don’t want to put him in danger or anything.”
“He’s always in danger here. Go head, do it,” he orders firmly.
It’s certainly a step up from what I’ve been doing. Yet I feel confident that I’ll be able to accomplish it. So I immediately make for the man, hold out a tin of beans to ensure his participation, and quickly slide into his mind as his eyes link with mine.
The method is the same as I’ve been practicing. I repeat the order over and over, clarifying each part until it sinks into him. I do so until I’m completely satisfied it’s worked, before returning to Zander.
“What now?” I ask.
“We wait to see if he goes.”
An anxious ten minutes follow, during which I spend most of my time staring at my watch. As the minutes tick by, it appears as though my orders didn’t settle properly. Then, suddenly, he climbs to his feet, turns down the alley, and begins meandering away to the south.
A beaming smile flows up my face.
“I did it…”
“The first part, yeah. We won’t know until he returns.”
“Don’t be such a buzzkill, bro,” I complain. “Let me have this moment.”
“Fine, bask in it. You’ve got 30 seconds.”
I suck in a long breath of misty air and smile victoriously right in Zander’s face. I use up every second he gives me, watching him grow increasingly irritated by my smugness as each one passes.
“Right, time’s up. Feel better now?”
“Much better,” I say, grinning. “Give me something harder to do. This is child’s play.”
He stares right at me, and in my head I hear his voice, echoing from the depths.
Don’t get cocky, he warns.
I respond telepathically.
Don’t worry, I won’t, I assure him.
It is, of course, a hypocritical statement. My actions speak louder than my telepathic words, and I realise that, perhaps, I am being a little arrogant right now. So I let the smug smile drift from my face, and set my mind back to the seriousness of what we’re doing.
However, the damage has been done. And Zander’s going to punish me.
16
With the man likely to take a while before returning, my brother sets me a new test. I can already sense he’s going to push me even further this time. And, well, I probably deserve it.
I guess that’s a good thing, though. I need him to throw everything at me, to take me right to the edge of what I can do. To put me under stress and see how I react. And that’s exactly what he does.
With another candidate in sight, he turns to face me and draws a pistol from a holster in his jacket. It’s one of the old fashioned types, a lead-shooter and not a pulse gun. With his back to the timid looking woman taking refuge beneath an underpass, he reaches forward with the weapon and places it into my palm.
I look at it with a rising tension in me, and then lift my eyes to Zander’s.
“What do you want me to do with this?” I ask.
“I want you to give it to that woman over there,” he says impassively. “And then I want you to make her shoot herself.”
I look at him with blank eyes. He stares back with the same.
“No. I’m NOT doing that.”
“You have to, Brie. Like I told you, getting people to do things against their nature is the hardest thing to do. And there’s nothing more against our nature than to harm ourselves.”
I attempt to hand the gun back to my brother. He wraps my fingers up tight around it.
“You’re going to go over there, and you’re going to tell that woman to lift this gun to her temple, and shoot herself in the head.”
I recoil at his words. They’re delivered with such a lack of caring that I feel like slapping him across the face myself, just as I got that old woman to do.
“Zander, listen to me. There is NO CHANCE IN HELL that I’m going to get a woman to kill herself. NONE.”
I lay the point on thick, and make my position clear. My brother looks at me with a creeping displeasure, his eyes narrowing and fixing to mine. And as he stares at me, I feel something beginning to change, deep in the back of my head.
Slowly but surely, I take a firmer grip of the gun, and begin to realise that he’s right.
Yes, he’s right.
I will do it. This is my test. I have to do it…
I turn the gun in my hand, and pull it beneath my jacket, hiding it away. Then I give Zander the smallest of nods of compliance, before turning and walking towards the woman.
Moving through the mist like a spectre, her eyes find me as I come. They glow with fear and suspicion, just like all eyes do here. As I grow nearer, she retreats, her body language swaying back to keep me at a distance.
“Who are you?! What do you want?!” her voice stammers.
“I’m no one,” I say, my voice flowing on the light breeze. “I’m not someone for you to fear.” I pull some money from my pocket, and hold it up for her to see. “Here, I’m someone who wants to help. Take the money,” I say.
Her brows dig and pinch together. Lines crinkle across her forehead. She seems to hesitate, sensing a trap. I assuage her concerns.
“This isn’t a trick,” I say. “Look, I’m just a girl.” I pull down my hood and reveal my face.
It matters not if she sees who I am. She’ll be dead in a minute.
“Why are you giving me money…I don’t understand.”
“It’s OK,” I say, my voice pouring like honey into her ears. “Just look at me for a moment, and it’ll all be over.”
My voice has gone robotic, devoid of feeling and cold like a Savant. The woman continues to doubt me, but it doesn’t matter. She’s staring at me now, entranced. I’ve lured her into my web.
She’s already dead…
I enter her mind so easily now. I slip right in, and let the order drift from my mind to hers.
Take the gun from my jacket. Put it to your temple. Pull the trigger.
I repeat the order as I’ve learned to do. I feel it spread and filter through her, embedding down deep, deeper than ever before. Yet it’s different this time, her mind working to fight back.
I feel myself repelled, feel my order thrown out. I refocus and try
again, and bend her to my will with all I have.
Take the gun from my jacket, I say again. Put it to your temple. Pull the trigger.
The order starts to take hold. A darkness pervades her mind as it sinks and infuses through her consciousness. Gradually, it locks in. She’s unable to fight back.
I drift out and see her eyes. They stare, pale blue and empty, a dampness forming in their corners. I feel an awful pinch of pain at what I see, but it doesn’t stop me. I pull aside my jacket, revealing the pistol.
Her fingers creep from her rags and take a grip of the handle. I can see the struggle in her as she draws it out, some part of her still trying to fight the terrible order I’ve given her.
Shaking, her sallow index finger slips against the trigger, and her arm lifts and places the tip of the gun to her temple. My chest stiffens and my breathing grows short as I watch her finger hover, slowly pressing down.
A part of me wants to stop it, to reach out and grab the gun. To fling it away and leave this poor woman alone.
But another part doesn’t. Another part just watches as she works, as she shivers and trembles, as she squeezes the little switch that will end her life, right here, right now.
She pulls a little harder, and my chest tightens a little more, and the mist seems to thicken, swirling about us on a light breeze.
Any second now…click, boom, dead.
Forget Cromwell. This will be the first life I take.
With a battle raging in me, and her, her final act on this earth takes place. Her index finger pulls a little bit more, and the trigger clicks to signal her doom.
I feel my eyes wishing to shut, but they don’t. The click echoes through my head, but brings with it no other sound.
The barrel doesn’t burst. No bullet shoots from its end.
The woman’s eyes rush open wider, confused. Then she tries to click again, and the same thing happens.
No discharge. No bullet. Nothing.
Over and over, she clicks and clicks. And each time, her temple stays intact.
The gun is empty.
Then I feel a presence to my side, and see Zander’s form appearing through the mist. He moves in front of the woman and takes the gun from her hand, before holding his palm to her cheek and looking into her eyes.
Within seconds, they come back to life, and a few salty tears suddenly flow down her cheeks.
“It’s OK,” whispers my brother. “It’s OK now.”
Slowly, her eyes grow numb again, and then begin to close. She leans back, breathing lightly, and drops into a calm slumber.
I turn to my brother with a whisper, a realisation now beginning to form in my head.
“It was you,” I say, a heavy frown swamping my eyes. “You put an order in my head. You made me do it…to give her the order.”
He nods. “Yes. You would never have done it otherwise, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. I was never going to have you kill an innocent woman, Brie. I just wanted to see if you could do it.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me the gun was empty?”
“Because then you’d have known, and it wouldn’t have tested you so much.”
“But it didn’t test me. You made me do it…”
“I made you try, yes. It was you who succeeded.”
It’s all too much. I feel drained and strangely ashamed that he could manipulate me so easily. And worst of all, I didn’t even know he’d done it. It felt a little odd, for sure, but not completely unnatural. Only now does it fully dawn what an awful thing I was doing.
“I’m sorry if I manipulated you like that, Brie. But it just goes to show how strong you are now…”
“More like how strong you are,” I mutter. “You made me do that with such ease. I wish it was you doing this mission instead of me. Can’t we just smuggle you in or something? Once you’re in the High Tower, maybe you could just get it done…”
“Brie…no. I’d be caught and killed, and so would you, and so would Adryan, and all of this would come crashing right down. You should have more faith in yourself. You can do this. I know you can…”
“Yeah, well you have more faith in me than I do.”
“Because I know exactly what you can do. Everything I can do, you can do. And you’re learning much quicker than I ever did.”
“Not quick enough,” I mumble. “It still takes me a while to impart an order. You can do it with barely a glance.”
“Yeah, and you’ll be able to as well.”
“With Savants? These Disposables are all well and good, but they’re hardly the sharpest tools in the shed.”
He seems to concede on that point, nodding along in agreement.
“You’ll get your chance to test your powers against better brains, I’m sure of that. And you know what, we’ll start with mine. You need to learn how to block mental intrusions, and shield your own memories…”
“Like you did the other day? With Mrs Carmichael and me?”
“Exactly. I can’t be relied upon to conceal your memories, especially when you’re over in Inner Haven. And if a Mind-Manipulator gets into your head and you can’t defend yourself, you’ll be found out straight away.”
“That doesn’t sound good. So, you’re going to teach me how to do that?”
“It’s the final thing you need to know,” he says, nodding. “For now at least. Once you’ve got the basics, it’s all about practice. Just, don’t go overdoing it with what you’ve learned so far. You never know who might be watching.”
With that warning filtering through my head, we turn our attention back to the man I’d sent off to get bread. Naturally, I suggest to Zander that we return here after to take this poor woman beside us down to the underlands. I ask the same thing with each person, but mostly he tells me it can’t be done.
Seeing, however, as I got this woman to try to kill herself – or at least she thought she was going to – I feel like I owe her.
“Your heart is too soft sometimes, Brie,” muses Zander. I can’t tell if it’s a criticism or not. Having a kind heart doesn’t sound like a bad thing, right?
Of course, his thinking is purely that things are bigger than any one person, and that I can’t go off on a crusade trying to save every Disposable we find. At the end of the day, if my mission succeeds, then that’ll have a far greater impact on not only the people around here, but across the whole of the city as well, Inner Haven included.
Still, given the state of play, Zander agrees to help this woman.
“We’ll go and check on our courier first, then come back here and fetch her. We’ll pair her up with Ricky or something. Right, come on, let’s see about that bread.”
We ease back through the deserted streets and alleys, past run-down and mostly empty buildings, the mist still hugging the air as the day trundles on. By now, as the hour grows late, the chances of running into Con-Cop patrols will heighten.
The Stalkers, too, who enjoy hunting at night most of all, are an ever present threat in these parts. Knowing this all too well, Zander makes sure we walk with a little more vigilance, hushing me any time I try to talk to him.
When we reach the alley where I sent the man off on his task, we find it deserted. I check my watch and note that sufficient time has passed for him to have made it to the market and back.
“Where is he?” I ask, turning to my brother.
His eyes have narrowed. There’s a tension in him that wasn’t there before.
“Was my order wrong?” I wonder out loud.
He shakes his head.
“I doubt it. Something may have happened to him. We shouldn’t linger here, Brie.”
“Why? Shouldn’t we wait a little…see if he comes? He hasn’t had that much time, has he?”
Zander shakes his head, slowly scanning the streets now.
“No,” he says smoothly. “We don’t wait. Come on…”
With a bit more haste, we return to the woman beneath the underpass, rushing with more urgency now. As we arrive
, however, sifting through the thick mist to where we found her, Zander reaches out to stop me.
“What are you…”
“Shhhh,” he says, staring forward.
I do the same, and search through gaps in the smog. And as I do, the sound of voices drift towards us on the wind, and the shapes of bodies appear as shadows in the haze.
Zander immediately shifts me over behind the cover of the bridge. I move away from him and send my eyes down through the tunnel, and find three men standing over the defenceless woman. She’s still asleep, her mind switched off by Zander.
“We have to help her,” I say.
Zander tugs at my arm, dragging me away.
“We’re going back down, now,” he says.
“NO! You put her in that position. You put her to sleep. We’re not letting them take her,” I protest through gritted teeth.
Zander’s strong grip stays on me, and he pulls me right in front of him. I note his pupils dilating a little and he fixes me with that stare of his. And somewhere in my head, I feel him again.
He’s trying to manipulate me…
I fight back this time, battling him away. For a couple of seconds, we duel in my head, before the world materialises around me again.
“Get the hell out of my head!” I snarl. “We’re helping that woman, whether you like it or not.”
Now, on some sudden whim, it’s me who staggers into his consciousness. And it’s me who tries to subdue him with an order of my own. He repels me, kicking me right out.
“As much as I’m enjoying this cerebral scuffle, we’re wasting time,” he says with a droll slant to his eyes. “That was good, by the way. You knocked me right back…”
“Well…great. But this woman!”
I step off again. Zander’s grip on my arm isn’t going anywhere.
“Fine. God, if she means that much to you. They’re only Con-Cops. It won’t be a problem.”
“You’re sure? They’re not Stalkers?”
He huffs.
“Stalkers don’t bother with Disposables. I’ll go and sort them out. Wait here.”
He lets go of my arm and steps towards the wall. Now it’s my turn to grip his arm, strong and lean.