by Daryl Banner
“You okay?” Athan asks him when they’ve come to a stop.
“I’m fantastic,” he lies. “I’m so okay. Where’s the train?”
Wick has caught very little sleep since the rude awakening of his friends in that abandoned building, partly because they’ve been on a nonstop move—and also due to his own self-consciousness. How can he comfortably drift to sleep knowing his friends will be there, staring at him like some peculiar creature?
What Rone told him that morning still tortures him. Outlier. What else could his Legacy possibly be? Outlier. It wouldn’t be the first time Rone was wrong about something, but … What if …?
He feels Athan’s soft muscled body press into his back. For a second he assumes the crowdedness of the station to be the reason, but then he feels lips at his ears and a stomach-stirring fit of electricity works down his body. “I’m going to look after you. Now that I know you … Now that I’ve your innermost secret, and there’s nothing else between us, I promise you … I’ll protect you.”
Wick wants to smile. He wants to spin around and cling to Athan and do a handful of things not appropriate in public, but as fast as the happy urge finds him, so does reality. He is marked truant by now. He cannot have a homecoming anymore. His family is as good as dead to him, as he will have to explain his disappearance—and any matter of explanation will work against him, especially when brought to the ears of Guardian, his brothers included. He has a scrape of glow across his back that cannot be removed. He will be abducted by Sanctum, truant, taken to the King and sentenced to live the rest of his years in the Combs where he can cause no more trouble. Wake the world … It seems such a stupid thing now. Nothing is more awake than it was when they set out. The King still screams.
“It’s all a waste,” Wick says to the air. The noise of the crowd swallows his words, so they fall on no ears. “I should’ve stayed home that night. I shouldn’t have searched for a world without a screaming King. It’s my dream that did me in …”
The train has arrived. The screams of a neglected, under-kept rail fill the subterranean station and threaten to jostle everyone’s skulls from their heads. Wick stares at the thing from across the way. What’s the point in boarding it? What’s the point in going home? I have no home, not anymore.
Rone and Victra move toward the station, Tide following, self-consciously looking over his massive, plate-armored shoulder. Athan’s idea was genius; it’s like the armor itself is cause for the glow, not Tide’s guilty neon-soaked skin.
“Come,” says Athan, tickling Wick’s ear once more. “I’m craving a bowl of peppered white-noodle stuff, aren’t you? We’ll share a bowl of it when we’re back … whatever it’s called.” He comes to Wick’s front, gives a wink, then reaches out for his hand.
Wick gives half a playful squint, shoving down his stubborn, negative feelings. “I don’t hold hands.” But he does anyway.
When they reach the doors to the train, Wick’s heart gives three panicked jumps: a jump for each of the Guardian standing watch, eyeing them. The three Guardian do not look kind. What is it with Guardian, Wick wonders, trembling, that make them like that? Are Halves and Aleks like this too, turned stony and cruel? Please, he begs, we’ve already had a run-in. Please, please, not again. Please.
But somehow, he already knew it would happen. He is ready to face it. Every hair on his body prickles with anticipation.
“Hold it,” says the Guardian closest to them. “You.”
Tide jerks, all his ridiculous armor protesting in little metallic screeches when he stops to face them. He shows the whites of his eyes and swallows hard, licking his fat lips. Tide, you idiot, could you try to look a little less guilty?
Tide makes a squeak, which Wick belatedly realizes is a word: “Sir?”
“What’s with the gear?” The lightly-armored Guardian is equipped with a neon in his left hand and a long, hungry blade at his hip. The other two carry daggers in their belts. We could take them, Wick decides. They only have one neon … and even if we can’t wrest that from them in time, what trouble’s a few more glows?
Rone and Victra have already vanished into the train. Athan stands at Wick’s side, his breath pounding on his neck. Tide’s gone stone-scared, his mouth making impressively flexible movements, but not making words. Tide, you idiot. A lot of good the armor does when the wearer is too dumb to speak.
Wick pushes forward. “We’re headed home from the armory in the seventh, Sir. It’s for an important, time-sensitive school project. We’re in a hurry.”
“Three kids like you?” The Guardian wrinkles his face. He seems to be debating whether or not to believe them. “Armory, you say? I know every single one. What’s the name of this armory you claim you frequented?”
Of course, the group had phased into the basement of said armory, not having actually seen the name of it on any sign or posting in the street. “It’s … It’s …” Wick gives a genuine show of a person searching for a name. “We went to six or seven different stores. I can’t remember what the armory was called. Can you?” He looks to Tide innocently—and judging from the terror in his eyes, figures him to be the wrong person to have turned to—then faces Athan. “Do you remember?”
“Yeah, no, I don’t.” Athan plays along, rubbing his face. “We went to so many places. The one with the old man at the counter, and then the one with the funny smell … and then there was—”
The Guardian cuts them off, not having it. “How about you take off that armor, boy. Show us you aren’t hiding anything.”
Tide lifts a brow, as if he hadn’t heard the plainly-spoken request. “H-Huh?” He shifts a bit, the armor coughing with yet another trembling song of steels. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.
Wick makes a sad glance at the train, where Victra and Rone have emerged, watching this scene. They’re staying apart from it, likely in case something drastic has to happen—or so Wick tells himself. Surely Rone isn’t debating leaving them here. Victra’s eyes are closed; perhaps she’s looking for a way out through someone else’s. Little help that’ll be, Wick thinks bitterly.
The train makes a screech, steam filling the air above them. It’s about to leave us whether we get away from these fools or not. “We really have to go,” Wick complains, trying to hide any sign of desperation from his voice. “Look, the train is about to leave. Sirs, please, we’re already late as it is.”
They are unflinching. “Once your boy here shows my friends and I what’s under his armor, we’ll let you on your way.”
Wick keeps his eyes steady. His once-beseeching eyes are turning cold and hard. I’ve never killed anyone before. He considers how fast he can get that sword from the Guardian, how fast he can push it through him like a loaf of bread. He wonders if he can show this poor man the amazing payoff of his nightly training.
Suddenly, a new voice enters the tussle. “Why are we not embarked yet, children? Must I drag you three by the ears?”
Wick tries to turn his head, but the new person has wrapped a hand about his neck so firmly, he can only stare ahead in a startled and uncomprehending daze. It’s a woman’s hand and voice, and the other hand is gripped to Tide’s neck like a flesh noose from behind. I know that voice, Wick realizes, his stomach dropping.
“I’m—I’ve—” Now it is the Guardian who stammers, his little voice reaching for an answer. “I’m in the middle of questioning this boy for his—for his—”
“For the costume he’s donned? Yes, it’s for a school project. These are my students, and we’re late in our return, and you know very well what happens to late students, don’t you, Jerron?”
Professor Frey … It’s Professor Frey.
“Yes,” she continues, feeding off the now-frightened look in the Guardian’s eye, “I remember you. I taught in your ward when you were only a wee pip of eleven or twelve years. Didn’t know much then, don’t know much now.” She pushes ahead, bringing Wick and Tide behind her, almost protectively. “They told it straigh
t, didn’t they? A school project, for which they were sent to the seventh ward for costumes. My boy Tide here has found half an armory, looks like—overdone it, really.” She gives him an appraising glance-over and half a chuckle.
“He’s got a glow to him,” another of the three Guardian puts forth, daring to sound brave in front of the ever-intimidating Frey. “I see it beneath the sleeve of his armor. This boy’s been hit by—”
“Yes, he has,” Frey retorts, her voice carrying a deadly, icy severity. “And when I find out what foolish Guardian stung my innocent student with glow, I will have his head. You do know how much weight my word carries against you Guardian kids, don’t you? I’m a Professor of twenty years’ experience in the ninth and five years in the eighth, which basically makes me a Queen. I’ll be sure to let the Marshal of Peace himself know the grievance that has come to dear Tide for this wrongdoing.” Her eye twitches as she stares down the next Guardian boy from head to toe, and adds, “And don’t think for a second I don’t recognize you too, Hundro. You were smartest in my class. Please don’t tell me Guardian’s stolen away your smarts too. I’ll have to hold a funeral to mourn the passing of all my children’s brilliance.”
“No, ma’am.” The one called Hundro clears his throat, suddenly annoyed by his nearly automatic use of the word ma’am, then amends his response with, “No, Frey, we are not stolen of smarts. I’m still plenty smart. And I’m—I’m sorry your students were wrongly hit. Many Guardian have been rash over the last few weeks. We’ve had—We’ve had understandable … pressures.”
“Oh, I know all about pressures.” Frey doesn’t smile, not letting up in the least on the Guardian, built like steel and strong as the Queen she’d just named herself. “And I give no shit about you or your pressures, not when my children’s safety are at stake.”
“I cannot—We cannot remove the glow, ma’am—Frey. We cannot remove the glow, Frey. Only Trainers and Lead Officers and the—the Marshal himself can remove them.”
Frey gives a short huff. “I’m afraid of no Marshal. It ought to be me they fear, for the absurd and unwarranted trouble they’ve brought onto my innocent kids.”
The one in front, Jerron, narrows his eyes, still suspicious and unmoved. “Not all kids are innocent.”
“Quite true,” she says, turning cold. “And, as I remember right, neither were you, once.”
Jerron stares at her good and long and hard, his face warring with heated egotism. Then he finally moves aside, relenting.
“Yes.” Frey smiles for the first time, reminding Wick who this angry woman is in the first place, reminding him of all her classes he loves, reminding him of home, of repetitive days, of comforting things and lunch hours and the smell of the Greens that wafts across their schoolyard during midday. “Yes. You’ve learned.”
The whole of them move onto the train just as the doors shut in an ungentle sweep. And it’s over, just like that.
When they take seats, Athan sits to his left, Frey to his right, and Rone, Tide, and Victra make a place across from them. For an unbearably long while, no one speaks. The train shrugs to life, grinding horribly against the tracks. That’s when Rone finally breaks the nervous silence. “P-Professor Frey? How’d you—”
“Silence,” she says shortly, drawing the hood of an enormous woolen cloak over her head, and no more half-questions are asked.
Wick can hardly make his lungs work, glancing anxiously at Rone, who can only silently, dumbly, tremblingly return the glance with a blank, unknowing stare of his own. They’re both sharing the same thoughts, surely: what horrible sort of trouble are they in? How did Professor Frey find them? Aren’t they all marked truant by now? Rone … Wick … Tide? Victra’s been out of school for a year now and never attended theirs, coming from another part of the city, but even she watches Frey with as much apprehension, studying her suspiciously.
Athan slowly moves a hand onto Wick’s thigh. It’s supposed to be a comforting hand. It should comfort him. I don’t hold hands. He stares listlessly at the floor, waits for his fate to find him.
A forever amount of minutes later when the train comes to a stop, Frey lifts a hand. “No.”
Rone, who’d risen, sits back down, confused. “But—”
“Next stop.”
He looks to Victra for support, peers across the aisle at Wick, then obeys wordlessly, bothering with no further protest.
The train smells like the filth of criminals and the hum of its careless engines threatens to put Wick straight to sleep, if it weren’t for all the anxiety dancing in his stomach. He rocks side to side, drowsy by the events of late. Don’t yawn. Don’t close your eyes, not again. Haven’t you already learned that lesson? But he lets his head rock too far one way, and it finds perfect perch on Athan’s broad, soft shoulder. Then he lets his hand find Athan’s, late in taking his little offer of comfort … if it’s the last comfort he’s ever afforded. He might not be able to see his face, but he’s sure Athan’s smiling.
At the following destination, the train grinds to a halt, stirring Wick impolitely from the coziness his head had just discovered. Frey rises, sweeping the cloak about her shoulders and, without further instruction or gesture, leading them out of the train. Athan goes boldly first, Wick following. Behind them, a frightened Tide and a nervous Rone and a needle-eyed Victra bring up the back.
Plummeting straight into an alley from off the station, Frey leads them through a stone tunnel marrying two tall buildings that reeks of foul, sour foods. Along the way they pass a busted sewage pipe and two long dumpster bins, about which flies and buzzing unseeables make business.
Frey pries open a large wooden door leading into the ground at the back of an alley, revealing the steps to a nightmarish darkness below. “In,” she orders.
“Where are we going?” Rone demands to know, though his voice betrays the confidence he’s trying to put on.
“Where else?” she asks vaguely. “In. Questions later.”
Surprisingly, Victra shoves ahead carelessly, thrusting herself down the stairs and vanishing into the dark. Rone reluctantly follows, his hands visibly shaking as he grips the sides of the wall for support. Tide makes his way next, following by Athan, and when Wick takes the first step, he lets his eyes meet Frey’s. She gives him a wink as he passes.
As the door swings shut behind them, Frey pushes ahead of the group to lead the way. Down the incomprehensibly lightless hall, they blindly walk on and on, trusting the floor is still there with every step. Very occasionally, there is a feeble bulb that hardly has a purpose at all, lending just the littlest of an amber tint to their existence. Only once does the hall give a sudden bend upward, ramping back toward the surface. No one says a word the entire time, only their shuffling feet communicating their reluctant trek toward—well, wherever they’re going.
They arrive at a dead-end, and Frey reaches high up to poke at something in the ceiling. A latch, it sounds like, and something opens in the dark, spilling a frightful pool of light across them all. Rone and Tide shield their faces, Victra merely shutting her eyes. Athan instinctually moved in front of Wick, as if to guard him from something, but then Frey moves ahead into the lit passage. One by one they follow.
When Wick makes his entrance, his stomach drops to his feet.
“The cellar!” exclaims Rone, stealing everyone else’s words. “This is the cellar of the—of the Noodle Shop! Guys! We’re … We’re …” He shakes his head and slaps a palm to his brow.
Indeed, the passage has led them straight to the basement level of the Noodle Shop, though Wick has, admittedly, not been down here more than twice; once to fetch a broom, another just out of curiosity.
A sudden, obvious question hits Wick in the face like a lover’s fist. He lifts his suspicious gaze to Frey who simply stands there, staring stonily at a barred metal door opposite the stairs that lead up to the Noodle Shop. She seems in thought, troubled.
“Professor Frey … How do you know this place?” asks Wick, fearing th
e answer.
She nods at the door, her back still to them. “Beyond this door is our upper hand. Beyond this door … is our key.”
They spend an unexciting moment staring at the ugly metal access, barred and rusted at its edges. It probably makes quite an unattractive sound when it swings open on those worn, ancient hinges.
Wick persists. “You didn’t answer my—”
“It’s time I remove the cloak,” she says. “It’s time I unshade the shade. Rain’s on the precipice of a great work and I cannot hide any longer. We’re reunited, but unsafe. We are, all of us, as ready as we’ll ever be. Beyond this door … is the Weapon of Sanctum.” She faces them now, her eyes alight with inspiration. “Dream big, my children.”
It’s Rone who says it. “You’re Gandra Gateward! You’re the leader of Rain!”
She gives him the wink she’d earlier given Wick, a smile playing on her smart, thin little lips. “For all your smarts, you sure are a slow one, Rone.”
0053 Halvesand
All the files are spread across the table. The lab is out of order—something about the computers frying from the power outage a week ago—and Halves was never good at putting thoughts to words with a pencil, so he simply stares at the files, reading slowly. Someone took photographs and made prints of the graphic the graffiti bomb had laid out at the wreckage of the Lifted City Park. Halves takes the print, laying it next to the one they all witnessed at the Weapon Show, comparing them, scrutinizing. Let it rain, he wonders. We are the real weapon. Blue. The Wrath …
It’s never felt right to him. By all means, they’ve caught the ones responsible for the disturbance at the Weapon Show, but he has so difficult a battle with his conscience pinning the fall of the Lord’s Garden on those two Wrath brothers. Surely Obert can’t be so naïve. There’s no way it was just them. There’s more out there, there has to be. Someone else. Many someone else’s. But who? But where?