by Alex Leopold
He did the best job he could, promising himself he wouldn’t seek out the prophecy when he was done. Yet, the moment he was finished he found himself descending down into her consciousness.
Stepping into her memories was like opening a door into a storm. The visions of the prophecy had flooded into every part of her brain, and laid waste to everything they came into contact with.
Navigating through this was almost impossible, but Quill needed to know what fate the last prophecy had chosen for his daughters so he pressed through.
When he finally found what he was looking for, the vision was so heavily damaged it was practically achronic; all color and light having been bled away to the point where he could barely see anything. Which was why he didn’t see the body tumbling through the air toward him until the last second.
Landing painfully to the sound of a bone breaking he heard a woman expel an agonizing shriek. He tried to see her face but she kept it hidden as she clawed her way through the dirt, pulling herself toward a sword that had fallen just out of reach.
She had a bloodied and trembling hand around its hilt when the heel of a boot stamped down hard on her wrist and shattered bone.
The sword was kicked away, and then the girl in the dirt was kicked in the chest to spin her over so she could face her attacker.
Feeling that kick, but a thousand times more painfully, Quill saw with horror that the woman in the dirt and her attacker were his two daughters.
Which was which though? Unfortunately, he couldn't tell in that instant. Their hair styles had both changed and their faces were so badly beaten he couldn’t tell them apart.
“One must fall, so the other can rise.” The girl in the dirt grinned.
She was going to say more, wanted to say more, but wasn’t give the chance. The sword flashed quickly and putting her whole body behind it, his other daughter plunged the blade down deep into her sister’s chest.
Quill fell backwards onto the cool marble floor, his body shaking as if gripped by a blind terror.
“What did you see?” Nakano looked at him with wide-eyed concern.
She was holding the notebook in her lap and the moment Quill saw it he lunged for it and tore through the pages till he found the passage she'd written down a few nights ago.
|| At the end, there can only be one. One must fall, so the other can rise ||
He’d thought it meant he’d have to kill Bellic so that only one Pathfinder remained. Yet, it wasn’t about his fate at all, it was about his daughters.
He remained still as he re-read this passage, his body almost catatonic, his face twisted in shock. Then he heard Riley’s voice.
“Is everything alright?” She asked from nearby.
Her voice jolted him back to the present and he quickly got to his feet.
“I thought I told you to get some rest.” He said needing the extra time to collect his thoughts.
“You should get some sleep too. Are you almost finished?” She replied.
He nodded not looking at her. He didn’t want to look into her eyes and imagine her capable of doing what he’d just seen play out in Nakano’s mind. She’s not capable, he told himself.
And yet, if tomorrow they managed to escape through the Harvardtown gateway to Hellanta. If they were to meet with Malthus and the rest of the resistance. If they were to find the Key. Then this vision of the future would also come to pass.
“Yes, I’m done here.” He announced and tried to clear from his head the thought that one day one of his daughter’s was going to kill the other.
52
Disorientated from her time trawling the void, she had to lean heavily on her beacon and the other six psychics to safely pull her back to the real world. The return journey was never an easy one, but somehow this time felt more difficult than usual, and at one point her heart skipped when she thought she’d been caught in the void’s vortex and was about to be consumed by it. Then she was rising free and her beacon pulled her across the divide.
When she woke the Watcher was standing above her cot admiring her with a basilisk’s glare.
“What did you see?”
“The vision of the Myrmidons returning to Harvardtown, I saw it more clearly this time.” The girl began. “I saw everything.”
“Tell me.” The Watcher commanded.
At sunset the six horsemen cleared the tree-line and began making their way down the track to the bridge that spanned the Mystic river and led into Harvardtown.
Acadia and Redtail lead the column. Their hands were bound by thick rope and their clothes and faces had been scuffed by thorns to make it look like they’d been in a fight. With hunched shoulders and heavy heads, Riley thought the two men certainly looked the part. She just hoped she was just as convincing.
Dressed in black and with her Myrmidon mask covering her face, she rode right behind them, her long-rifle nestled in her hip trained on the grizzly’s back.
At least Nakano and her father didn’t have to try to look believable. The runaway Irenic was wasting away in front of their very eyes, fighting as much to cling to reality as she was to life. And their father was draped like a corpse over his horse, a burnt whole in the back of his coat.
“Comfy?” Acadia had teased before they’d left the cave.
“Just peachy.” He’d replied. “Might be a whole hour before my stomach loses my lunch.”
As she directed her horse up the ramp, Riley snuck a glance back at Cooper who was guarding the rear of the column. Hidden behind her own Myrmidon mask, she could do no more than give her sister a small nod of encouragement.
“Open the gate!”
The guards shouted at one another when they saw them approach the barricade. Then three men dressed in the grey uniform of the Directory threw themselves on a wheel and began turning it as fast as they could. It wasn’t easy work, the metal gates looked almost as old and as badly maintained as the ancient bridge itself, and the wheel creaked loudly in protest as it turned upon its axis.
“Conformity and Obedience!” One of the guards, a toady-blend, wheezed pumping a tired fist against his chest when Riley cleared the barricade.
He’d been one of the three working the wheel and he looked pale from exhaustion. Or was it fear?
No question he was scared of her, or at least of the person he thought she was; the Myrmidon, the Archon’s assassin. He didn’t dare lift his eyes from the ground as she halted her horse in front of him and, like a dog, he hung his head in meekest surrender.
If he only knew, she thought. How things would change if he could tell how tight her throat was, or how the sweat ran down her back from the fear that gripped her. She couldn’t allude to any of this of course. She. couldn’t even admit it to her own self how scared she was, in case the snoopers picked up her thoughts.
“Make sure you don’t let your mind stray.” Her father had reminded them. “This close, even your most private thoughts can give you up.”
“And how exactly do I stop my mind from thinking?” Riley had asked.
“You need to stay relaxed, snoopers find it easier to break into a mind when it’s stimulated. Best thing to do is count to ten loudly in your head.”
“And when I get there?”
“Count again.”
Riley had been doing nothing else for the past two hours.
“Conformity and Obedience, Senior Guard.” She tapped. Myrmidons rarely spoke aloud.
“We have prisoners for the Archon. We’re taking them to the gateway directly.”
To emphasize her point, she jabbed the long-rifle into Acadia’s back. He turned and growled at her for effect, but before he looked away he gave her a quick wink.
“When it’s the moment of truth, you’re not going to be able to talk to any of us, not even your sister.” He’d warned that morning. “If you’re feeling all alone out there, I want you to do me a favor, and hit me.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Cause it’ll remind you I’m right
there next to you, and that I’ll die before I let anything bad happen to you.”
He’d been right and that brief moment of intimacy calmed her.
“The gateway, absolutely.” The toady guard agreed while making a great show of contrition.
“You can be on your way immediately. There’s just one thing first…” He made a reluctant gesture to an approaching woman with the red hand painted on the shoulder of her uniform.
“I have orders to skin-read anyone that passes through this checkpoint. There are … There are no exceptions.”
“I’m aware of the law, Senior Guard.” She tapped as she slowly dismounted.
Every move she made was deliberate. The fear of catching her foot and falling out of the saddle plagued the thoughts she couldn’t have.
Count to ten, she reminded herself as she let out a slow breath.
“Let’s get on with it.” She commanded and hurried the skin-reader over.
The red painted hand indicated the skin-reader had been normalized and upon the guard’s command, she reached out and placed a hand on Riley’s mask.
“Usually, the anomaly will place a hand on a person’s skin, to uncover if that person is with the resistance or not.” Nakano had told her.
“That’s a problem.” Riley pointed out.
“It would be, but no Myrmidon will ever let a simple skin-reader touch them. Instead, they’ll get the confirmation they need from reading the mask. The Archon imprinted his voice into everyone of them.”
“Including this one?”
“Yes.” Their father agreed. “But the impression has faded a little, it might take the skin-reader a second to pick it up.”
So when the anomaly had to push her hand a little more firmly against her mask, Riley tried not to stiffen.
She wanted the comfort of her sword in her hand, but her father had told her not to so much as move until he did. Instead she casually folded her arms as if the whole thing was beginning to bore her.
“I can hear the Archon’s voice.” The skin-reader finally announced. The moment she did, the toady guard pushed her aside.
“You have communication with the city?” Riley asked feeling a little more confident.
“We do.” The guard confirmed and pointed to a telephonic device on a nearby table.
“Get me the Sheriff.”
The guard made a great sign of obedience and ran over to the communication device.
Cranking the handle to signal for the operator, he demanded to be transferred to the Sheriff’s office.
“Here.” He said offering her the receiver and handset when he had him.
“Sheriff?”
“Tuatura here.” He confirmed through the static. “I’m to tell you, the Watcher already received your order and we’ve gone ahead and shut-down the broadcasting room and snooper hive.”
“What?” A stunned Riley croaked.
“Yes, I received the broadcast directly from the Watcher about an hour ago.”
Riley continued to stammer as she struggled to decide on what to do. This was not what they’d practiced. Her father had not warned her this might happen. Did that mean nothing, or that this was a trap?
“Can you hear me?” The sheriff asked. “I forgot to mention we’ve also powered up the gateway. We’ll be ready to send you to Sancisco the moment you arrive.”
She had to make a decision, she’d been silent for too long already.
“That is good.” She said almost breathlessly as she handed the receiver back to the guard.
“Is there anything else I can do for you? Would you like an escort?” The guard asked.
She ignored him. Climbing back into her saddle, she motioned her horse forward and rode off the bridge without a word.
“What just happened?” Her father asked after she came to his side.
“You forgot to give the order.” Cooper pointed out.
“I didn’t forget, the sheriff had already received it from the Watcher.”
“What?”
“He told me, the Watcher gave him the order an hour ago to shut down the broadcasters and snoopers. So it’s already happened.”
“Her predictors must’ve witnessed you give the order. She must’ve thought it was urgent enough to do it herself.” Her father guessed.
“This future-seeing business makes my skin crawl.” Acadia shivered.
That was an understatement, Riley thought. For days they’d been talking about using visions of the future to change the world. Yet, this was the first time she’d experienced this power. Now, she understood why so many feared the Directory. How could you fight an enemy who knew your next move before you’d even made it?
“So the snoopers and broadcasters are down?”
“The sheriff said they were, yes.”
“Then we’re good to go, right?” Cooper asked.
“Yes, but let’s not delay.” Their father agreed with noticeable concern.
“What’s worrying you?” Acadia asked.
“I didn’t anticipate how far forward the Watcher’s predictors would be able to see. It’s possible they’ve already seen us using the gateway. Which means right now they’re doing everything they can to re-establish contact with Harvardtown.”
“How quickly can they do that?”
He shook his head. “I don't know.”
53
Riding into Harvardtown was like entering a nightmare.
Through endless wastelands of broken homes and rubble they rode toward a city where, from nearly every rooftop, endless columns of dirty black smoke rose into the sky. It made the city look like it was on fire.
When the wind blew in their direction, it carried with it this coal filled stink, as well as a smell of decay that poisoned the air and made Cooper want to gag.
It also brought unnatural sounds she’d never heard before. Engines driving machinery and metal being fired, shaped and hammered into place. The sound of steam escaping in sharp whistles, and the slaughter of cattle.
It quickened Cooper’s heart and tensed every muscle in her body, but she forced herself to push through. For as scared as she was, she’d also come to entertain the idea that they were going to make it.
As the last of the day’s light began to bleed away into the night’s sky they found themselves in the heart of Harvardtown. The old library, and the gateway inside it, were only a thousand feet in front of them. If Cooper were to spur her horse on she could be there in a minute or two.
They were going to succeed, she realized. Despite all the obstacles, despite all the mistakes, their plan was working.
It was working despite the two occasions when they’d lost their way and had been forced to ask for directions.
It was working even though it seemed as if there were Directory guards watching them from almost every street corner and rooftop.
It was working even though Acadia was too imposing to look like he could ever be their prisoner.
In fact, there were so many reasons why their plan shouldn't be working it seemed amazing it was. Yet, it was, and if they made it through the gateway today it meant something else too.
“If this works then the prophecy is real.” Riley had told her.
“So?”
“So, if it’s real then it means we can win this war, Coop. It means we can save everyone in this nation.”
So they had to get through, Cooper realized. For the sake of everyone living under the Directory’s tyranny, they had to get through.
And they were almost there.
As electric lights flickered on, factory doors were pushed open and long lines of citizens poured into the street. Malnourished and dressed in coarse drab clothing, they started to shuffle back to their homes, but rushed out of street when they spotted the two Myrmidons approaching. Once they’d cleared, Cooper noticed a twenty man division of guards marching their way.
“Can’t you make yourself look smaller?” She snipped at Acadia.
“How about you make yourself lo
ok bigger?” The ursinian growled back but tried all the same to hunch his massive body lower in the saddle.
Her father shushed them all with a tap. “No one does anything unless I give the signal.”
Up ahead the division came to a halt. A beak-headed scaley dressed in a sheriff’s uniform stepped forward to greet them.
“Conformity and Obedience!” He said and pumped a fist to his chest. “I congratulate you on your capture. I wanted to inform you myself that the gateway is ready.”
“Tell them, we’ll go there immediately.” Their father tapped to Riley who repeated it.
“Of course!” Agreed the sheriff but remained in their way. “My men and I will escort you.”
Cooper ran an eye over the sheriff’s division and counted at least five who wore the red painted hand of normalized anomalies.
“That’s not necessary." Again Riley repeated her father’s tap. “Tell your men they can stand down.”
“As you wish.” The sheriff fawned. He turned to give his men the order, but before he could a bell began to ring from the nearby church.
“What is that?” Cooper heard her sister ask as more bells rung out across the city. Riley’s tone suggested she already knew the answer. Someone had raised the alarm.
“It is…” The sheriff stumbled over his words as he wiped a hand across his suddenly slick forehead.
He knows something is wrong, Cooper thought as the sheriff’s beak-shaped head snapped back to look at the Myrmidons in front of him, his eyes judging them more intently this time.
“Tell them, we’re going to the gateway chamber.” Cooper tapped. “Ride over him if you have to.”
When she gave the order, the sheriff gave a humble smile and took a step back. Then he turned to his guards and ran a finger across his throat.
54
Riley’s father didn’t wait, he rose from his position firing his pistol while the spark grew in his other hand. It spooked Riley’s horse and before she could stop it, she was thrown from her saddle into the dirt landing awkwardly on her back. Gasping as a painful spasm erupted along the length of her spine, she was momentarily disoriented.