“What do you need me to do?”
Jack smiles, visibly relaxing as he sits back in the cushioned seat. “It’s not what we need. It’s what they need. And you’re going to give it to them.”
“And that is…?”
“The rebellion, Franklin. You’re going to track it down and hand its leaders to the Sovereign. You’re going to be more than they ever dreamed you could be. They will love you for it. More importantly, they will trust you. And once you’ve gained their trust…you’ll be able to take down an Empire.”
Chapter 7
I stagger forward as the Dogmen snarl behind me, reaching for their batons. The door leans drunkenly on its broken hinges, exposing the smoggy view of the outdoors. My wife calls out my name. The fear in her voice swells in my head until I feel I will go mad from the agony. I stumble forward out the door.
The area is swamped with flashing lights. Men in black uniforms aim rifles at me as their mouths open to spill out cautionary demands. I ignore them as I search for my wife and son. They are forced to their knees. Our eyes lock, and the fear I see makes me want to howl until my voice shatters.
Something explodes in the back of my head.
When I open my eyes, everything is hazy. I am still clubbed relentlessly by the Dogmen batons. The sound of their blows turning my flesh into pulp is distant, a torture that affects another man, a man I used to be before everything I loved was torn from me with brutal persistence…
WA
KE
UP
A loud tap on the window disrupts the reality I dream to escape from. It takes a moment for my distorted surroundings to coalesce into the artificiality the Sovereign has gone to such pains to present as authentic. I am in one of the sleek transports of the Sovereign, where I have been awaiting the arrival of the Dogmen.
Butcher leers down at me, a smile on his canine face. “Wake up, Cinderella. You’ll be late for the ball.” His laugh is harsh as gravel in a meat grinder.
I open the door and step onto the artificial turf of one of the pristine suburban neighborhoods which grow like lichen to the exoskeleton of The City. I immediately notice a group of citizens dragged roughly from the adjacent house. Lights click on as the neighboring residents emerge from their homes. It is required that any arrest be witnessed by the accused party’s neighbors.
The guilty faction is a group composed of different ages and races, but their faces are united in defiance in the same manner the drones reflect their defeated obedience. It is strange to see the lack of fear of the Dogmen who surround them.
I stand a few paces away and begin my announcement as the residents silently gather around.
“These ‘citizens’ have been found guilty of gathering without a license, a misdemeanor. These ‘citizens’ have also been found guilty of the felony charges of sedition against the Sovereign, intent to carry out terrorist activity, as well as—”
“Traitor!”
The word rings out with unmistakable clarity, slicing through my deliberation like a switch through smoke. My words falter and collapse in the face of such outright insubordination.
The Dogmen growl furiously. Butcher’s bestial eyes flash as he whirls around. “Who said that? Which one of you spineless cowards would dare?”
The crowd around us is a sea of expressionless faces, but their eyes—their eyes shimmer with anger, embers of suppressed fury long buried but never extinguished. The rage continued to smolder deep inside, awaiting only the most convenient outlet to explode outward in an eruption of violence.
“Leave them alone!” another faceless voice shouts from the crowd.
Slaver drips from Butcher’s lips. “So it’s going to be the hard way, is it? Suits me just fine.” His hand slides to the baton at his side. “We’ll see how brave you are when your brains are pouring out of your ears.”
I see the projectile sail across the air. It is just a rock, a large chunk of broken concrete. So ordinary, yet the message it carries shouts with the voices of a thousand swollen throats bellowing with rage.
Butcher feels it in a physical sense when it shatters across his head.
As he stumbles, the crowd surges. People who only days ago would have been cowed into silent submission now voice their frustration with wordless shouts and swinging limbs. The Dogmen are caught in the swell, swinging their batons in astonished fury.
“What the hell has gotten into you people? Get back. Back, I said!”
It is too late for threats to have an effect. The citizens have gone mad, drunk on their newfound courage. As the Dogmen fight for their lives, I am not forgotten. Hands seize me and pull me to the ground. I struggle to free myself as fists pummel me gently.
Gently?
“Listen.” The man pretending to hit me smiles, his face flushed. “It will be soon. The people are ready. The Sovereign is ready to fall.”
I automatically fall into the role of feigning to struggle. “You are…part of the resistance?”
“As you are. There are many of us. More than ever before. You must be ready to move when the order is given.”
“What is my task?”
“Jack will tell you. Your role is the hardest. But all of us must sacrifice for the sake of the truth, and our freedom.”
Gunshots ring out. As bodies topple, the haze of rebelliousness quickly dissipates. People scatter, ducking their heads as the illusion of defiance is replaced by the crushing reality of bloodshed. The man who pulled me down gives me a last quick smile before rising up to flee.
The smile is still on his face when the bullet tears a hole through his chest.
“Are you all right?” Ursula’s pistol is still smoking as she offers me a hand. I accept it numbly, concentrating on not staring at the corpse which only a moment ago had been a comrade. I don’t know the man’s name, but he was my brother. Bound by the same battle against an Empire that oppressed us both.
He is not the only casualty. Other bodies lie on the ground, staining the turf dark with blood. The streets are desolate once more; silent as the death that surrounds us.
“Burn it all.” Butcher literally quivers with rage. “We need to burn this entire neighborhood to the ground. Attacking the agents of the Sovereign? Next they’ll be marching on the City. I’ll raze this whole block. I’ll torch all of them!”
“Start a fire and it spreads.” Jack strides up casually, oozing arrogance in his officer persona. His face is masked in a contemptuous sneer. “Sheep is all they are. They’ll follow whoever feeds them and scatter at the first glimpse of a wolf.”
He glances down at the Dog of War emblazoned on his breast and smiles. “Or a Dog. But if we press too hard then the morale may continue to drop until thoughts of rebellion are all they will have to keep them warm at night. We have what we came for.” He gestures to the captives who the Dogmen barely managed to keep under guard. “Without their shepherds, the sheep will go back to grazing in no time.”
“Agent Kilgore is correct.” Ursula’s chin rises imperiously. “These criminals are the ones who ignited this act of rebellion. And they will pay the price. Process them.”
All it would take is for a single one of the indicted group to expose me with a look, a word, a screaming betrayal. But no one does. They allow themselves to be manhandled into the waiting transports without a glance in my direction.
It seems silence is a weapon for both sides of this war.
~*~
Jack’s face is somber as he looks at me. “I know that was hard for you.”
We are in his pristine office after the day’s events. Emily sits nearby at a secretary’s desk. Every item in the room down to the paperweight on the desk is a shout of allegiance to the Sovereign Empire. Jack stands behind his steel-backed chair, the paragon of an oppressive officer. It is only the concern in his eyes that betrays him.
I scrub my fingers through my hair. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Jack’s eyes are intense. “You must.”
“Pe
ople are dying, Jack. Am I to stand with a mask on my face and pretend I feel nothing?”
Jack smiles. I realize his smile is his lifeline, the most destructive weapon he possesses to defy the Sovereign. “In a war where the truth is concealed, a mask becomes a fair weapon, Franklin. I warned you this would not be easy. Make no mistake: it will get worse from here. The endgame approaches, and in the distance is the sound of revolution. We haven’t gotten this far to quit now. What you and I will have to do will be the most difficult. But the end result will be the collapse of this prison. Are you still committed to that end, Franklin?”
I meet his gaze firmly. “With all of my heart.”
“And are you willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that task?”
“I am.”
He gazes at me, silent for a moment before he nods. “We will see. Time is not our friend right now. The agents of Sovereign are close. They should be –we’ve left enough breadcrumbs for them to follow. For this gambit to work, the trap must be sprung. It is time you delivered the Coalition to your superiors. Doing so will gain their trust and allow you in the Inner Circle. You will have access to doors we have been unable to open.”
His eyes glimmer. “And when you do, you will open them.”
“When is this supposed to happen?” I ask.
“Soon.” Jack holds out his hand. In it is a small red capsule-shaped object.
“What’s that?”
“What you need. Place it in your ear.”
I pause for a second before obeying. Immediately I wince as fire laces my inner ear. I clap my hand to my head, but the pain continues to torment in tingling waves.
“It hurts!”
Jack nods. “It’s prototype tech. The pill dissolves and forms a lining in your inner ear. The gel is filled with tiny machines which will disrupt the Sovereign’s signal and completely liberate your mind from their dominion. It will also allow you to communicate with Emily when it becomes necessary.”
The pain gradually subsides. I look at Emily, who smiles reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Franklin. I’ll be there when you need me.”
I turn back to Jack. “Why won’t you be on the line? Where are you planning to be?”
For the first time since I met him, Jack’s eyes become troubled. But the instant passes quickly, and his customary smile returns. “Best not to ask. Let’s go over your responses before you get some sleep, Franklin. You will need your wits about you tomorrow.
“Because an Empire is about to fall.”
Chapter 8
They live only in my dreams.
The woman with autumn hair and laughing eyes along with the child who shares her features. I see them night after night, always the same scene. The moment is captured in my mind like a hummingbird in hand; beautiful and ever so fragile.
It is breakfast time. The table is chipped and as threadbare as their clothing, but somehow that doesn’t matter. There is something precious there, something poverty cannot touch. It’s in the light in her eyes as she gently pats her son’s cheek. It’s in his answering smile. Streams of light effuse through the blinds as though the sun shines harder for them, illuminating the room in saffron shades like a photograph dusted in gold.
Yet the only thing I feel is fear.
For I know what happens next: the booming sound at the door that rattles the hinges, the look of animal fear in her eyes. Her hair swings as she protectively clutches her son, the child who now wears a mask of fear instead of a face.
The door splinters inward, and I see the twisted, inhuman faces. The suited figures snarl, delighting in her screams. She pulls her son away from the table, disrupting the tablecloth. A mug of coffee slides across and falls to the floor.
The pottery shatters. Warm liquid pools across the tiles. I see my reflection upon its surface: the fear on my face, my mouth open in a scream of pain and rage and hate. I stretch out my hand, but cannot touch them, cannot come to their aid. The Dogmen that have me pinned to the ground are too heavy, their blows rain upon my head with relentless insistence for my submission.
I feel no pain, only terror as she and the child are pulled away from me, lost in a sea of flailing limbs and snarling faces. Our screams mingle in chorus as they are snatched through the door while I lie helpless, my face shoved against floorboards slick with my own blood.
Something snaps inside of me. I become weightless as I rise with a wild roar, hurling the Dogmen away like small children. I have to reach the door, to follow my wife and son before they are gone forever.
I stagger forward as the Dogmen snarl behind me, reaching for their batons. The door leans drunkenly on its broken hinges, exposing the smoggy view of the outdoors. My wife calls out my name. The fear in her voice swells in my head until I feel I will go mad from the agony. I stumble forward out the door.
The area is swamped with flashing lights. Men in black uniforms aim rifles at me as their mouths open to spill out cautionary demands. I ignore them as I search for my wife and son. They are forced to their knees. Our eyes lock, and the fear I see makes me want to howl until my voice shatters.
Something explodes in the back of my head.
When I open my eyes, everything is hazy. I am still clubbed relentlessly by the Dogmen batons. The sound of their blows turning my flesh into pulp is distant, a torture that affects another man, a man I used to be before everything I loved was torn from me with brutal persistence.
Two shots ring out.
Their bodies plummet like the last leaves of autumn, collapsing upon crushed gravel and broken asphalt. It is blasphemous somehow. They deserve so much better than mere dirt to rest upon.
Crimson rivulets creep from their bodies in abstract patterns.
A pair of polished boots enters my vision, obscuring the sight of the corpses which only moments ago were my wife and son. A pleated uniform. An officer’s hat. A smoking gun in a gloved hand.
“That is what becomes of traitors,” a familiar voice says. Only it is so cold, so devoid of humanity.
The figure turns. The face is a frozen mask of indifference, but I know it well.
It is Jack.
WA
KE
UP
I arise to a world that I do not know. The very fabric of my being is suspect, my reality a disturbing mirage of instances I cannot verify. The Smiling Man is on the screen, but his words are mute to my ears. Flickers of distorted images form and shatter in my mind, slicing my sanity with razor edges. I put on my uniform with a mind full of static, incoherent to the new world I have awakened to.
I know now that Ursula has lied to me. That in itself is no surprise. The truth was always there, buried deep within my subconscious where reason and hope could not reach it. My wife and son are long dead, crushed beneath the unfeeling wheels of the Sovereign’s machine. Murdered in cold blood by Agent Jack Kilgore, the very same man who has awakened me from the haze of indoctrination that has drugged my mind like opium fumes.
I have every reason to hate Jack. And I have every reason to thank him as well.
There is nothing I can do except continue on. Obedience is a familiar mindset for me, like stepping into well-worn shoes. I stride down the massive, overbearing hallway. Somehow it appears less grand than just the last time I passed through. It appears…dated. Cracks lace the walls in web-like patterns; the tiles on the floor are scuffed and worn with use. It is impossible for my surroundings to have altered so drastically, but there is no mistaking that things have changed.
Citizens part before my black uniform in choreographed fashion as I make my way to the belly of the beast. I have never had reason to go into the officer’s wing except when meeting with Jack. But it is not Jack’s door I stop in front of.
It is Ursula’s.
“Come in.” Her voice interrupts my knock. I am sure she watched me approach via the hidden eyes installed in every sector of the building. When I enter, she looks up from the head of a table full of officers. They wear cloned faces as they gaze a
t me in supercilious curiosity.
Ursula places one hand on her hip. “What is the reason for your visit, SVR Gamble?”
I hesitate for only an instant as I realize Butcher stands at the door. I hardly recognize him because instead of a dog’s head, he wears only a helmet fashioned after a dog. The unshaven face that glares from the depths of the helmet is sallow, the eyes red-rimmed and swollen, the skin cragged and saggy. He growls at me, which suddenly seems utterly ridiculous in view of his current manifestation.
I suddenly recall the pain, the burning sensation as the capsule melded itself to my inner ear. It appears to be working. Apparently the Dogmen and the pristine condition of the Empire are all a part of the illusion grafted to our consciousness by the hypnotic suggestions driven into our minds every day upon awakening.
I am forced to swallow the revelation quickly as I turn to Ursula. “I have gathered information that is pertinent, Madam Lieutenant. The leadership of the Coalition gathers tonight, and I have ascertained the location.”
The room buzzes with excitement. Ursula holds up a hand to quiet them, though her eyes glimmer with anticipation.
“You are sure about this?”
“Without a doubt, Madam Lieutenant.”
She claps her hands together and the officers leap up, almost running as they leave to ready their men. As the room clears, she gives me a questioning glance.
“Where is Agent Kilgore? Is he not supposed to be with you?”
Their bodies plummet like the last leaves of autumn…
I dismiss the thought. “I do not know, Madam Lieutenant.” It is the honest truth. I have no wish to see Jack after the lucidity of the dream.
I am afraid of what I will learn.
Ursula adjusts her tight leather gloves and reaches for her officer’s hat. “We do not have time to locate him. I will take you in my transport. This raid must happen now. We may not get this chance again.”
~*~
The interior of the transport is claustrophobic. Not because of the men that sit on the edge of their seats methodically checking their weapons and gear. It is the proximity of Ursula, who sits tightly against me. If only her appearance was an illusion as well, but it seems her allure is completely genuine.
Silent Empire Page 4
