by Lynn Mann
As they grew, we saw them moved from incubators to cots, which they were only allowed to leave in order to use the bathroom or to attend their lessons. They were forbidden to communicate with one another except during language lessons and they learnt quickly to obey the rules in order to avoid the instantaneous pain that would result from any infraction.
As they matured, they were transferred to stark, grey holding cells, from which they were taken from time to time to walk the streets in small groups with human handlers. Due to their animal heritage, they were Aware. They could feel the mental instability that permeated the cities and they fought hard to keep their behaviour calm, controlled and within the parameters of the computer programs that controlled them. Children were allowed and often encouraged to taunt them and throw stones, in order to instil into them the fact that they were different and also in the hope of encouraging controlled anger and ruthlessness in the young Kindred, known then as Enforcers. If no abuse from children was forthcoming then the handlers themselves would dispense it. The Enforcers knew that however much humiliation and pain they experienced, it was nothing compared to the pain they would endure as a result of their chips if they were to retaliate, so they were forced to tolerate all abuse without complaint or reaction. They felt fury, shame, resentment and a continual, soul-sapping sadness.
As the Enforcers became powerful adults, capable of scaling buildings, ripping humans to shreds with their fangs and talons and being almost impossible to harm due to their power, speed and exceedingly tough skin, they underwent their training to be members of the ultimate police force. Infraction of rules by any human resulted in their elimination by the Enforcers, who followed orders issued by the computers that controlled them without delay in order to avoid the pain that would otherwise result. There was no place for any moral judgment of their own; they were bred and raised purely to obey and to do despicable things to humans who broke the law. Some of them came to relish inflicting abuse on humans in return for all that they had suffered, despite the agony of being Aware of the suffering of their victims. A few of them learnt to remove themselves from what they were forced to do, to go elsewhere within their minds as their bodies carried out their instructions, in order to protect themselves from the horror. Many more merely withered away inside.
When the people of The Old destroyed themselves, their computers were destroyed with them. All of the Enforcers who were above ground when the explosions occurred, died alongside the humans. Those who were off-duty and in their holding cells many floors below ground were surprised by the sudden opening of their cell doors as the lights went out. They stayed where they were, too frightened of the pain that would result from them stepping outside their cells unbidden. After a while, when no humans appeared, a few dared to venture out into the corridor. No pain. After some hours of waiting to see what would happen next, over a hundred Enforcers tentatively climbed the stairs up towards ground level. The higher they went, the more rubble they had to shift in order to continue their journey but their powerful limbs made little of the work. When they finally reached what had been the second-to-top floor, they found themselves standing in fresh air with warm rain falling gently about them. Of the humans and computers who had controlled them, there was no evidence. Once they had climbed to the top of the crater in which they had found themselves and looked all around at the levelled city, a previously unthinkable idea began to hit them. They were free.
They had no idea what they should do; bred and trained only to obey, they were left adrift. Some merely sat down where they were and looked aimlessly about themselves. Others didn’t even manage that, but just stood, shamed by their hopes that someone would come and tell them what to do. A few let out savage roars and took off with the intention of extracting revenge on any surviving humans they could find.
Eventually, hunger drove the Enforcers back down to the lower levels. They found store rooms full of their tinned, processed food and returned to their cells out of habit, to eat. It was then that they became Aware of the panic and confusion of the younglings. Some of the Enforcers ignored what they could feel, intent only on feeding themselves. The rest descended the stairs to the lower levels, forced to remember as they did so the conditions in which they, themselves had been raised. They found the dormitories first. The younglings cowered in their cots amidst the stench of urine and excrement. The Enforcers had to lift each youngling, kicking and screaming, from his or her cot in order to prove that they would suffer no pain as a result of leaving without the permission of a human. There was little communication, merely action based on need. Some of the Enforcers led the younglings up to the food stores while the rest descended to the nurseries.
The Enforcers entered cautiously, expecting at least here to encounter humans, but as with the rest of what was left of “Freak’s Paradise”, as the building was known, there were none to be found. They had abandoned their charges in the last throes of their desperate, mad war. Most of the babies were screaming strange, husky screams. When the computers had been destroyed, their calm-inducing signals to the infants’ intracranial chips had ceased, as had instructions to the machines that controlled supply of nutrients, water and growth hormones via the tubes to which each baby was attached. As a result, the babies were hungry, thirsty and very frightened by the range of emotions their bodies were now allowed to experience.
The Enforcers stood grouped at the door end of the nursery, overwhelmed by the noise and unsure what to do. Eventually, one of the females stepped forward. Something – a feeling that she did not recognise – pulled her towards the nearest baby. She reached out a hand and touched the baby’s arm. His wailing stopped for a few seconds and then began again. The strange sensation that had drawn her to him began to spread within her. It was like a comforting warmth that calmed her and made her want the baby to feel it too. She picked him up and he screamed even louder as she gently removed the tubes from him. She held him close and felt his heart beating against her own. The baby quieted and whatever the foreign feeling was, it flooded her. Tears flowed silently down her face and for the first time in her life, she smiled.
The other Enforcers were Aware of her feelings and some of them made choking sounds as the unfamiliar emotion took them over, too. One by one, they moved to the incubators and lifted the babies out, releasing them from the tubes and holding them close. A few of the babies were dead, their tiny brains unable to cope with the sudden influx of sensation once the chips that had held them trancelike failed. Another emotion stole over the Enforcers who found the dead infants, similar to the first but tinged with sadness and a sense of something lost. That emotion was felt in combination with anger when the Enforcers discovered halls at even deeper levels below ground that housed hundreds of liquid-filled tanks, each of which was linked by tubes to multiple tanks of different coloured fluids similar to those that had nourished the infants on the floors above, and each of which now contained a dead foetus.
We saw the Enforcers leave the city, taking the younglings and babies with them. We saw their struggles to make decisions for themselves every step of the way and for some, it became too hard. They simply sat down and gave up the will to live. Those who struggled on did it for the love they had found for the babies and younglings, but the effort took its toll on them and they died young. The younglings fared slightly better, but it wasn’t until the infants matured that the Kindred, as they had chosen to call themselves, began to flourish. The first to have been raised with love and kindness, they found it easier to listen to their Awareness, to know themselves and to be happy. Easier, yet still not easy. The intention with which the Kindred were created – to obey without question, no matter how terrible the order – still left its imprint upon them and making decisions according to what they could feel inside of themselves, rather than following rules, was something they had to practise over and over. Much, I suddenly realised, as their descendants still did in the present day.
Fitt and I forgave it all. Flame and Infinity w
ere with us every step of the way, providing a calm, reassuring strength and confidence that we would see it all for what it was and that we would let it go.
I opened my eyes. The campfire was banked and glowing in the soft predawn twilight. I was propped up against saddlebags and covered with blankets, as was Fitt. Rowena slept curled up almost on top of me, as if she’d nodded off whilst keeping guard. Everyone else slept too, except Fitt, who sat up and reached across for my hand. Thank you, my friend. Her thought was laced with affection.
She sat straight! I leaned over and hugged her for all that I was worth. I was so proud of her. It had been hard enough for me to forgive all that I had seen, and for her it could have been impossible, but she had taken all of Flame’s counsel and made it a part of herself. She knew the truth of who she was, of who we all were and, even whilst incarnate as one whose kind had suffered so much, she had remembered that however real her life seemed, she and we were all really just parts of the same whole, dreaming the same dream.
Do you think the rest of your kind will be able to forgive us as readily as you have? I asked her.
Fitt sighed. It will not be so easy for them. They do not have Flame, nor the benefit of human friends and they are not yet confident that my trust in you is well placed. The Elders are all suspicious of what you and your friends do, due to the very memories they have inherited from our ancestors that they must forgive. The fact that you and I have defied my Elder has angered her to the point where listening to her Awareness will prove difficult and the others will take her lead.
The future I had seen flashed into and back out of my mind so quickly that I barely had time to notice it, but notice it I did, and so did Fitt. Her eyes widened and she drew breath, sharply, before realising that it was information I hadn’t shared with my friends. Instantly, she hid what she had picked up from me deep within her mind, in case any of them woke up.
Thanks, Fitt, that’s for another day, I told her. There’s something far more pressing that you need to focus on right now.
We could both feel Flame’s impatience. Fitt smiled and stood up. She had always had to look down to me but now that she was no longer hunched, she towered above me. I noted that it was a good job that Flame was also tall. I followed Fitt as she made her way to where her horse waited for her. She vaulted straight on to Flame’s back and then the two of them set about making their final adjustments. As the first rays of sun broke over the horizon, Fitt and Flame became everything that they could be.
Flame’s long legs didn’t appear to be moving with any speed, yet she swept effortlessly across the plains, her rhythm of movement barely disrupted at all as she cleared the few issues that no longer had a place within her. I felt her release her sadness and grief at the loss of her herd when she was attacked. I felt various disappointments from former lives leave her. And then I felt joy burst from They Who Are Flame as they moved back and forth through the paces, their delight ever increasing as they realised that there was nothing that they couldn’t do now that they were one.
The Kindred Elder observed them briefly with a mixture of awe dampened by fury and then she was gone.
I felt warm breath on my neck and without thinking, reached up to stroke the pink muzzle that I knew would be there. They are amazing, I observed to my horse as we watched our friends.
They have achieved much, she agreed. They are ready for what approaches.
I nodded. There would have been a time when I would have hoped that the rest of us were too. Now, I knew that the fact that it was going to happen meant that there could be no doubt.
Twenty
Enough
There were celebrations and hilarity from all except for Vickery and Aleks as we breakfasted. Vickery tried to be as happy for Fitt and Flame as the rest of us were, but I could feel her envy that Fitt had achieved so quickly that for which she herself now strived. Aleks managed to smile and congratulate Fitt, but he still struggled with her presence. It was a relief for him when after breakfast, Fitt remained in camp with Flame while the rest of us rode out to meet the next wild horse herd that was nearing our location. The wild horses knew that Fitt was with us and they seemed to have accepted her bond with Flame after some examination of the two of them, but we all agreed that her physical presence might be too much of a distraction for them to be able to settle and work with us as easily as their predecessors had done. And after everything Fitt had put herself through in recent days, she needed rest and she was to be sure that she got some, she was told firmly by Rowena as we were leaving.
The wild horse herd was the largest that we had met yet. As they milled around us, we could feel their openness to working with us, their eagerness for the help that they knew we could give them. Like the previous herd, they would need no demonstration from our horses. All of us slid to the ground and the second that Infinity had moved far enough away from me for another horse’s approach not to be considered impolite, the lead mare, a stocky grey, was at my side.
I smiled as she snuffled my outstretched hand and as soon as Aleks legged me up onto her back, we were away. She had a cumbersome body, but she knew in advance how I would suggest she arrange it and how I would support her and she responded to me instantly. In no time at all, I was dismounting and she was off, leaping into the air in huge fly bucks as she cantered around the other horses waiting their turn for our help. I felt her release the last of what she needed to just as the next mare sidled up to me.
It was Aleks who once more gave me a leg up. As I settled into position on my new mount’s back, I noticed briefly that Vickery rode Verve some distance away, before I was required to give all of my attention to the feisty black mare who fidgeted beneath me. She had lived many times and had waited a long time for this – she would wait no longer. She leapt forward into a fast walk, too fast to be balanced on her own let alone carrying my weight. Instantly, I closed my thighs and pulled back. I was almost getting used to the fact that horses who had never been ridden before could respond to a signal as if they had felt it a thousand times, but I still felt a thrill when the mare slowed her pace and then lifted as my calves closed around her sides. Like water released from a dam, she burst along the pathway that was so clear in her mind and barely stopped long enough for me to dismount before sitting down onto her haunches and striking out with her front legs as the painful memories that had burdened her for so long began to dissipate into the ether.
She was a long time in releasing all that she no longer needed to be part of her. I was Aware that a colt waited for my attention, but I felt that I owed it to the black mare to witness all that she had experienced at the hands of humans, all that was so painful as to have affected her for so long. When she had finally finished, I felt her joy and her lightness as she floated around at a magnificent trot. She dripped with sweat and her sides heaved, yet she was energised and vital. I smiled my happiness for her and then switched my attention to the colt.
Only a few hours later, my friends and I stood watching the heels of the wild horses disappear into the distance. Those of us who had ridden were feeling the now familiar satisfaction of a job well done.
‘The pattern is so strong within their collective consciousness now,’ said Marvel, ‘it won’t be much longer before the horses don’t need our help at all, they’ll all just find themselves in perfect balance as a consequence of being a horse.’
Aleks sighed. ‘I wish it were that easy for me.’
‘Thanks for your help this morning, Aleks,’ said Rowena. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘There would have been two of us legging you up if any one of you would just tell Vickery that what she’s attempting is futile,’ Aleks said, gazing over to where Vickery still worked with Verve.
‘It isn’t futile,’ said Sonja. ‘What Vickery is doing now is all part of her journey, just the same as it is for you and the same as it was for each of us. She needs to realise that what she’s doing isn’t enough, in order to be open to giving more of hers
elf.’
Soon, Infinity echoed my thought. I mounted her and then stood in my stirrups and beckoned Vickery and Verve to come with us. ‘We need to get back to camp, pack up and move on,’ I said.
I feel it too, the time is very near, Fitt’s thought whispered in my mind.
When we arrived back at camp, we could see Fitt riding Flame a short distance away. Each magnified the best of the other so that together, they were a strong, confident, elegant being who radiated warmth and power. I wasn’t the only one to marvel at how much they had changed from when we had first met each of them, and to appreciate afresh what they had achieved. Rowena whistled in admiration and Sonja began to clap. Within seconds, all of us were cheering and clapping, even Aleks, and Fitt’s face broke into a shy grin that wasn’t made any less soft by the fangs that clamped down upon her chin.
When we left the spot in which we had camped, Flame once more walked beside Infinity. There was a sense of rightness about her being there once more, that warmed my heart. Fitt picked up on it and looked across at me with another of her grins. There was even more strength about our group now, I noticed, and my thoughts turned to the two who would complete us.
I could feel that they flew across a grassy hillside whilst warm summer rain lashed down upon them. Gas was fitter than he’d ever been and he delighted in the feeling of being able to use the full extent of his balance and strength as he blasted his way onwards, causing sheep to scatter before him. I smiled, remembering how often people had been forced to jump aside when Gas was on one of his missions. For once, I couldn’t bring myself to caution Justin to slow him down, conserve energy and look after them both. Once they were with us, our group would be able to realise the full potential of its power.
Once we had eaten that evening, Fitt announced that she had decided to share the Kindred’s history – everything that she and I had forgiven – with any of our group who would like to know it. It would help them to understand what we would all face much better, I realised and Fitt flicked her eyes to meet mine briefly in agreement. I remembered then, that Justin already knew.
