Strands of Fate

by R F Hurteau

  “You’re all the same. You’ll do anything to get out of doing any real work, won’t you?”

  Eli wanted to argue that it hadn’t been his fault, and that coming here wasn’t even his idea, but instead he just exchanged glances with the girl, whose eyebrows were raised in surprise.

  “I’ll get you a discharge notice, just wait here. You’re to return home and rest, but you’ll be expected back for your next scheduled shift. Don’t you bother attempting to squeeze an extra free day out of this, either. I’ve already entered my assessment into your record. I’ll be keeping an eye on your attendance.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The nurse whirled around again and marched out of the room.

  The girl remained behind, standing awkwardly, perhaps unsure of what to do.

  Eli studied her for a minute. He didn’t make a habit of befriending others in his ward, but thanks to Mabel’s insistence, he’d been introduced to most of them at one time or another. The name came to him after a moment.

  “You’re one of the Mackelroy kids, right?” he asked, keeping his tone gentle.

  The girl looked frightened for a moment, like a rabbit cornered by a fox.

  “Lilith, was it?”

  After a brief hesitation, she nodded.

  Eli offered her a friendly smile. “Are you new here?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice low and tremulous. “It’s my very first day.”

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “It gets easier. You’ll figure it out as you go. My best advice? Just try to stay out of the way.”

  Lilith smiled shyly, her gaze dropping. “I am trying,” she told him in a shy whisper. “But there are so many rooms, and they’re all so small, and Nurse Hemly is, well...not.”

  She suddenly looked appalled at the implication of her own words, but Eli snickered.

  The nurse returned, shoving a slip of paper into Eli’s hand with all the bedside manner of a charging bull.

  “Here.”

  He took it and offered Lilith an encouraging nod as he passed her, shooed out of the room by the short-tempered nurse.

  The light hurt his eyes as he made the trek home from the Maglev station. By the time Eli reached the apartment, his head had begun to throb in earnest.

  He was looking forward to a long nap and, if he was lucky, Mabel would have gone to the market and replenished the refrigerator.

  It was only now that Eli realized he hadn’t eaten anything that day, and it was already late afternoon.

  Then again, he thought as his stomach churned, perhaps I’m not that hungry just now.

  Mabel’s expression as he entered was one of trepidation.

  “Don’t freak out,” he admonished, grimacing as the sound of his own voice made the pressure in his head increase. “I’m not in trouble, just hurt”

  His sister relaxed and stood up, moving toward him and studying him with concern.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s no big deal. Maybe a concussion,” he told her. “I’m just going to go sleep it off.”

  “Sounds like it could be a big deal to me.” Mabel had entered her mother hen mode, as she had a tendency to do. “Did you see a doctor? You look pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eli’s head throbbed, and he was in no mood to talk about the day’s events.

  “I’m just going to lay down a bit.”

  “It’s that Farway again, isn’t it?” she called up the stairs after him. “What did he make you do this time? Did you fall off the ladder again? He shouldn’t be making you set up all that heavy stuff on your own!”

  “It’s fine, Mabel. It wasn’t Farway. I’ll tell you about it later, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He could feel her eyes on his back as his bedroom door slid shut behind him.

  Eli drew the shades and lay down on the bed without bothering to change.

  It didn’t take long before he fell asleep.

  ***

  Eli awoke to the sound of something metal crashing to the floor downstairs.

  The sudden noise made his heart race, but the loud cursing of his sister was enough to assure him that all was well.

  He lay in bed a few minutes longer, assessing the status of his head. He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept for, but it did feel much better. The throbbing had been reduced to nearly a whisper, and when he pushed himself into a sitting position, he was not overtaken by dizziness.

  Perhaps Nurse Hemly had been correct, after all. Perhaps there really wasn’t anything wrong with him. Oh, well. He would enjoy the excuse to get out of work all the same; wouldn’t want to make a liar out of the fine nurse, now would he? It would be best if he proved himself just as much of a lazy sod as she labelled him to be.

  “Oh, hey!” Mabel chirped as he entered the kitchen. The counter was covered with a variety of canned goods, several of which were rolling back and forth, and several more of which were on the floor. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “No.”

  Yes.

  Eli stooped to pick up the errant cans and, turning one over in his hands, examining the label.

  “Mmm. Grade A Lab Grown Beef. My favorite.”

  Mabel snatched the can out of his grip and scowled at him.

  “It’s cheaper,” she pointed out defensively.

  “It’s fake. It was never, at any point, part of an actual cow, you know.”

  “Well, I don’t care. Food is food, Eli. It’s better than no meat at all, isn’t it?”

  He could have argued but felt that it was best to let this one go. Lab grown meat was not his hill to die on. Instead he just shrugged in defeat.

  “I was able to save enough to go get some fresh vegetables,” Mabel said, sensing her victory and pleased by it. “I was just going to put these away before heading out...are you up for it? Want to come with me?”

  Eli really did feel fine. And he hadn’t been to the market in some time, since their stipend almost always arrived while he was working. Usually, Mabel would have it all spent before he even finished his shift.

  “Sure,” he decided. “That sounds nice.”

  He helped her to stash the meager collection of cans away in the pantry before they set off, making a mental note of the disparity between the number of meals until their next stipend and the number of cans on the shelf.

  The corporate orphan ward had only two options for doing their shopping. Mabel had purchased the canned goods at the import store outside the Maglev station. It functioned as a sort of dumping ground for all the products those in the city felt weren’t suitable for their own consumption. Dented cans, expired boxes of grains and cereals and second-hand clothing were tightly packed on long rows of otherwise unadorned shelves.

  Sifting through them to find anything interesting had been a source of curious entertainment for Eli when they’d first come here, but it had grown old fast. Now he left this task to Mabel, who still felt a sense of pride in finding the best deals.

  She always tried to get his favorites when they were available, and would display them with pride at the front of the pantry when she did. Canned fruit was rare and often expensive, but Mabel almost always came home with some little treat or another.

  It was her way of showing him that she cared, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

  The second option was the open-air market. This was Eli’s favorite place in the whole ward. Run by corporate orphans too young to have assignments, buying things here was always interesting.

  Picking out vegetables and homemade wares and paying a five-or-six-year-old who wore a serious expression as he or she carefully counted out change was a curious sensation indeed. The booths themselves were interesting as well, constructed of a strange collection of overturned storage containers, crooked rough hewn tables, and often colorful awnings crafted from blankets, sheets, or even clothing.

  As they entered the marketplace today, Eli saw one booth whose multicolored covering even sported a larg
e denim pocket.

  The wares here varied from week to week. Although corporate orphans were not paid for their apprenticeships, many of them received perks that Eli was not privy to at Next Level.

  Agricultural apprentices, for instance, often came home with more produce than they could consume before it went bad.

  Eli was fairly sure that this was how the market had started, with a simple stand selling leftover unattractive vegetables.

  The idea of a supplemental income appealed to just about everyone, for obvious reasons. Now children sold handmade dolls and crafts, or other surplus items brought home by their older siblings. The Tessler kids had a booth that always had a variety of clothing, because the oldest of their brood apprenticed in a textile factory and was allowed to take home whatever he liked that did not meet their stringent guidelines.

  The people of Gables were voracious consumers with particular tastes. Patterns and designs often went out of style before the factories ran out of stock. No one wanted to be seen wearing something that was no longer fashionable, after all.

  Eli looked down at his gray shirt and frowned, wondering if they had enough for a new uniform.

  He quickly decided against asking. Why should he bother with his appearance? While others might look at Eli and see a sign of his station in life, when he looked in the mirror he saw a symbol of how the world treated him.

  In a way he kind of hoped that his shoddy, unkempt uniform displeased people like Farway. Though doubtful, he could always imagine that it might spark some emotional response in someone “important” someday.

  Might trigger them to assess what was wrong with the world, to reexamine their own place in the corporate machine and how they might make it a better place for everyone.

  Anyway, he could hope.

  Today there were only eight booths set up in the market. Given that the ward housed over two hundred corporate orphans, this came as somewhat of a surprise to Eli, who was used to seeing at least double that number.

  “Why so few today?” he asked Mabel.

  “It’s been like this the last few months,” Mabel informed him. “I think a lot of companies are cracking down on apprentices taking home products.”

  Eli frowned. “They never cared before.”

  “Well, they do now.” Mabel gave a defeated shrug. “And it’s sad. A lot of kids had come to depend on the extra income.”

  Mabel made a beeline for the nearest of two agricultural booths. Small tubs of lettuce sat unhappy in the intense heat, their leaves wilting even in the shade.

  Eli watched as his sister picked out a few tomatoes, some of the sad-looking lettuce, and a couple of long, squash-like vegetables that he could not identify. It might have been a new hybrid, or just the results of another bad harvest. It was increasingly common to see crop failures when genetically modified seeds were unintentionally cross-pollinated with less desirable varieties.

  When the girl had finished bagging up her selections and gave Mabel the price, she paid without comment, handing the bag to Eli to carry.

  “You didn’t even try to haggle,” Eli grumbled half-heartedly. “You know she charged you more than she’d have taken.”

  “You want me to haggle with an eight-year-old?” Mabel asked, looking aghast.

  “It’s not that,” Eli said, feeling frustrated. “I know she’s just trying to get by. But so are we, Mabel. We have to be wise with our money. At least she’s got a vegetable stand. I doubt that her household is living off scraps.”

  “You don’t know that!” Mabel’s tone revealed her disappointment. “You don’t know their situation, though maybe you would if you took the time to make a few friends. You can’t just make assumptions, Eli. How about a little compassion?”

  Eli opened his mouth to argue, but a scream somewhere behind him caused all other thoughts to drain away.

  He dropped the bag, spinning around and searching for the source of the disturbance as their tomatoes rolled slowly across the pavement.

  The girl who’d screamed wasn’t hard to find. Another of her shrill cries followed as Eli’s eyes settled on her small frame as she raced toward the marketplace.

  Her striking resemblance to the nurse’s assistant made him certain it was one of the Mackelroy siblings.

  Mabel seemed instinctively drawn toward the desperate youth, but Eli grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he began.

  Mabel shot him a look of mixed fear and disgust.

  “Sarah!” came a familiar voice, echoing down the street.

  Eli’s gaze moved from the running girl, who had stumbled to one knee, to the scene playing out farther down the road.

  Denny Mackelroy was being held back by a man much larger than himself. Dressed in black with a helmet that covered his face, Eli recognized the man at once as an Enforcer.

  Mabel took advantage of her brother’s distraction to shake herself free.

  “Sarah, don’t fight them, come back!”

  She raced to the sobbing little girl and dropped to her knees, throwing her arms around her.

  “It’s going to be alright,” Mabel told her with firm conviction. “They aren’t going to hurt you. We won’t let them, will we, Eli?”

  Eli knew that his sister’s words were empty, meant to comfort a frightened child. No one knew what happened when the Enforcers took you away.

  Only that you never came back.

  Usually, corporate orphans who had gone afoul of Val Int’s will disappeared without a fuss. Sometimes in the still of night, sometimes led silently away from their homes in broad daylight, perhaps as an example to remind the others how important it was to stay in line.

  Eli had never witnessed a scene like this.

  But there were five Mackelroy children, and perhaps the Enforcers had not come prepared to deal with so many. It was the only explanation Eli could think of at the moment.

  “Eli!” Mabel’s eyes were pleading as she stared up at him over the top of the little girl’s head. “Do something.”

  “What do you want me to do?” he replied helplessly, raising his empty hands. “You want me to start a fight with an Enforcer while you take the girl and run for it? What about the rest of her family?”

  “How can you be so cold?” she asked, practically snarling. “Always talking about changing the world, but you won’t even stand up for a scared kid. Some hero.”

  The words stung, because Eli knew they held truth.

  But it wasn’t that he didn’t want to do something. It was just that there wasn’t anything he could do.

  “Don’t forget what happened last time I got involved with Denny Mackelroy,” he whispered to her warningly as he took a deep breath and began walking toward the Enforcer.

  His insides were cold, and the space between himself and Denny seemed so much farther than it had just moments before.

  His mind struggled to come up with something intelligent to say, but he seemed unable to get out more than a quiet, “Excuse me.”

  “Eli,” Denny said, giving him a pleading look. “I screwed up, Eli.”

  He made a motion as if to move, but the Enforcer held his arm in a vice-like grip.

  Eli looked the terrified boy over.

  Nearly a year before, Eli had been furious to receive his first disciplinary warning. He’d gotten it because Denny, who had four younger siblings to care for, had used him as a cover to steal from the import store and had been caught red-handed.

  Eli had railed about it for days, trying to prove to Mabel why that was exactly the reason they shouldn’t get involved with the other Corporate Orphans. That out here it was everyone for themselves.

  He’d despised Denny for dragging him, unaware, into his scheme. For marring his perfect record and putting him on Val Int’s radar.

  But looking at Denny now, he felt the anger he’d been holding on to for so long melt away.

  Whatever Denny had done, had been forced to do by his circumstances, it didn’t matter. What mattered is that none o
f them deserved to live like this. They were people. Denny had only been trying to take care of his family.

  It wasn’t his fault that he had no other options.

  “It’s okay, Denny. You’re going to be okay. All of you.”

  The words rang hollow, much less believable to Eli’s ears than they’d sounded when Mabel had said them. Yet they seemed to comfort Denny, who stopped fidgeting and gave a stiff little nod.

  “Eli!” Mabel shouted from behind him.

  He turned slowly, already knowing what to expect. A second Enforcer had come from the opposite direction, and Eli watched as he scooped up Sarah Mackelroy without a word and began walking toward his waiting companion.

  Sarah pressed her face against her captor’s armored chest and sobbed, no longer fighting.

  Even so young, she understood. There was no reason to fight—there was nowhere to hide.

  Best if she just cooperated.

  “Eli,” Mabel repeated weakly as he returned to her side to watch the Mackelroys being led out of sight.

  “There was nothing we could have done,” Eli told her. The words tasted bitter.

  Mabel said no more. He felt her trembling hand slip into his own and squeeze.

  Four

  Tales from the White City

  WAITING for Ollie to wake had turned into what felt like one of the longest nights of Gavin’s life.

  The news of the Weaver’s capture had troubled him deeply. And for a man who’d become accustomed to living one day at a time, the uncertainty of the days to come loomed over Gavin like a stormcloud. He had, on several occasions, heard the young man cough or stir, and had risen from his chair to go and see if Ollie was awake.

  Each time, Onyx had been quick to head him off at the bedroom door, her stern look needing no words.

  Let him rest.

  It wasn’t that Gavin lacked sympathy for whatever ordeal Ollie had been forced to endure. He knew what Nero was capable of, knew what the Council had done to those who opposed them in the past.

  Yet it was precisely this that concerned him. If Ollie’s muttered words were true, if Nero’s men had captured the Weaver, then he could, at this very moment, be in unspeakable agony.