Storm of Ash

by Michelle Kenney

  ‘Emperor Cassius is building our new-world future: honour, valour and allegiance. Long live the Civitas!’

  My lips twisted scornfully. It was almost entertaining, the way Cassius believed his own rhetoric.

  The planetary media system that lived among the haga descended regularly to remind citizens how he’d single-handedly rid the outside world of our weaker DNA, as though we were a viral scourge or vermin. But it was always the images that held attention, clear proof should Pantheonites be in any doubt as to the sincerity of his words. They were images I knew by heart now – Arafel burning while tiny people and animals ran for their lives, a close-up of a long line of Eagle aircraft soaring low in the only valley home I’d ever known, and then clouds of fire and smoke billowing up like hell itself had been unleashed. I forced myself to watch every second until the anguish built its own second skin over my heart.

  ‘The threat from the outside world was critical,’ the vitriolic propaganda reminded on a loop.

  ‘Poisoned by radiation and soil toxins, the substandard specimens bore little resemblance to the advanced species we have become in Isca Pantheon.

  ‘Our recent insurgent episodes have highlighted the need to control and eradicate this rising pestilence. Thanks to the targeting surveillance of our Eaglecraft squadron, our mission has now been accomplished.

  ‘Isca Pantheon is, at last, safe from infiltration and infection, and together we will build towards a new Civitas, a future that observes the core pillars set out by our ancient forefathers: honour, valour and allegiance.

  ‘Long live Isca Pantheon! Long live Imperator Cassius!’

  And they accepted it all. Almost as though their indoctrination was as much a part of them, as our feral nature was a part of us. Almost.

  Two tall Pantheonites stopped to exchange pleasantries, laughing as though entirely immune to the bloodshed that had just played out across the retracting screens. I still wondered at their indifference. We’d all started from the same place, only two centuries ago. And yet our differences were scored into our cells, as though Octavia and Cassius had cut out anything resembling a conscience or free will and stitched them back together again.

  Frankensteins … Pantheosteins.

  My top lip curled. To think they now represented the future of the human race was as nauseating as it was terrifying.

  A laundry train rumbled by, and I thought briefly of my Prolet shift. Therry? How had he avoided the vaccine?

  ‘Who are you?’ the patient, anodyne voice repeated behind me.

  I was used to it. They came to monitor progress, which was precisely why I was determined to give them none. It kept them guessing, and made me more interesting while I devised a plan.

  ‘You cannot hide anything from us, including your ability to void the vaccine – twice. This is a unique result and of interest to us. Cooperate and we will put an end to your isolation.’

  ‘What if I like isolation?’

  My voice was stony. Challenging. It was all I had.

  The voice sighed. ‘You know we have ways of making you talk, Talia … but I’d far rather we did this the easy way.’

  It was the same white-coated scientist every day. He hadn’t hurt me yet, but I knew it wasn’t an idle threat. The pain I’d endured before was seared into my mind, and yet there was a reason I hadn’t been fed to the strix like the leather-backed Prolet girl.

  Voiding the vaccine had rendered me important enough to be kept under surveillance, while the destruction of Lake’s only living control was clearly too much of a risk, even for Cassius.

  It didn’t matter. He’d already stolen everyone I loved, so there was nothing and no one left to lose.

  Which of course, they knew.

  ***

  It was the same soft lullaby she used to sing when Eli and I were small. I opened my eyes slowly, convinced it was the small round box in the corner of the room again. It was a box of dreams and nightmares. Sometimes the scents and sounds of the forest would drift from it, and there was a precise spot three paces in front where I could just detect the subtlest scent of wild honeysuckle. That was always before the new test though.

  First there was the soft wisp of stinging smoke, followed by a dry acidic burn. Then the room would slowly fill with the sound of crackling flames, falling trees and muffled screaming until I was back there again on that last day when the Eaglecraft came. I tried to pace myself, to tell my streaming eyes and burning throat he was trying to break my standoff, but I was always close to breaking point when it disappeared, leaving a hollow silence and my own straining breath.

  Even I had to hand it to Cassius. The new personally designed torture was harder to withstand than the moving images, and came without warning, day and night.

  Which was why I didn’t open my eyes when I first heard her. I was sure it was just part of another test. And when I did open my eyes, I still didn’t quite believe what I saw, even though it was her silhouette, standing in front of the glass and looking down onto Pantheon.

  ‘Mum?’ I managed hoarsely, barely recognizing my own voice.

  She turned then. And suddenly it was as though the last angel in the universe had come for me, and I didn’t even care what they might glean from my reaction. She was alive … Mum … My mum …

  ‘It isn’t so bad,’ she responded softly, with a smile.

  Her smile!

  I was across the floor faster than I had moved in too long, shocking my stiff limbs into action. I barrelled into her waiting arms, my energy forcing her to take a step back with a laugh. And it was her old laugh, the one from before.

  ‘Mum, Mum, Mum …’ I half sobbed, half pleaded into her fragile neck.

  She was warm, and smelled the way she always did, as though she’d just stepped from a bath scented with cinnamon and honey. It was so intoxicating and I closed my eyes, despite everything.

  ‘Please please be you,’ I wished fervently, not daring to lift my eyes to hers for fear of what I may read there.

  ‘It isn’t so bad,’ she repeated again, stroking my hair in her old familiar way.

  And while I wanted nothing more than to remain there for ever, cradled among an armful of old memories, I knew I had to face reality. Slowly, I lifted my heavy eyes to look at her. She was gazing straight ahead; detached and unemotional. I knew it didn’t make sense for it not to be just another of his twisted games – and yet I couldn’t not try either.

  ‘Mum?’ I whispered. ‘It’s me … Tal.’

  I watched her grey-blue irises, the same hue as Eli’s, dilate and retract. I prayed there was enough left – that Pantheon hadn’t extinguished a flame that had already been guttering anyway.

  ‘It isn’t so bad,’ she repeated again.

  ‘Mum! Please … it’s me Tal … Mum, look at me …!’ I urged intently.

  There was a long silence before she opened her mouth, and for one tiny moment, I thought I’d broken through.

  ‘It isn’t so bad,’ she repeated again, staring across the room.

  I followed the direction of her gaze and only then realized she was talking to the box, high up on the wall. And my hopes began to crumble like the trees in my dreams.

  ‘Look at me … look at me, Mum!’ I demanded, pulling her head away and forcing her eyes to connect with mine, conscious all the while that they were watching.

  Her eyes were dilated and unfocused, their colour – which had always reminded me of the bright grey pebbles in Arafel’s stream – faded to stone. My gut twisted sharply. I’d suffered physical and mental torture, but this was different. Mum had already been so weak when we’d arrived, and now they’d stolen whatever was left. Arafel was a ghost, and who knew whether I would ever see Eli, Max, or August again. They were gone, all of them, and now Mum was gone too. For what? To satisfy the ambitions of one delusional man.

  A burning-hot serpent of rage suddenly writhed up from my stomach. I tore myself out of Mum’s passive arms and pelted towards the white box. It was a cold, in
animate representation of all that I hated, barely worthy of attention. Let alone hatred. Yet it was all there was, and the closest thing to Cassius in the room.

  I leapt as though I was bridging the widest tree jump, caught hold of the top of the white box, and brought my feet up sharply to puncture the black square at the front. It crackled ominously, before a loud fizzing and deafening alarm consumed the tense air. Then I dropped like an animal, and stared down at my heels. They were streaked red, like the flames dancing through Arafel. Like Ida’s legs the moment she died.

  Mum had sunk to the floor, cradling her head, while the wall to my right flickered from white to transparent, revealing a line of seated people with startled faces. My lips twisted. They weren’t feeling so superior now. I threw a look at the sealed door. I had a minute, maybe two if I was lucky.

  I sprinted back to Mum who was cowering like a child, and started pulling her across towards my bed. She resisted, shaking like a leaf, and my heart lurched as I pushed her to the floor and, using all my strength, slid her into the slim gap beneath my bed. I followed in a heartbeat, and somehow we both ended up cramped into that tiny dark spot, the only place they couldn’t see.

  With trembling fingers, I yanked up my tunic and pointed to the jagged white scar that ran up my calf, just visible in the light. It was the same scar Therry had asked about all those months before in the buried bathhouse beneath the Cathedral of Isca. I’d told him I’d fought a tiger, and his childish brown eyes had lit up with excitement. It seemed so long ago.

  ‘Remember this, Mum? It was the day Eli and I took Dad’s scythe to build a den. You were so mad with us you made Eli stay in his bedroom for a whole day!’ I whispered. ‘I got hurt, and was so scared you’d be mad at me, but all you did was cry and hold me tight. We had a whole roasted chicken and an apple pie for dinner. Do you remember … you have to remember … Mum?’

  Her brow creased in heavy concentration and the pebbles glinted before something else crept in – a flicker of recognition.

  My stomach contracted involuntarily, releasing what felt to be an entire colony of butterflies, which fluttered up against the inside of my ribcage.

  ‘Tal …?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes! Yes! It’s me, Mum … Mum,’ I responded, throwing my arms around her frail shoulders and pulling her tight, revelling in the sensation of her fragile embrace.

  She was back, for a few glorious seconds, she was back.

  ‘Mum, you have to listen!’ I forced her to look at me again. ‘They’ll be here any second. You’ve been vaccinated, with a chemical that closes the mind.’

  There was panic in her eyes and I tried to soothe her.

  ‘But you’re stronger … we’re stronger because we’re Outsiders. Cassius is trying to control us all, but his vaccine isn’t enough. You remember, Mum … you remember me … Eli, Max, Arafel?’

  I didn’t mention its destruction – I still didn’t know how much she saw – but I’d said enough anyway. She stared at me and finally, the gleam was back, sunlight picking out the stones in Arafel’s stream and the shadow of a world she’d been forced to forget. And as it loomed to the forefront of her eyes, her face darkened with inevitable pain.

  ‘Eli?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes yes, Eli! And Jas and the forest … home, Mum … Arafel.’

  ‘But they said … it’s not so bad,’ she faltered, trying to mesh two worlds that should never have met.

  I placed my hand across her mouth as footsteps entered the room.

  ‘They lied. It is very very bad. You are Eoiffer Hanway, descendant of Thomas Hanway. We were both taken from the forest. By Cassius and his Eaglecraft. And now they’re trying to make you forget, the way they’ve tried to make me forget. But they forgot, Mum. They forgot we’re Outsiders … and feral means free!’

  My last words turned into a gritty yell, as my ankles were seized and I was dragged roughly out into the harsh white light. I fought it but I was no match for two burly Pantheonite guards.

  Mum’s forcible removal was much harder to take than mine. Her eyes shuttered as soon as she was faced with the scientists, and the sight of her white tunic crumpling up around her thin white thighs as she was yanked out enraged me more than the guards’ tough grip on her arms. We were both forced to our knees, and she dropped her head in instant servitude. I glanced at her profile swiftly. Her top lip was twitching, the way it always did when she was angry.

  A flame of hope soared through me. She was still in there. Still with me. And I had to protect her.

  ‘Do what you like!’ I fumed, thrashing wildly. ‘She’s no mother of mine any more! She doesn’t remember, unlike me … I remember everything! Arafel, August, Max, Aelia, Pan … how your lasers murdered innocent children and people, how you’ve tried to rid the world of every last Outsider so you can repopulate it with a species that doesn’t even resemble itself any more!’

  I could see Mum trembling, and prayed she understood.

  ‘I know I wouldn’t be here if Cassius didn’t need something else from me!’ I stormed. ‘So you tell him I’m ready, but I will negotiate with him – and no one else!’

  I watched Mum lift her trembling hand before dropping it again, and I exhaled silently. If they believed she was still under the vaccine’s influence, they would leave her alone.

  A tall thin scientist with flint eyes and a nose like one of the North Mountain peaks stepped forward, his shoes clicking ominously on the hard white floor. The rest of the guard shuffled back in response to a small dismissive wave of his hand.

  Eight burly guards to protect one scientist against two unarmed, barefoot women. Curious math that only confirmed I was still considered a threat. I eyed him baldly, not bothering to hide my disgust.

  He considered me carefully before tapping the identifier strapped to his wrist in a way that took me right back to the day I’d run into August in the forest. It was the day Cassius took Grandpa and Eli, starting everything.

  I closed my eyes briefly, hiding the flare of pain.

  ‘Congratulations, Talia, you’ve passed,’ he offered, scribbling something in a thick file.

  I leaned over and spat, with perfect aim, on his shining, clicking shoes. Mum’s eyes flickered with disapproval and I smothered a brief smile. She was still definitely still in there, and they thought we were rabid vermin anyway, so I might as well enjoy the perks. With satisfaction, I watched a drop of drool run down the black gleam of his boots, ruining their perfect lustre.

  ‘That’s what I think of your tests!’

  ‘Positive affirmation,’ he murmured, eyeing the top of his boot with clinical interest. ‘Affirmation of your identity, and ability to react to environmental stimuli. Atypical behaviour for a vaccinated subject.’

  I spat again, onto his other boot this time. It landed in the centre of his shiny toecap and I eyed my aim in admiration.

  He paused to look over the top of his file, distaste wrinkling his nose.

  ‘You interest us, Talia. You’ve voided not one but two vaccines, at successively higher dosages and, given a variety of stimuli, there is clear evidence to suggest you have managed to restore to factory settings. In short, you have shown a demonstrable immunity to the vaccine. Yes, you are quite fascinating …’

  ‘Could have told you that without all the brain-frying,’ I responded.

  He turned to regard Mum, who was still cowering on her knees beside me.

  ‘She’s useless – she remembers nothing,’ I repeated, hoping my biting tone hid my fear. ‘And what has Cassius done with Max?!’

  With one ferocious effort, I yanked my arms out of the guards’ pinioned clamp and clambered to my feet, pain jettisoning through my limbs as they returned to life.

  The scientist narrowed his gaze, tiny Roman lines furrowing his high forehead, before pursing his lips and scribbling again.

  ‘Your mother has proven to be a little disappointing, considering her blood link. Her weakened mental state made her a void test subject
of course, but extra Prolet hands are always useful, as they say.’

  He eyed me intently.

  ‘As for … Max, did you say? I’m sorry, I’m not sure …?’

  One of the dour-faced guards smirked. ‘He’s that new one that came in a few months back. Was on the gladiatorial guard before he became the new Ludi favourite … enjoying a spell in the morgue now I suspect.’

  I scowled as he grinned maliciously.

  ‘On the gladiatorial guard …’

  His words echoed strangely in my head, and suddenly I was back in the Prolet cave with the creaking lantern and dirty mugs, standing opposite a golden sleeping knight. A Roman knight wearing gladiatorial sandals, and with feet the colour of the sun. My body tensed as though shot through by lightning.

  Could it have been?

  ‘… enjoying a spell in the morgue now I suspect …?’

  My brain slowed, refusing to acknowledge the words. He couldn’t be dead, not after everything. The guard shot me a piercing look, and I knew in a flash it was him, the same peacock who’d knocked me to the ground and locked me inside a cell no bigger than one of Bereg’s meat-smoking boxes.

  I stretched my fingers, like a cat flexing its claws, as I recalled the brutal way he’d handled me. It was little better than the waste they emptied down their latrines, the same way most Prolets were treated here. My unflinching gaze travelled down his sweaty forehead, hooked nose and sour smile, which faded slightly as I made him a silent promise. His rough hands had more than availed themselves of my fragile state, and even if I was the last Outsider standing, he was going to learn what that actually meant.

  ‘We all had our orders,’ he muttered gruffly, almost as though my intent was written across my face.

  ‘Finis.’

  I didn’t need to speak Latin to understand the scientist’s clipped tone.

  He closed his file with a small, almost regretful nod, and stepped back to allow two guards to seize my arms and twist them up behind my back. I steeled myself as tiny beads of icy sweat broke out along my forehead, making me shiver despite the warmth of the room.