by T. C. Edge
But it’s little resistance, and nothing that we can’t handle. And the further towards the centre we go, the more I realise that Inner Haven has been abandoned, just as the underlands were, and that the pockets of resistance are nothing more than sentries posted to keep a watch on the streets, just like ours did in the tunnels.
Before too long, we’re swarming through towards the core, our glorious coup complete. My heart judders a little harder as we turn the final corner and all eyes spread down the main street ahead, to the huge, slightly raised platform upon which the High Tower used to stand.
It does so still, yet its form has changed. What was a truly magnificent building, reaching forth to the heavens, has been reduced to a twisted, mangled carcass of a once great structure, still burning at its base and steaming with spiralling swirls of smoke.
Even from here, hundreds of metres back, the rubble begins, the roads here no longer pristine and clean but littered with the detritus that clattered down from above. A mist hangs in the air, one of grey and brown dust and not green poison, and everywhere I see people, normal civilians, cowering in shock as we march onwards.
They’re here to mourn, to witness the terror, dragged from their homes even at this late hour. By the colour of their clothes, their ranks and positions are quickly identified. Many wear the blue of Outer Haven, and many the darker shades of grey to show they’re regular Enhanced.
Only a few of the lighter greys remain, the blank eyes of Savants staring, quite unable to work out just what to do now that their home, their place of work, has been destroyed.
Most lived there. Those that didn’t, and who lived in the surrounding apartment blocks, probably worked there. The timing of the attack, before the workday had fully concluded, must have been selected carefully, just to make sure that as many Savants as possible were caught in the trap.
I don’t like the thought, and so dismiss it.
This wasn’t about killing all these normal, innocent Savants. It was only about taking out the top brass. That’s what I tell myself, that’s what I make myself believe. Because I must.
The residents of the city disperse at our arrival, rushing back off home. I see their eyes and know that they’re lost, leaderless, the reality of the day yet to sink in.
On we go, the rubble growing thicker as we advance. Various units begin working towards specific targets, checking for traps and hidden enemies. I look to the streets I know so well, to the Council of Matrimony and Compton’s Hall beside it, to the main HQ of the City Guard a little further on, to the various places that have played a part in my journey here.
Now, they look different. All the surrounding buildings are covered in dust and black soot. Those closer to the High Tower have been caught in the carnage, chunks ripped out from the shrapnel flung as the tower fell, pillars toppled, the once solid ground shattered and cracked open.
But it isn’t the fate of the buildings that strike at me, that stab at my heart as we venture on. No, it’s the human loss that renders me, and so many others, unable to speak.
The protective convoy around Lady Orlando – those not required to check the buildings and make the place safe – stagger onwards as they scan the field of death before us. Bodies appear through cracks in the debris. They appear on the side of the road, unable to escape the streets as the building came down. They appear everywhere, those of not only men and women, but children too, bringing the stark reality of what we’ve done into the light.
I can’t look at them. I just can’t. I avert my eyes and look anywhere else I can. Others seem to do the same, and as we work down the right of the street, heading for the City Guard HQ, a smattering of gunfire offers distraction.
Eyes lift to the noise, but it doesn’t last long. Soon enough, our soldiers are swarming through the building, clearing it out, checking every room for any lingering City Guard defending his patch.
There appear to be so few left. And before too long, our men are stepping out of the building once more, and word is coming to us that the HQ is ours.
It looks like it’ll be here where we’ll take up our position. As we enter into the main hallway, orders are given for the rest of the inner city to be checked, units sent out to sweep the streets and set up defensive posts around the gates and walls.
Hawks and Sniffers and Bats will be deployed, tasked with watching our new borders for those who might seek to take them back. Those with experience of caring for the Nameless will now have their hands full with many more.
From those who still live here; the many thousands of citizens of this place, to the tens of thousands across Outer Haven, an olive branch will need to be extended, an offer of support at this terrible time.
I wonder whether the hardest part lies ahead. Destroying a building, taking up arms and firing at those who fire upon you…that’s the easy bit. But managing this mess, trying to reform a city so devastated by loss, that’s the true task that awaits.
But then, it won’t be as easy as that either. We’ve wandered in almost untouched. That must have been partially by design, not only by our shock and awe attack that no one saw coming.
At least, not until the last minute…
Because he’s out there still, I know he is.
Out there with a few of his cronies at least, and perhaps Commander Burns too. And he still commands thousands of Con-Cops and City Guards, and who knows how many Stalkers.
Cromwell, like a wounded beast, might well be at his most dangerous right now, seething and stewing and plotting his next move.
And though we may have had, as Rhoth said, ‘a great victory’ today, it’s only a single battle in a greater war.
And the war is far from over.
176
The main hall of the City Guard HQ is as bland as I remember, a functional atrium with no decorative embellishments and intended as no more than a passageway to the various parts of the building.
Last time I came here, I was being interrogated by Agent Woolf up in her dungeon-like office in the Serious Crimes Unit, the black-eyed witch creeping into my mind in a bid to discover what I knew of Drum’s whereabouts after his disappearance from the convoy to the REEF. I didn’t know of Burns’ participation within the ranks of the Nameless then, of course, but it was he who saved the day, stopping Woolf before she could extract what she needed.
He saved the day, sure, but even back then Woolf was already onto me, her sharp gaze and sharper mind missing nothing. From my attempts to assassinate Cromwell, to our grander plan of catching him napping at the top of the High Tower, she’s become a professional scupperer of plots and plans; a veritable thorn in our side.
Were it not for her, countless lives could have been saved, and there may never have been a need for war.
And yet, as much as I despise her, I can’t deny her gifts and powers, and the loyalty with which she sees out her task. I suppose, like everyone else, there’s a deep-set programming in her horrible mind that means she’ll never stop until the job is done.
The building’s foyer, while featureless, is large, and capable of being used as a good base of operations. The rest of the building, too, can house many of us, with the decision taken to try to create our own temporary sleeping accommodations within the area, rather than utilising the very apartments designed for that specific purpose that line the streets a little further away.
Many of those, of course, are now free to use, once occupied by the Savants who weren’t deemed quite important enough to reside in the High Tower. Since most worked there, however, and were probably caught in the carnage as it fell, their homes are now free to use, as horrible as the thought is.
The thinking, though, is to take up residence within close proximity of the City Guard HQ among the official buildings and offices that line the right side of the main street. Just outside, the platform sits smouldering with the remains of the High Tower, a horrible and constant reminder of what we’ve done.
Yet, here in the centre we’re best defended shoul
d some sudden strike come our way, and within these official buildings, Lady Orlando will seek to develop some form of temporary wartime government to ensure the people continue to be fed and watered and taken care of.
Work, no doubt, will be suspended for all. While we occupy Inner Haven, many of the servants of Cromwell continue to occupy several of the districts of Outer Haven, with reports telling of City Guard units spread throughout the western and southern quarters, and large numbers of Con-Cops now controlling the east.
It’s a strange swap, really. We, the Nameless, complete with our hybrids and defectors and regular Unenhanced, have now taken refuge right at the heart of Cromwell’s inner sanctum, while his own soldiers have been forced beyond our new walls.
And the man himself? Well, debate will rage on among the masses, but few among our top members truly believe he’s breathed his last.
The night bustles past without any of us being able to stop and take a breath. As more of our men go out to check for further enemy patrols, and ensure that the gates and walls are fully secure and protected, others begin gathering intel from our scouts in the area.
Any surviving high profile members of Inner Haven, holding important posts in the various facets of government, are sought out too. Lady Orlando, setting herself up in the main office of the new Deputy Commander of the City Guard, Quentin Black – an office once held by Burns before he was promoted to the High Tower – immediately sets about the task of signalling her intentions to the remaining leaders of Inner Haven.
The intention is to get them onside, or at least explain her reasoning for what we’ve done. It will, I know, be a hard sell, given the burning mountain of stone and metal that festers outside our door, but the call for diplomacy will be an important one.
In the end, as people begin to learn of what Director Cromwell was really seeking to do, and are shown the vision of the future that he imagined, they might just come on board.
They need to see that, Enhanced or not, they were all just slaves of the Consortium. That Cromwell’s future was one that was going to further marginalise regular Enhanced and promote the Savants, even more than they already have been.
For the Outer Haveners, the task may not be so difficult. Already, they’re beginning to wake up to what Cromwell really is. When they discover that the Fanatics were nothing but a device of his own making to spread fear, and that the ‘optional reconditioning’ he offered in order to help them suppress their worries and live happier lives was intended only to make them his slaves, even the most obdurate and doubting among them will come around.
I have faith in the people I know so well, in the people I grew up with and around. I have faith that the grumblings I’ve heard here and there over the years will have grown louder, the people gathering to call out against the despot Cromwell has revealed himself to be.
When the people are given a choice – finally, given a choice – to forge their own futures or merely slide into the shadows of Cromwell’s, they will join us, join this revolution, help us change the world together.
At least, I hope they will…
I manage to get some sleep before the morning comes, huddled up in the quietest corner I can find down some lonely corridor. With so much going on, I find myself somewhat useless, and with a terminal exhaustion seeming to fill me, joined by a terminal grief at what I’ve seen, I stumble off in search of some solitude, and pass out in an old office, sat up against a pile of boxes and files.
On the way, I see yet another body slumped unceremoniously on the floor in a crimson puddle. Just another City Guard who found himself here as our men stormed in, perhaps nothing more than a clerk or administrator who could never have expected this building to be ransacked.
I pass my eyes over his body and see that his handgun remains fixed in its holster. He never even got a chance to defend himself before our gritty-eyed soldiers, seeking vengeance for years of hurt, saw the poor man to his grave.
The thought numbs me further.
Our men’s motivations are understandable. Yet, the City Guard themselves are not our real enemy. In fact, among the forces we face – the City Guards, the Con-Cops, the Stalkers - so few of them are truly out of line with what we’re trying to achieve.
The Stalkers, we know, are twisted beyond help, bred only to destroy those who stand in Cromwell’s way. It was he, in fact, who once headed up the Stalker Program, seeing it prosper as a younger man in a bid to hunt down the rebels and secret, illegal hybrids who began to join together against him.
The Con-Cops, too, have had their minds turned inside out. Once normal people, they’re now mindless, acting only on the new mental engineering they’ve been given. They, like the Stalkers, will never betray their master.
But the City Guards are different. They are normal men and women, people with feelings and emotions and the capacity to make decisions. Yes, they are Enhanced, but they bear a far greater resemblance to us than they do Cromwell and his lobotomised slaves.
Over the years, many have joined the cause, and many others have secretly sympathised with the Nameless and the fate of the many hybrids sent to their deaths at the REEF. For normal people, it would be hard not to see the wrong in how this city has developed, how the Savants have taken control.
Now, we are here to give control back, spread it evenly among the Enhanced and Unenhanced, create a prosperous, fair city where all people have equal rights.
That is the message we need to spread.
I wake in that quiet corner by my own, natural means, scraping myself off the floor on aching bones. A faint rumble of noise continues to hover in the distance, back in the main hall, and I work my way straight back there to find the daylight spilling in through the large metal doors.
There’s a bustle and febrile energy to the place, so much to be done. As I wander through, rubbing my eyes at the bright, dusty light, Zander comes bobbing over.
“Ah, you’re up,” he says.
“Er, yeah…how did you know I was…”
“Sleeping? It’s our connection, sis. I came looking for you, found you in that little office. You looked exhausted so I let you rest and told no one to disturb you.”
“Thanks,” I smile. “That was sweet.”
He brushes it off with a wave of the hand.
“You feel better?”
“I guess, yeah. How about you…did you get any rest?”
“An hour maybe,” he says. “I spent most of the night dashing around the city, checking on our units. They’re spread around the perimeter walls and gates now. You know, I didn’t expect it to be so easy.”
“Does that worry you?” I ask quickly.
It does me.
He considers it.
“You know, maybe a bit. Nothing ever seems to come easy, so when something does, you tend to doubt it.” I’m nodding heartily. “Then again,” he continues, “it does make sense. Most of Cromwell’s forces were out fighting in Outer Haven. Those that were here were largely centred around the High Tower when it fell. We’re still getting an idea of how many men he’s lost, but it’s probably helped even out the numbers a fair bit.”
“And Cromwell himself? Any more news?”
He nods hastily, his words equally snappy.
“It’s been dripping in. I spoke with the scout who saw the Stalkers come out of the High Tower before it came down. He’s pretty convinced it was our esteemed Director making his getaway. I took a look into his mind to see for myself. Think I caught a glimpse of that ‘D’ on the chest of one of the people being escorted away, inside the city badge. Only the Director has it. The rest of the Consortium have ‘Cs’ instead.”
“Yeah…I know. So he’s alive. Definitely alive.”
The deflation in my voice is clear. My posture could probably do with a boost as well.
“Looks like it,” he mutters. “And there appeared to be about five others with him, one of them probably Burns. Another scout, one of Kira’s, says he saw the armoured vans heading through the
western quarter as well. And then I spoke with Adryan, too, and he says a security technician saw the same from footage taken by one of our drones. It’s all pretty conclusive.”
I shake my head and bare my teeth. I knew this was coming, but hearing it, I want to slam my fist against something. Hard.
“You don’t sound too down about it,” I grumble, glancing through the open doors at the devastation outside.
So many thousands…so many…
He shrugs with more vigour than I’d expect given his woeful lack of sleep, and follows my gaze.
“No point in moping, Brie. The show goes on. Yesterday, we completely changed the landscape of this war, and there’s no going back for Cromwell now.”
“No going back, maybe. But he’ll come after us, you know he will.”
“He can goddamn try,” he bites. “I welcome it. I’ve half a mind to take a gang of my best men out there to hunt him down right now…”
“Zander…no.”
“Look, don’t worry, I’m not going to. We can expect him to have his best soldiers still with him, and there’s too much to do here anyway. In fact, Lady Orlando needs to see you. Come on, follow me…”
He turns abruptly on his heels and I follow behind, moving towards the bank of lifts lining the left of the atrium. The doors slide open as we come, and in we step, gliding towards the top floor of the building – level 15 - where the office of the Deputy Commander waits.
On the door, the name of Quentin Black has been printed, replacing that of Leyton Burns.
“He’s dead, you think?” I ask, referring to the new Deputy as we wander down the corridor.
“Nor sure,” answers Zander plainly. “We’ve heard rumours that he may be over in Outer Haven commanding his men. Cromwell will need someone on the ground, and since he probably knows all about Burns by now, Black will be the most senior member of the City Guard.”
