Vicinus (Walking Shadows Book 3)

by Talis Jones

  I pull up a rare photo of us all together, taken on Maddy’s birthday last year, and zoom in on our faces. Keep ‘em busy, I think to Maddy and Karter. Time to move. Time to change the game.

  MADDY

  Dawn barely has a chance to announce itself before I release Yosef’s hand and retreat to my own space. Doubting I’ll need much I fill a pack with the bare essentials hesitating on my music box. The thought of leaving it behind is oddly painful but the risk of anyone taking it from me even more so. I place it in the trunk at the end of my cot tucking it securely atop the blankets and clothes I’m leaving behind and then squeeze a space to fit my skates nice and snug. The trunk closes with a quiet sigh and I rise.

  My eyes catch on the pile of gifts still wrapped and waiting. With all the chaos we never had a proper Christmas. I arrange them on my bed to be found but my fingers hesitate on Yosef’s. I decide to deliver his myself. I don’t know what to do with KJ’s or Frocket’s.

  Everyone is asleep and for a moment it could be any other morning. I let the stillness calm me as I sit at the large table and lay out a blank page torn from a book and a pen with ink that hasn’t gummed up. I give myself a minute to collect my thoughts. I don’t want anyone to stop me but I can’t rush this either.

  “Maddy?”

  I jolt in the chair, turning to see Arcas watching me from his charging station. “You should be asleep,” I tell him quietly hoping no others wake up before I can slip out.

  “I’m an Android,” he reminds me dryly. “I don’t sleep.”

  His words pull a frown over my face.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  My fingers toy with the page. “Writing a letter,” I confess.

  A sadness passes over him and yet I’m relieved to see his robotic demeanor left behind with the night. “Okay, Maddy,” he nods. “Okay.”

  He sounds more as if he’s speaking to himself than to me but I just give him a small smile and return to the task. I could write a thousand letters and none of them would be quite right. Just write something, I order myself and with one indulgent tear I try.

  “You came alone,” Charlie observes not bothering to hide his surprise.

  “I said I would, didn’t I?”

  He gives me a knowing look. “And when has that ever been honored?”

  Throwing my shoulders back, I grip the straps to my backpack and glare. “I don’t know what kind of people you’re used to working with but I’m not a liar.” His eyebrows rise. “Anymore,” I amend.

  He laughs. “Jobs aside I know you’re honest,” he says. “You practically glow with it.”

  “You’re insulting me,” I accuse.

  Charlie shrugs. “Come, the doctor is waiting.”

  “Wait,” I don’t move an inch and wait for him to face me. “Who sent that bomb from the bakery?” We’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to wonder but before I do this I need to know.

  “It wasn’t me,” Charlie promises then resumes his lead.

  I follow him down the dock and onto a modest ship, nothing to sneer at but nothing that might cause too much attention either. I’ve never actually been on a boat before but the situation sours the experience. We wind our way to the top deck where a woman waits for us. A crisp white coat hugs her and I struggle not to spit or run. She looks sharp as glass and her smile is just as cold though I don’t think she means it to be.

  “Nice to meet you at last,” she greets. “I’m Dr. Liz Convici.”

  “Hi,” I muster and not a syllable more.

  The doctor seems amused by my recalcitrance. “Mr. Osman tells me you’ve been hiding with Dr. Xi’s little runaway. He was quite surprised when he ran into her outside that bakery.”

  “Runaway my ass,” I snap. “Spy is more like.” Then it hits me. “Wait, you knew who she was this whole time?” I stare at Charlie ever incredulous at his lies.

  “I was under orders not to expose her,” he explains simply. “We couldn’t have anyone knowing what she was. We were planning an extraction but things went a bit awry before it could be executed. If we’d simply snatched her in the street that very moment we’d have had your whole gang on our scent and we weren’t about to risk you.”

  “If you’d told us the truth then KJ would still be alive!” My heart aches at the cruel If Only and I have to force back the tears that surge at the thought.

  “Indeed,” the doctor intervenes. “Well we had hoped to capture the subject alive.”

  I barely manage to reign in my dislike for this woman I hardly know. “And I’d hoped to keep my friends alive,” I lash back, the wound of KJ’s death still throbbing in my heart.

  “Yes, about that…” She reaches over towards the boat’s console and presses a button. “Strike team, go.”

  “What are you doing?” I panic.

  Dr. Convici stares at me without remorse. “What should’ve been done had that baker not been such an incompetent fool.”

  My brow furrows at a loss for what the hell that’s supposed to mean when a sudden blast has me practically jumping overboard in shock. I spin wildly towards the sound and see great plumes of smoke rising into the bright morning sky, tainting it. It takes me a moment to realize precisely where the explosion came from and when I do I nearly collapse.

  My knees fall weak and my lungs struggle to take stuttering, heaving breaths. Charlie holds me up and I can barely discern what the devil in white is saying. Around us Sanctuary agents appear from below and begin shifting cargo, shouting commands, and readying the ship for departure. I process none of it, too fixated on the one thing that was giving me hope, strength.

  My family, I sob silently.

  “Don’t be foolish,” the doctor chastises coldly. “You can’t have ties when you join Sanctuary as an agent. You can’t have divided loyalties or distractions…and you know they would’ve interfered. I couldn’t allow that. If that first bomb had been placed properly instead of pawned off to you then you’d have been severed from all ties except for charming Mr. Osman here who would’ve gladly swept you into his arms. Of course Dr. Xi’s little spawn might have also been eliminated but seeing as she’s dead now anyway it makes no difference.”

  She continues to speak, her words forcing themselves into my ears even as I try to block them out. “This is bigger than some rag tag crew of misfits, Maddy. This is the real game. This is the world at stake. I need you focused. Nothing is more important to you than Sanctuary. Not anymore.”

  She seems to wait for a response from me but all I can manage is hot tears, weak legs, and pathetic whimpers of denial. “Take her below deck and find Nurse Yola,” she instructs Charlie. “We’ll begin re-programming immediately.” She grabs my chin forcing me to look at her. “Welcome to Sanctuary, Agent Paladin.”

  I’m barely aware as he half-carries me to a cabin devoid of any personal touch and lays me down on the bed. He watches me for a moment looking torn then turns to leave.

  “You knew,” I sob softly.

  Charlie sucks in a sharp breath then meets my watery gaze. “I’d hoped differently.” Starting towards me as if he can’t help it he begs, “Don’t give up, Maddy. What’s done is done but you can still change things, change the world. You’ll be a hero.”

  Those same words echo from my childhood. I don’t think any of them understand the meaning of the word ‘hero’ but I do know that I have no interest in it.

  “I want to be with my family,” I cry. Maybe I should be embarrassed by this open display of uncontrolled emotion in from of him but the hurt in my chest just won’t go away.

  “You can’t,” Charlie murmurs gently.

  A sudden willful rage heats my bones. “I can,” I threaten.

  Charlie’s face pales. “Don’t, Maddy. Don’t even think things like that, please.” He grabs my hand tightly and I’m too exhausted to shake him off. “Just one day at a time,” he urges. “One hour, one minute, just one breath. You’re strong, Maddy. Just hold on and you’ll see. I can have you a
pprenticed to me. You can stay with me in Eurasia. Just stay.”

  My sobs have settled enough to speak and I manage to get the words out before they redouble. I stare at him point blank revealing all the pain imploding within me. “There’s no point breathing when my heart is no longer beating and you get to spend the rest of your life knowing it’s your fault.”

  They did this. They did this. They crushed my heart the moment they blew up my home and the pain is too much too much too much too much!

  “Let me get Yola,” Charlie panics. “She’ll help you.”

  I watch him hurry out of the small room and stare at nothing at all. I cannot escape them, I cannot reverse my hate for Convici, but I know God wants me to live as much as it seems like a nightmare to do so. There’s something to this Sanctuary that Charlie believes in, there is something that so many people have pledged their lives to fight for, so maybe I can find something too. Maybe there are others who need help, whom I can help. Maybe the cause is righteous but it needs better agents to see it through. Maybe if I can just focus on breathing in and breathing out I can endure this world a while longer and do some good before I finally let go and slip free.

  Right now I’ll cling onto anything just to make the pain go away because if it’s possible to die of a broken heart then I don’t have long to live and while death sounds like peace I feel a sharp tug in my soul that urges me with a fierce “Not yet.”

  Charlie returns with a tall, kind-faced nurse close behind and as soon as I see the syringe I fight tooth and nail but I’m small, I’m exhausted, I’m on the cusp of broken and I can’t fight Charlie’s vise-like grip nor the nurse’s surprisingly cobra-quick movements. My screams dissipate and my limbs melt and artificial peace sings lullabies through my blood and brain.

  Amazing.

  I feel…I take a deep breath and gaze in wonder at the faces hovering before me. Music hums in my head…

  “What a riot, what a trial, what a panicky disgrace, to be human to be human to be killing for the race…What a blessing, what a trip, what a wild warm embrace, to be human to be human instead of ghosts trapped in the grave…”

  …before fading…

  …fading…

  …gone.

  Silence overtakes my head. No thoughts, no memories, no music, no nightmares, no worries.

  Just. Peace.

  “Thank you,” I sigh happily. “Thank you.”

  Epilogue

  I Wonder as I Wander

  5 YEARS LATER

  Shudders run through my body as I surface from the trance, a healing technique Tori taught me while visiting from the base in the Southern Coalition. It’s always strange seeing her dressed in her dirt-coated clothes, a bandana spilling from her pocket, while her twin is never seen with so much as a speck of dust on her person and always wearing her crisp, white lab coat as if to constantly remind everyone of who she is…of what she controls. Identical in faces only, and perhaps also their ruthless minds, they differ in all other regards. It’s amusing to watch.

  But that is unimportant.

  Those thoughts are a distraction to keep me from what the meditation has revealed, what memories have been shaken loose from the darkest basements of my mind.

  I am not Agent Paladin. My name is Maddy Sinclaire.

  I’m not from the Alliance. I’m from the Pacific Confederation.

  I’m not an orphan. My family was not killed in the Purge. I was not the victim of a neurotoxin rewriting my brain.

  I was caught and coerced, taken to Sanctuary for safety yes, but also as a pawn against my will.

  A familiar rage washes over me except it no longer seeks out revenge for my blood family’s murder, but for the slaughter of a different family and it’s aimed at a monster in a white coat. I stand alone in the world besides a name and a rage I can’t shake, don’t want to shake, and I will do anything to get that revenge just as I’d once promised. I am an agent of Sanctuary and I will rot it from the inside out in vengeance.

  “I remember,” I seethe to myself.

  “Good.”

  I whip around, on my feet in an instant poised to attack. I’d been alone in the private meditation room and any trespasser is subject to my awakened wrath.

  Whomever spoke steps out from the shadows, nothing but confidence and lethal grace in their movements. The moment the dawning sunlight streaming through the window strikes the person’s face my jaw drops open and my fists lower from shock.

  “42?” I whisper in disbelief. She’s older, hardened, and her head remains shaved, but even so I’d never mistake this woman for anyone else. “How–?” I can’t even finish forming my question; I have too many trying to burst through at once.

  “It doesn’t matter how I’m alive or how I’m here,” 42 dismisses. “What matters is that you have your true memories back.”

  She stands there waiting for an answer, staring so harshly I can feel holes burning into my own eyes from the intensity. “Yeah,” I mutter. “I remember. But how–?”

  42 gestures and I spin around. A girl hugs the shadows, silently weeping in fright. She seems familiar and I try to recall her name…Lauren, maybe. To be honest I don’t spend much time with the younger recruits even if they do have special powers like I do. I was always too focused on the job. Now a finger of trepidation glides down my spine at what other gifts lurk within the ranks that I’m ignorant about. The thought of someone sifting through my head even to jailbreak my truth douses me in ice.

  “Well,” 42 sighs, regaining my attention. “Now that your mind is no longer brainwashed, what do you plan to do?” Her head tilts slightly as she scrutinizes me in that way I’d almost forgotten, sending chills down my spine.

  “Destroy the doctor,” I growl.

  42 seems unimpressed. “What? Liz?” She shrugs already bored. “If you must, but then I’ll need your help back home.”

  Of course she does. When does 42 ever do anything for free? I told the others from the start that our freedom would come with a price, that 42 would some day call us back. And if she can sneak her way into a secured facility run by Sanctuary then I know she can hunt me down wherever I go. “With what?” I ask, my stomach knotting at the infinite possibilities 42’s cold mind could spout out.

  “Destroying the regime that put us in the testing,” she smiles cruelly. “I’ll need your resources as a member of Sanctuary. You’re an agent now but I need something a bit more powerful so keep up the good work and climb the ladder for when I call.”

  “How high?” I immediately cringe at my choice of words. She says, jump, and I say, how high? And yet she’s the reason I’m not six feet under. I owe her for that and for this.

  42 comes closer until everything in me begs to step back. “High enough to leave this place. High enough to be in charge and give commands. High enough to weaponize a revolution. That’s how high. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s how high you’ll need to be to shoot good ol’ Doctor Convici in the head and walk away from it.”

  I can’t help the thick swallow that echoes in the room, the lump in my throat that formed at her words.

  She rakes me head to toe then adds almost as if with a resigned sigh, “When you’re fixated on surviving, you can’t dream and you’re a dreamer, Maddy. I know your dreams align with my revolution so give in. You’ve been sitting, 143. Are you ready to stand?”

  I never wanted to change the world. I had small dreams, little dreams, safe dreams. But they were ripped away from me again and again, slowly then all at once and whether this is my new “dream” or I simply have nothing else to run towards… “I’ll do it.”

  “Good.”

  With that she beckons to the girl forgotten in the corner. As if no more than waving away a buzzing fly she reaches out and snaps the girl’s neck with a quick twist. No emotion flickers in her face and the sight turns my veins to ice. A choked protest begins to burst from my lips but I bite most of it back and hold tight not to vomit.

  “Why?” I whisper horrifi
ed.

  42 looks at me like a parent about to explain something simple to their child. “She knew too much.”

  My mouth opens and closes, wordless.

  Seeing my struggle 42 continues. “She was being trained to alter the memories of recruits, particularly the unwilling, and with her fiddling around in your head, Maddy, you’d never remember who you were, who you are. You’d become whatever they wanted you to become and you’d be powerless to stop it or ever reverse it. She was dangerous and now she’s gone. See? I just saved everyone she’s yet to touch. Didn’t they promise us we’d be heroes?”

  Knowing she won’t leave until I give some sort of response I slowly nod, forcing my eyes away from the body and directly to 42’s.

  42 nods once then turns to go before hesitating. She covers the distance swiftly until we’re practically pressed nose to nose and I fight to stay put. “I almost forgot,” she says though I doubt it. “Tell the Rolling Bones I held up my end of the deal and I expect them to hold up theirs.” I stand there in shock as she shoves something into my numb hands and slips out of the room without a spare glance.

  I barely have a chance to believe my family survived when a small click pulls my eyes towards the bundle 42 left in my hold. Impossible. I stare at the music box I’d left behind with another life and have the inexplicable urge to cry. What the hell is going on? What is 42 up to? What are the Rolling Bones up to? How did they survive? Is this just another illusion? Another lie? Another manipulation to bend me into servitude for another’s agenda?

  No, I admonish myself. I’m awake now. I’ve made my choice. 42 might be the craziest of them all, but I know her and she’s… I hesitate to use the word “friend” and yet it somehow fits better than “ally.” And with that I choose not to dwell on it any longer. I could overanalyze until I die blue in the face but I’d rather go out with a bit more of a splash n’ dazzle.