by Enoch Enns
He felt a soft pressure against his neck as Joan fell asleep. Did she know? He couldn't imagine how a child would react to such terror. He knew her body couldn't handle it. It hadn't-- Friedelock was proof of that. But he cut the thought off. No need to meditate on hating a man. He was done with Friedelock and with Antoinette. He prayed this Sherlin would give him an escape from it all. Or in the least, a place to stay.
I need to gather myself, he said silently. I am human after all. I haven't slept or ate in a long time... I need the rest, and so does little Joan...
He couldn't help smiling to the memories of his past joys. With her in his arms, he sensed hope for once. He could almost see Elairah walking beside him holding his hand. Her smooth touch would calm any storm of incompetence or pain. Her heart was a spring of comfort; her breath a breeze in a desert plain; her hair a fragrance of serenity. He missed her. He hurt for her. “Elairah...” he let slip out.
“You seem mesmerized,” Kit cut in. “You know, I'd never expect a man of your likes to still be move'n. I hope you haven't been stealing, have you? This place may have gone to pot but I ain't gonna let the business just rot. Even in times of trouble, stealing is stealing.”
“What are those e-Links?” Carls asked.
“You've used them, you know.”
“Why in the world would they be on the market if they're so dangerous?”
He could hear Kit laugh. “It is not my place to judge their unstable tendencies. I am only their watcher. Believe it or not, my job used to be much lighter.”
“So what happened?”
Kit had hoped to avoid conversation, but he knew Carls' interest had already been sparked as though a child's imagination. The creases of his eyes seemed set from his steady smile. So comfortable. So mysterious. So simple, yet so dangerous.
“Just know this: 'Where there is an attraction of groups, a business is sure to rise.' T.J. Lawrence himself said that. Sure enough, this place was quite the attraction. But I do not care to bore myself with already past circumstances. The only thing that matters now is that the business be kept secure from tricks, lies, and thieves-- I'll get 'em.”
“The business, what is it exactly? Why are they so bizarre? Friedelock Industries, e-Company, Mx3, Brainware... why haven't I heard of them before? What are they?”
“Simply put: you don't know anything. That is why Antoinette is handing you over to Sherlin. But even then, if you want solid answers, you gotta find 'em yourself. Speaking of which, here we are...”
Carls hadn't noticed the time past nor did he recognize the scene before them. They stood at a junction of three halls and in front of them were two men ravaged through the overturned crates of an abandoned supply store.
Carls couldn't believe his eyes. In fact, at first he didn't. “...Dyrdrik?”
The man looked up, his comrade noticing them as well, surprised at Carls' remark “Dyrdrik?” he inquired confusingly. “I thought you were--”
“Yes,” Dyrdrik budded the man off, “that was my name. Is my name, but in hiding. It's been a long time, who might you be, Stranger?”
“I am Carls, Carls Locke. You knew Norwick, didn't you?”
The man's face turned stern. “Indeed, but don't think that gives you any right to burst into my past life. I escaped it, or so I had thought. Until they stole my wife.”
“What happened to her?”
“She... wandered off. I tried to find her, to stop her, but before I could they had taken her away. And now she is gone-- I no longer recognize her.”
“Why did she wander?”
“It was her mind. She was... ill. And it got the better of her.”
“Of a lot of us,” his comrade included.
“I lost sight of her, and in that brief moment, I fear to have lost her altogether.” The men suddenly were at unease. Something was coming. Kit was no longer there either. Carls hadn't noticed him leave, but now it was just him and a man he would have never thought to be alive.
“Come,” Dyrdrik spoke, “it is not safe here.”
“We can't just take him,” his comrade, Jailer, added.
“Have you not noticed the child with him? I shall not desert such a man!”
The sound came again, this time Carls could make it out. A Fallen One. “Please, I need a place to rest.”
“Who brought you here?”
“I was sent by Antoinette.”
They both looked surprised, but discarded any further questions they had. “Follow us and we will talk where it is safer.”
Who Is Sherlin?
Jailer did not approve of the action—that much was obvious. The man was a fighter at heart with the hands of a blacksmith and body of a sailor. Surprisingly enough, it was Dyrdrik who always had a pack a cigarettes on hand. They were quick through the halls and narrow alleys of shortcuts and bi-ways leading to their small encampment deep within the ever so vast mall. The place was located in the Upper Alleys just above Hanging Gardens. The structures themselves seemed under lockdown and thus tents and tarps extended from them in odd angles so as to form shelters for privacy and segregation. And for once, there were people. At least two dozen or so too—women and children. The camp had two fires burning on the tiles of the mall operating as ovens. The lampposts shone dimply about the circumference. But they didn't need it right now. For the first time I a long while, Carls saw what he thought to be a glimmer of sunlight blaring over the place. It shone vibrantly from high above as it penetrated the glass ceiling. The sun, Joan, you get to feel the sun.
Little Joan had lifted her head by now as Dyrdrik and Jailer strode on ahead to greet their friends with the recovered goods. A scouting party, Carls concluded. It made sense. They had to get supplies somehow. Joan leaned tightly against him as she dropped to the floor and stretched her arms. Her cheer of awakening had caught the attention of several other children and they came running to see the newcomers. Should I trust them? Carls was weary to let her go. Especially considering he had just fought so hard for her—he didn’t like the risk of losing her again.
“What's her name?” a voice carried to his left, a lady in her mid-thirties greeting him.
“Joanna,” Carls answered her. Her hair was wrapped in scarf and her tall body covered in ragged clothes. Her cheeks were stained from a dirty past but clean from recent pain.
She looked back at him, almost as though able to sense the suffering he had buried beneath. “That's a beautiful name,” she said. “Don't worry, she is safe here. Sherlin has kept us safe thus far, I'm sure two more won’t be a problem for him.”
“Carls,” Dyrdrik budded in, brushing his palms on his legs only to notice the splinters in his hands. “Let's talk,” he said, motioning to the side but catching himself, “She’s our caretaker. You can trust her to tend justly to your girl.”
With his eye still on Joan, Carls reluctantly followed Dydrik, watching as his daughter steadily and shyly warmed up to the Caretaker and kids.
“She seems happy here,” the man said, also noticing.
“Indeed,” Carls said, brushing his tired arm against his damp forehead. His body was beginning to take its toll. “Might we stay here for a little while?” he asked. “I don't know how I would repay you, but my mind and body are weak, and there are just too many doubts, questions, and fears on my mind.”
The man looked wearily at him. Mike Dyrdrik—the man he'd heard so much about while pursuing Norwick. Dyrdrik the philosopher. So many questions but for now all that mattered was for him to find a place for his daughter to sleep.
“There is worry spreading here, especially since you say Antoinette sent you. You know it’s a thin line when keeping the hearts here sane and orderly. You've practically sent the whole place spiraling just by calling me by that name.”
“But you are Dyrdrik, aren't you?”
“Not here. Not now. Here I am known as Sherlin, and I ask you learn it the same. Worry spreading like wildfire is the last thing we need. As for your staying, you must understand
that there is more to it than simply giving you a tent. Our food is short and space tight. Here, if you have something to hide, then you leave. We aren't fans of secrets, nor can we afford to be. I don't know who you are or where you came from, only that you are here and that you have a little girl with you. If indeed she is yours?”
“Yes, she is.”
Dyrdrik glanced back over the encampment. Not Dyrdrik, but Sherlin. He was the people's leader. And rightly so. He seemed to be a man of high standings and solid ideals. He also looked burdened—as though accepting Carls and Joan was far more burdensome than first thought. Carls didn't like the thought of intruding on them, but he had nowhere else to go. He felt responsible for bringing any harm to them as an outsider. A stranger.
The man bit his lower lip to a nervous decision. “Fine, you can stay. But under one condition.” The man seemed weary to state his demand. Almost as though he carried it upon himself to ask no favors of anyone, if it was a favor at all. Surely he had undergone so much since the events dealing with Norwick. His reputation, his past, his friends, his family—his wife, an all-to-relate-able loss.
“My wife,” he mumbled, a hand through his gray, withered hair. “She's... missing... but she's not dead. At least that I know. Please, I just need to know where she went. Bring her back to me, if only her body, in exchange for portions to remain and to prove you are trustworthy. If you do, then the people here will like you a lot more also. Maybe then they'll welcome you without my convincing.”
Carls fought his mind’s every attempt to play the scene of his wife’s abrupt end, but he refused it. He clang deeply to the hope that this was all still but a nightmare and he would soon wake to her. Yet, part of him doubted… part of him feared… part of him questioned. “Where is she?” he asked.
“I don't not know, that is why I'm asking for your help. When she... went, I could always find her, always hear her, by her clanging. For some reason, she clings to the same pipe—” Carls' mind went a wonder. The pipe. He could feel his frantic breathing yet again and the desperate panic for sight of his daughter. He felt again the corner as he peered around it, the sudden flash of steel to his face—the blacking out of his conscience.
“You okay?” Sherlin asked.
She was still there. His breathing slowed, eyes blinking off the recollection. Yes, he knew of her, the illusionate. “I am fine,” he said.
“I hope it is not too much to ask of you, but this is one way I am sure you will be welcomed with open arms.”
Carls was still staring as his daughter—her laughter filling his scope of attention. If that had been Dyrdrik's wife all along then... the blood, the panic, the lights going out and his shoulders pressing against the desk. Her face... her screams...
Brainware-- that was where he had last seen her. It had been her following him. Her that he kept hearing off in the distance. Her that he had seen snatched by some darkness.
A Shem.
A lump of saliva slid down his esophagus as he put the memories aside. Yes, her. “I recall who she is,” he said solemnly.
“You do? You have seen her before?”
“She is just like them, isn't she?” he implied at the illusionate.
Sherlin didn't seem pleased at the relation. Especially in labeling his wife as such. Carls wanted to ask of what illness the man spoke of, but he refused to intrude any further.
“I know it will not be easy for you, but please, at least try. That is all for now. You may leave first thing in the morning if you wish to help you daughter feel at home here. The people will not have a problem with her being here.”
“I don't plan on leaving her,” Carls said, his fists clenching at the thought of deserting her again.
“You must. I know my wife to have fallen deep and your daughter has no place in witnessing such things. She is not ready. You have my word: she is safer here.”
“Can she see?” Carls asked. “I mean, does she know what it's like?”
“I doubt she does. You can't hide it from her forever, but for now she is simply too young. I will have Linda, the Caretaker, look after her. She seems good with the children. Especially the girls. That is all I have to say for now. Go, spend time with your little girl. For now, the people will just have to deal with your presence, like it or not. Just don't cause trouble.”
At that, Sherlin departed the conversation and Carls returned to his daughter as she played tag with her new friends. Five years old, he told himself, shaking his head. She was three last time I knew her. To think she has spanned so many years against her will-- how could she not know of her surroundings. But at least she is happy. At least she does not have to face those... monsters. At least, for now, she can be at peace as Elairah was... so innocent, so unaware.... God, help me understand and keep her safe.
And help me to keep my feet aground.
A Good Man's Promise
Time seemed to have gone by far too swiftly for him to now be leaving her again. But he trusted her to be in good hands. He prayed she was. Sherlin was right that such a journey would be too much for her. Maybe, if he moved fast enough, it could all be over with before she could even start missing him. His palm felt to his heartbeat. The link was still there, he could sense it. The bond. He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. Finding the missing person would mean him returning to Brainware Corp., despite how much he wished not to. They had fed him well and sent him on his way. Sherlin had even given him an e-Link in case the need arose. He didn't savor the thought of using it, but knew how much it helped. However, this particular e-Link only boosted the white blood cells within the body. Carls took it that it was meant more for Sherlin's wife than he. She would definitely need it more. And perhaps he wouldn't have to use it before then.
His feet stepped yet again into the unexpected. His coat had been rinsed of its dirt and he'd been given new pants and undershirt. Still the same worn-out tennis shoes though. Same Hand-Pal and same sash in which still rested the armament he'd been given by the Nightingale. What it did, how it was to be used, still surpassed him. He didn't know if it even amounted to anything, he only hoped he wouldn't have to find out.
Most of the shops were vacant, if not stripped of anything valuable. Sherlin's encampment had been making quick use of any and all goods near them. He saw the battered windows and wreckage in their wake. Must have been others as well, he thought. Sherlin didn't seem like the type to take unnecessary steps in acquiring supplies. But there was still the illusionate... the Fallen Ones... the Shem... Any one of them could have done the same things. But why? Why were they different? The Shem... it was nothing like he had seen before or could have even imagined. Its body was unexplainable. Its behavior was unpredictable. And then the Fallen Ones... their brute power and sense of rage.
Having confronted those two, the illusionate would seem to be a walk in the park. But they weren't. Their state didn't make them any weaker, only more unstable. He could see their blood across the floor and glass where one had tried fleeing a store. So confused, he remarked. They seemed to have lost their minds. If an illness it were, then a steady descent to madness seemed to fit. The Holstein Sector proved to support him. Though he hadn't met any illusionate there, it was plausible. Had that been the start? “Don't sleep,” they'd said, “it is their poison.”
Poison? They? Who were they? A cult? A business? Or actually something darker than anything man could do alone? Could this they be like the Shem? Was it the substance that possessed when its victims became weak enough? Was it the difference between an illusionate and a Fallen One?
He shuttered at the thought. He'd seen it firsthand-- the desperate mutant of hunger and rage chasing after him.
“Still curious are you?” Xavier asked.
What? Xavier?
Carls noticed he had wandered into the shop and now stood facing the flickering figure of a man as mysterious as the place he was in. “Why do you keep appearing to me?” Carls inquired back.
“Like I said the first time: I ha
ve no one to conversate with and that leaves me quite alone in this place... just like you.”
Carls knew what was coming. Xavier was a tripper no matter how much he refused. He claimed to just be a hologram, but they still came whenever the two spoke.
“Have you found some answers to your questions yet?” the man asked.
“No,” Carls said, remembering his last attempt at reaching one of them. “It is not that easy--”
“But they need you, don't they? And you would do them wrong to just leave them. Tell me, what went wrong?”
“And why should I answer to you? Even as we speak more are on their way. I am tired of running and hiding; of hurting and losing. End this trickery now!”
“Oh don't be so weak,” Xavier scoffed, “you're the one who's been choosing to run and hide and letting yourself hurt and lose. If I am not mistaken, you actually had a recent victory...”
The Nightingale. Yes, he remembered. That man was not of here either. Norwick had summoned him-- which brought even more questions.
“And I am implying on the young man you enlightened, not the Nightingale. You know, in the Hanging Gardens...”
“Stop,” Carls demanded rather detestably. His hands had finally healed from the flames, he didn’t wish them reopened. “That was a failure if anything.”
“But it showed it was possible,” Xavier pressed. “It proved you can reach them, didn't it?”
“And how would you know? You weren't there!”
The man smiled. “There are many things I see that you don't. But I am not here to analyze your life for you, only to keep you thinking. You yourself said you wanted answers, and to get them, you must ask.”
“It is impossible--”
Xavier laughed. “You truly are in denial still! Ha, if it were impossible, then why do you seek one now? If it were impossible, then explain what happened in the chambers! If it were impossible, then why do you keep trying? Truly, you need to decide within yourself where you really stand, because as of now, the only thing keeping you from finding answers is you. I can delay them no longer, thus we shall part for a while. I suggest you use this moment to try expanding your little box of doubt. Goodbye, and we will speak again.”
