by Quil Carter
My house was brick and off to the west, far enough away that I didn’t have to see people if I didn’t want to, but near enough that I didn’t have to sleep with one eye open.
Scanning the square, my eyes fell from the boarded up store fronts, and the alleyways filled with debris, back to the fountain in the middle of the square. This was the main hub of Aras; Melpin’s bar was here, Reno’s Uncle Carson had a shop, and we had some other stores too.
The fountain was as big as a car in length but was circular; it was made out of a smooth marble-type material that had a smaller circular slab on top of it. It used to have a third smaller slab stacked on the second one, but that had been removed a long time ago. Long before I was born, when our people’s grandparents were looking for a place to settle down, they found a large pipe going deep into the earth beneath the fountain, that led eventually to water.
With some digging and some knowledge of earth, or water finding, or whatever, they managed to make the fountain into a well. This was our only water source, and we guarded it with our lives, me especially. If any diseased rat escaped from the cellar and tried to drink from the well, it could poison all of us; heck I’ve even had to shoot a couple of our own people who tried to get a drink after they had come down with the disease. Didn’t sweat it though, they were as good as dead anyway; I just spared them the agony.
I continued to watch the square fill up with the various residents of Aras. The music on the radio had started up again, and was now mixed in with the low murmuring noise that comes when a bunch of people are talking all at once. They trickled in, chatting amongst themselves over whatever mundane, unimportant things waster idiots talk about, all clustered around the fountain.
This sort of action, clustering around the water source, always reminded me of a group of herd animals; grouping around the waterhole, reinforcing their social bonds because to them there was strength in numbers. And keeping everyone happy with you was a good survival strategy. Anyone who knew me for more than several minutes would be able to tell that this was not my strategy. I was a solitary predator, not a herd animal, and reinforcing social bonds was about as important to me as drinking arsenic.
I heard a loud thud and a shifting of metal and looked behind me to see Greyson. The shed was only a couple feet from the second-storey of an old apartment building. The easy way to get on top of the shed was to climb onto the balcony’s railing and jump.
I looked past Greyson just in time to see Leo hop from the railing onto the tin roof.
“Looks like everyone’s here,” Greyson said. He looked over at me and grabbed one of the crates from the stack I had been resting on. He placed it on the edge of the roof, and stood on top of it before clearing his throat to address the residents.
“Thank you for your attendance,” he started. I rolled my eyes.
Stop the polite bullshit and get to the point, I thought to myself, but that was Greyson for you, our polite and considerate leader. Though we all knew that that wasn’t all he was; the polite bit was just a quirk he had that made dealing with the masses a bit easier. Greyson was a leader in every way; tough and menacing with a stern no bullshit face, and a strong muscular build. He was Aras’s leader before I came here, and before him there was his father, and then his grandfather, who had helped the people settle down here. Greyson was literally a born leader, and everyone followed him without question.
A lot of leaders you came across seemed to have some sense of entitlement, and they usually ended up being murderous tyrants, no better than our bullshit King, but not Greyson. He had a good heart and was always treating the residents with respect, though no one ever mistook that for weakness. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill one of our own if they became diseased, and he had, on more than one occasion, shot a lawbreaker, or even turned the deacons on unwelcome visitors. He and his husband Leo had a good sense of justice and law.
I couldn’t relate though. I thought the people I lived with were a bunch of fucking morons and given the chance I would address them as such. I guess that’s why Greyson never let me near the microphone that connected to the outdoor speakers.
“We’re about to have a visit by another mercer,” Greyson said. Immediately there was angry murmurs throughout the crowd, Greyson held up his hand for silence.
The crowd immediately quietened.
“I see no reason why this visit will be any different from the others,” he continued. “To the newcomers here, who may not have experienced this before; this is nothing but a routine visit by one of King Silas’ Chancellors. He will take our blood, take our numbers, take our live births and deaths, and general information of that sort.”
“Why the fuck does King Shithead care about any of this?” a middle-aged man, whose name I never cared to remember, remarked loudly.
“First off, if you call him that while the mercer is around, you’re going to get shot in the fucking head.” Leo spoke up; he always got pissed off when someone even suggested ticking off the Legion or one of King Silas’s goons. “And if they don’t shoot you, I will personally shoot you, because pissing off a mercer is going to affect the whole block.”
The man let out an annoying grunt; everyone else glared angrily at him. Greyson continued.
“I couldn’t care less what King Silas is doing with this information. What I do care about is not bringing any attention to us, or our block,” he said. “We have been able to remain secluded because of our location, and because of our seclusion, we have a good existence. Compared to the rest of the greywastes, we live in luxury. The last thing we need is to piss off the person who controls this wasteland, because with just a wave of his finger, he can and will eliminate us.” I could see Greyson’s body stiffen and his fists clench as he said those last words. He took a deep breath and continued.
“So while he is here, there will be no bad-mouthing the king, no snide remarks. Everyone will cooperate and get this shit over with so we can get on with our lives. We all have our personal opinions of the king, but for the safety of everyone… shut the fuck up about it.”
I scoffed quietly, enough for Leo and Greyson to hear but not anyone else. This would be my first experience with a mercer, though I had shot my fair share of soldiers. All the other times I had been out in the greywastes, and thankfully had missed all of this crap. I wished I was out there now.
Greyson and Leo continued on with their speech, though it sounded much more like a threat to me. I leant against the crates and rested my arms around the back of my head and yawned obnoxiously. After a few more minutes of threats, the two of them were done. I opened my eyes to see them crouching down on the roof to jump down onto the square.
“Reaver, walk with me,” Greyson called after the two of them had jumped onto the cracked cobblestones.
I grunted and got up off of the crates. Without even looking, I walked the few steps to the edge of the roof and jumped off. I landed on the ground and strolled casually towards Greyson.
He glanced behind him to make sure I was following him, and then motioned for me to walk beside him. The two of us made our way down the crumbling stone road, the crowd dispersing in all directions, filing down the alleys and streets like worker ants.
I didn’t know where he was taking me, which I never liked, but I had a feeling that the destination wasn’t what was important.
“I’m going to put this simply, son,” Greyson began, we turned a corner. The street we were now walking on was one of the mostly abandoned parts of town. Well, a large percentage of the block was abandoned, but this place more so. The buildings here were older than the ones on the other side of town, and hadn’t stood the test of time like the stronger structures. Time had gotten the best of the east side of town, and the surviving plants of the wasteland, and the dust had taken them back to nature. A few had crumbled under their own weight, but for the most part they stood in ruins.
I suddenly realized that while my thoughts had been wandering, Greyson had just finished telling me something.<
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“What was that? I wasn’t listening,” I said aloofly, taking my gaze away from an abandoned corner store that had long ago been looted and cleaned out.
Greyson let out an exasperated grunt and shook his head. “Reaver, this is important. I need your help when the mercer gets here.”
“With what?” I asked, my interest now piqued.
Greyson paused, as if trying to think what was going to say next. I don’t know why he bothered; he was always blunt and honest with me, he knew I didn’t give a shit about wording things nicely.
Greyson seemed to sense this, because he took in a deep breath. “If anything goes wrong with the mercer, I want you to shoot him,” he said dryly.
I was taken aback. I looked at the leader of Aras and blinked in confusion, wondering if I had just had a stroke without knowing. “Ten minutes ago you were telling the block to shut-up and suck-up, and you’re telling me I can kill him?”
“Snipe him,” Greyson corrected. “If you need to, snipe him.”
“Why?” I cocked an eyebrow. The image of blowing the brains out of a mercer was filling me with grisly intrigue.
Greyson’s mouth twitched. He wiped the sweat off his head. I was amused by his body language during this particular conversation – he seemed to be struggling with his decision to ask me to snipe the mercer. He was usually very good at maintaining a calm and gathered demeanour around others, but now it was obvious he was uncomfortable with his decision.
I suppose, thinking back, it was because he felt comfortable around me and that’s why he didn’t need to pretend that he felt comfortable about it. I was his right-hand man; he and Leo had taken me in when my parents died only days after coming to Aras. I was not only his pseudo kid, but as I had gotten older, I had become his solider too.
Greyson could count on me, even if he wasn’t sure of his orders. Besides Leo I was the only asshole he could trust with a sensitive order such as this. He knew that I wasn’t going to gossip or spread it around to my friends; I didn’t have any fucking friends to spread it to besides Reno, and I was his only friend anyway.
“If anything goes wrong, and lots of things can go wrong during these visits –” Greyson paused then continued. “I want the mercer dead before he can take any incriminating information back to Silas. We can take care of the soldiers – it will take a long time in the greywastes for King Silas to find out the mercer is dead and by that time we can prepare for the backlash.”
“You’re talking to me like this has happened before,” I said slowly. I noticed how quiet this street was. The speakers which usually hummed pre-recorded radio music were not set up this far east, so all that could be heard was our footsteps and our breath. I was used to quiet. I liked quiet. But this was an unsettling silence; the eerie silence before something happened that seemed to electrify the air. The silence before the Legion stepped foot on my land. This above everything else made me uneasy, and I started feeling more and more relieved that Greyson had trusted me with this duty.
“We have never shot one, but we have had problems with them in the past,” he replied. “I don’t agree with a lot of King Silas’s policies, especially when they encroach on the laws we have set down in Aras. All I’m saying is, if it looks bad… shoot to kill.”
“You’re being very vague,” I said dryly. We turned another corner, this time heading back down to the square.
Greyson didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to. Greyson was the leader of Aras and I respected that. I knew better than to pry for information and I knew with even more certainty that he would never tell me something he didn’t want to reveal. I didn’t press any more. I focused my vision forward and we continued to walk down the street.
“I would rather you be in earshot, but I’ll give –” Greyson began but I cut him off.
“I can hear better than anyone I know, I won’t need a signal,” I said. I reached behind me to grab my M16 which I had strapped across my back and opened it up to make sure all my rounds were loaded.
“Needless to say, if I pull my left ear… aim for the head,” Greyson said. He started to walk ahead of me, towards the house that he shared with Leo. “And if the legionaries start firing, get the ones closest to Leo.”
Always looking out for the husband.
“How long until he gets here?” I called after him, clicking the magazine back into the loader and digging into my pocket for my M16’s sniper scope.
“Get in place now,” he called back. A few of our residents looked on at the two of us with curiosity, but I paid them no mind. Even though I was still young, probably sixteen or seventeen at the time, they already knew to stay well away from me, especially when I was holding my favourite gun.
Almost on cue, a vicious snarl erupted from the north side of Aras. The low and menacing growl reverberated in my chest like a deep bass. A few moments later it was met with several other equally angry growls, shaking my rib cage like a bomb going off. It was the deacons. They had spotted King Silas’s entourage and had responded as they were trained. Like pack animals tended to, they riled each other up, and soon the whole town was full of excited yelps, deep growls, and even the occasional electrical snap as one of them tested the electric fence that separated the deacons from the greywastes outside.
I always found it amusing watching the deacons’ reactions to strangers approaching Aras. As a sadistic bastard, I found it funny when they threw themselves against the electric fence. Too stupid to remember the consequences, or too excited to give a damn in the moment perhaps. Either way it gave me a chuckle to watch the dog go rigid, crying out in shock, then fall over, pissing itself. Though that didn’t compare at all to how funny it was when a desperate rat tried it, though they never got up after trying to escape. Which might have been smart on their part; it was a quicker, less brutal death than the one the deacons would bring.
I started walking towards the tallest building overlooking the square, screwing the sniper scope onto my gun as I walked. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and casually strolled into the building.
The building housed a lot of Aras’s residents. At one point it probably had a proper name but around here it was known as the Red House; a large red-bricked apartment building with ten units per floor and five floors. I was headed for the fourth floor, high up enough that I wouldn’t be easily spotted, but low enough to give me a clear shot of the mercer if I needed it.
The Red House was in good shape and had been well-maintained over the years. The stairs had been replaced and the walls cleaned of mould – even a few of the apartment units had been renovated to look half-decent. We had an entire workforce in Aras whose jobs were to renovate and maintain the buildings here, and a few of them did a decent job, though they always saved the best material for their own homes.
I passed a few people on the stairs, but didn’t make eye contact with them. People were used to seeing me head for rooftops or higher ground and didn’t give me a second glance. Besides, they were all too scared to even acknowledge my presence because of my budding reputation. They learnt quickly when it had to do with saving their own asses.
I quickly jogged up the stairs, two at a time, and when I saw the spray-painted number four on the stairwell, I opened the door leading to the long stretch of hallway. Before me were several doors on either side of the hallway, all with their room numbers spray-painted on in black paint. I stood there for a second, and in the silence I could still hear the deacons’ howling. I mentally gauged which apartment would give me the best view of the square, and promptly kicked the door open.
A loud and assaulting noise filled my ears. I looked around annoyed and found the source right away. A toddler had been woken by me charging in, and was wailing its displeasure for all the world to hear.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I told it. I grunted in annoyance and slung my M16 over my back and clicked it into its holder. The toddler’s bright red face was scrunched up and its mouth was gaping open like it was re
tarded or something. It wailed louder and looked at me like I was the most horrible person in the world.
“Shut up,” I told it. It was female, and I remembered seeing her around the block with her mother. The live births of females were rarer than males, something about the radiation, so she stood out more than the other brats in Aras. Though the parents did their best to make them well-known by sticking bows and shit in their hair. For obvious reasons, females didn’t interest me. They talked too much and their laugh made my teeth grind. The only two I could tolerate were the two female sentries - Sadii and Jess.
I looked around the apartment. It was messy and I could see black spots of mould creeping up the corners of the wallpaper. It was empty of people, but full of scavenged crap. The mother wasn’t around. That was stupid of her, seeing as the mercer required every resident to attend, especially new births. But that wasn’t a concern of mine right now. I needed to concentrate and I needed silence, or else I would miss the shot if I needed to take it.
I cringed as the idiot started to scream harder; fucking thing was almost as loud as a dying rat. She was standing up now, in her prison pen or whatever they called those things, shaking the bars like some sort of beast.
I walked into the dining room, and thankfully found what I needed in a pile of crap on one of the tables. As much as I wanted to fling the kid from the fourth-storey apartment, I knew that would make a mess, and a scene, and I assumed that the mercers probably frowned upon baby-tossing.
I picked up the roll of duct tape and unrolled a foot of it. As I approached the kid I held on tight to the end of the tape and pressed the sticky side against the brat’s mouth. She started to struggle of course, but it was too late. I grabbed the roll and wrapped it twice around her face making sure the nose was clear.
I picked up the now muffled but still screaming child by the back of her shirt and carried her outside the apartment. I then quickly taped her legs together so she couldn’t crawl to the stairway and kill herself, and closed the door behind her.
