Brothers

by Helena Newbury

  I lay on the bed, facing the wall, and just wept. It wasn’t just that they’d violated my mind, or how easily they’d done it. It wasn’t that they’d made me relive what happened at The Pit, torn the wound wide just so they could crawl deep inside my head. Those things hurt but they’d heal, given time.

  It was that they’d shown me something inside myself. The loneliness, the black chasm where friends should have been, had been growing bigger for years. I’d been hiding it from everyone, even myself, but they’d forced me to see it. Then they’d filled that chasm with The Group...and now that The Group was gone, the chasm felt darker and colder and more empty than ever. It felt like my whole soul was being sucked into it.

  Maybe in time I could get rid of all the lies they’d filled me with. But that one truth they’d uncovered...I couldn’t escape that. I really did need friends. I really was lonely. And I had no idea how I was going to fix that.

  32

  Kian

  I’d been pacing up and down the hallway. I froze as Aedan came out of the room he shared with Sylvie. His eyes met mine and there was a flash of shame: I saw him glance down at my swollen jaw. I shook my head. He’d hit me because he’d been mad and he’d had good reason to be. We damn near lost Sylvie because of me. I was so confident I knew what I was doing, with my suit and my radios and my Secret Service training. And it had gone so horribly wrong.

  Our dad’s words to Carrick and me rang in my ears. You two are the oldest. You have to protect your brothers. He’d warned us not to go after Aeternus and I’d let my love for Bradan cloud my judgment. Never again. We were done with this thing.

  Another door onto the hallway opened and Sean stepped out, hesitating as he realized he’d stepped into the middle of something. My chest tightened. Sean! That whole six months of hell he’d gone through with Louise, not knowing if they were going to raise the money to save Kayley in time. Around that time, I’d been protecting asshole senators and quieting my demons with drink. This should never have happened. I should never have joined the Marines, should have stuck around and pulled my family back together. Sean would have never become an enforcer, Carrick wouldn’t have joined his MC, Aedan could have kept his boxing legit….

  ...and he would never have met Sylvie. And Carrick would never have met Annabelle. And Sean would never have met Louise.

  And I would never have met Emily.

  I sighed and leaned against the wall, rubbing my face with my hand.

  “What?” asked Sean, sounding concerned.

  “Nothing. What’s going on with you?” My youngest brother was looking worried.

  Sean shook his head, glancing between Aedan and me. “I don’t know. It’s Louise, she’s acting weird.”

  “Since when?” asked Aedan. Like me, I think he was glad of something to take his mind off what had happened to Sylvie.

  “Since you all arrived,” said Sean.

  “You think she doesn’t want us here?” I asked quietly.

  Sean shook his head firmly. “No! She loves having you here. I do, too, and Kayley’s loving have three more older brothers.”

  I had to smile at that. Kayley was enjoying having a full house. She’d bonded with the girls over nail polish and movie nights and Carrick had taken her out on the Harley, Aedan had taught her how to punch and I’d shown her a few self-defense moves. If some guy at her high school got creepy with her, he was in for a very, very bad time. “So what is it?” I asked.

  Sean sighed. “She keeps looking like she wants to say something. And then, when I ask her, she’s all, ‘Nothing.’ It’s driving me feckin’ crazy.” Sylvie was right, I realized: we were all starting to sound more Irish, the more we were around each other.

  “You should talk to her,” said Aedan. It should have been funny: in a family of men who aren’t big on talking, Aedan was by far the most brooding and silent. But I could see the way he was staring at Sylvie’s door, wishing he could follow his own advice.

  “He’s right,” I told Sean. “It’s difficult to get privacy, with all of us here. Find somewhere quiet and talk to her.”

  Sean sighed again and nodded. “You’re right. I s’pose I should count my blessings.” He looked at me sheepishly. “At least I’ve got her here with me, right?”

  I nodded silently. I was missing Emily like crazy. When we came back from the fair without Sylvie I’d stayed awake all night, pacing the kitchen, tearing myself apart over how I’d failed to protect her. Emily had come to be my safety valve, the one person who could stop me turning my anger inward and make me see clearly. And she wasn’t there.

  It wasn’t just that night, either. Often, I’d wake in the middle of the night and lie there half asleep, wondering why she was taking so long in the bathroom and waiting for her to return so I could spoon with her again...then I’d remember she was on the other side of the continent. In the morning, grumpy and exhausted, I’d glimpse her on the TV news. She was always surrounded by the Secret Service but that didn’t stop me aching to be there to protect her. I didn’t just miss her, I needed her. I’d never needed anyone like that, before.

  But there was no way she could be here. After what had happened when we rescued Sylvie, I was worried that the cops were going to arrest us all for assault any second. If Emily was around when that happened, it would be catastrophic for the whole First Family.

  It was lunchtime before Sylvie emerged from her room. She found us in the kitchen, where we’d just finished throwing together a lunch of cold meats, cheeses, bread and salad. The room was full: over-full, in fact, with six of us helping. But all chatter stopped when Sylvie stepped through the doorway.

  She looked so...weak. Sylvie’s just a tiny little thing but Aedan had shaped her into a ferocious fighter: ever since I’d known her, she’d been full of fire, ready to take on the world. Now, she moved as if she was brittle, as if the cult had sucked everything out of her and left just a fragile husk.

  “I want to tell you what I learned,” she said. Her voice was thin and tight, as if she had to hold onto every word lest it get away from her.

  We all looked at each other. “It can wait,” Aedan said. “Why don’t you rest?”

  Sylvie shook her head. “I want to piece together what we learned before I forget anything. I don’t trust my memory, anymore.” Her voice cracked on the last word and we all winced in sympathy.

  Louise bit her lip: I could tell she was close to tears. I think all of us had the same instinct, which was to send Sylvie back to bed. But her eyes were pleading with us. I realized she needed this: she needed the hell she’d been through to have been worth it.

  “Okay,” said Aedan. I was amazed at how gentle he could make his voice. “Grab a plate. You should try to eat something, you’re running on empty.”

  Sylvie nodded gratefully and picked up a plate. “But...can we go outside?” she asked. She looked at us, then looked at the floor. “I need to feel some air on me,” she said. “I was in that house for too long.”

  We carried our plates out into the garden. Even so late in the year, it was still comfortably warm. We sat in a circle on the grass, I dialed Emily and put her on speaker so she could listen too, and Sylvie filled us in. Between her first-hand knowledge, Calahan’s information and the structure Annabelle had figured out, we were finally able to get a handle on Aeternus and how they operated. And it was terrifying.

  They recruited people into small local groups around the world. Drugs and a whole battery of intense psychological techniques were used to break the recruits down until they’d do anything for “The Group” and for the wider organization.

  The drugs made it impossible to resist: even now Sylvie was out, she told us, her mind still kept rebelling. “Every few minutes, I feel this sort of pull back towards The Group,” she said. She started to say something else but her voice caught and broke. Aedan pulled her close and just held her against him for a moment, her face buried in his chest, while we all looked on. My chest closed up tight in pity and wordl
ess, white-hot rage. Aedan glanced up and met my eyes and the fury I saw there was almost frightening. Maybe it’s the fighter’s discipline but Aedan’s always had a slow burning temper, much slower than mine. But when he does go off…. I was mad enough myself, ready to break some heads. But if Aedan came face-to-face with a cult member again, the guy was going to be annihilated.

  Sylvie sniffed, wiped her eyes, and we continued. We figured out that the personality tests and the questions about recruits’ backgrounds were used to identify how each person could best serve Aeternus. Everyone donated $100 per month but the real value was in the little jobs Sylvie’s Guide had told her about. People who worked in the CIA, FBI or police could ensure that an investigation was quashed, or that a 911 call was answered a little more slowly, or even that a suspect was “accidentally” shot. Judges could give leniency to an Insider or even have the case thrown out completely. Prosecutors could ensure that a scapegoat was sent to jail to throw suspicion off Aeternus, just as they did with our dad. A prison guard could look the other way as an enemy was stabbed in the yard.

  And by setting hundreds of these tiny tasks each day, Aeternus had them all working towards some dark purpose. Each person’s role was tiny but put enough of them together…. It was the perfect system: each person only knew their task, with no idea of how it fitted into the big picture, so it was impossible for them to turn traitor. It wouldn’t have worked without the cult-like elements: people would have gotten too curious and asked too many questions. But the drugs and brainwashing removed that weakness: the followers did exactly what they were instructed to, no questions asked, thrilled that they were contributing.

  “I started off thinking: what if your job isn’t useful to them?” said Sylvie. “What if your job is something boring? But when you think about it, any job can be useful. If you work for the phone company, you can eavesdrop on a call for them. If you work in a hospital, they have you stealing drugs or...Jesus, maybe even altering patient records, to cover up a crime.”

  “Or kill someone,” I said darkly. “Delete someone’s allergy from their records so they’re given a drug that kills them. It gets written up as a mistake or a glitch and no one even suspects.”

  Sylvie hugged her knees. “If you work in transport—trucking, the docks, airlines—you can help to smuggle stuff or get someone in or out of the country.”

  “I know why they were interested in the mining guy,” said Carrick. “Mining companies have access to explosives. Farmers can get licenses to buy black powder, too.” He shook his head. “Jesus, you’re right. Everyone’s useful.”

  “What about people who just work office jobs? Sales, stuff like that? Or teachers?” asked Annabelle.

  “Martin, the guy I met at the fair? I have a feeling he was a salesman, before they recruited him. Anyone who can sell, anyone who’s good with people, they’ll get them to quit their job and work for them full time, recruiting people. And teachers?” She thought about it and suddenly shivered. “Jesus!”

  “What?” asked Annabelle, leaning forward.

  Sylvie looked at Annabelle and then Louise. “Teachers have access to thousands of kids. I bet they have them picking the best and the brightest, or anyone with influential parents, and grooming them for recruitment once they’re a teenager.” Louise went pale and I knew we were all thinking of Kayley.

  “There’s worse,” said Sean.

  “It doesn’t get any worse than that,” said Louise tightly. Her eyes had hardened at what she was imagining, a tigress ready to defend her young.

  “Think of people who work in IT,” said Sean. “Someone working for an internet service provider. Someone who has access to all your emails, your private conversations, your pictures. The data on your phone.” He looked ill. “Or what about the people who write the software for voting machines?”

  “The media, too,” I said. “I bet they’ve recruited people at the big TV networks. They can bury a story, or do a hatchet job on a political candidate.”

  “And some people, they probably just milk money from,” said Carrick. “Sylvie said they were interested in the dad of that girl, Melanie, because he was rich. CEOs, high flyers, rich retired people...I bet those people are donating millions. But even if they aren’t, even if it’s just $100 per person, per month...with five thousand people, that’s half a million dollars a month.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then, one by one, they all turned to look at me. It took me a second to figure out why: I knew about planning operations and organizing things and I’d spent years facing insurgents in Iraq and terrorist groups who threatened VIPs. I was no expert but I was the closest thing we had. “What could you do,” Carrick asked me, “if you had a half million dollars a month and all those followers doing your bidding?”

  I was silent for a second, looking down at the ground. We’d thought Kerrigan and his plan for a coup was scary, but this was on a whole different level. The power of Aeternus made my skin crawl. I finally lifted my eyes to the others. “What couldn’t you do?” I said.

  All of us were looking pale and drawn as the implications soaked in. The sun was warm but people were hunching their shoulders as if against the cold. The President himself had been worried about Aeternus, but not even he had realized the scale of it.

  “There are some parts we still don’t understand,” said Aedan. “Like: some people seem to be taken away to some other part of Aeternus, based on their personality tests. Like Bradan. What happens to them?”

  “And the drugs,” said Louise. She looked at Sylvie. “I learned a lot about drugs, this summer. And I’ve never heard of anything that would do what you describe. It’s something not on the market, legal or illegal, and it’s pretty specialist stuff. Where did they get access to that?”

  “And what son of a bitch set this up?” growled Carrick. “And what’s their plan?”

  We lapsed into silence again but inside, my brain was working overtime. The whole time we’d been talking, I’d been moving closer and closer to a decision. And as I sat there looking at Sylvie, broken and shaking, a ghost of her former self, I finally made it.

  “It’s over,” I said, standing up.

  Carrick blinked at me. “What? It’s not—”

  “It’s over!” I snapped. “This is too dangerous. For the girls, for all of us. Calahan was right. The President was right. We’re out of our depth. We have been this entire time. I’m going to call Calahan. We can tell him what we found out, then we’re going to book flights home.”

  And I stalked off towards the house.

  I didn’t think anyone would join me: figured I’d alienated everyone. But just as I was about to call Calahan, Carrick and Annabelle walked in and sat down at the dining table. Carrick gave me a slow nod, like he understood: he wanted Bradan back, but we needed to protect the others.

  Sean and Louise joined us next. I wondered if they’d had time to have that talk, yet: no, from the worry in Sean’s eyes when he looked at her. They sat down opposite me and I got another silent nod. It made me feel a little better about what I was doing: at least I wasn’t acting on my own.

  Aedan came last, casting worried glances out of the window towards the garden.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  He looked at me, looked towards the garden, then just shook his head. “Needs space.”

  Watching him was agonizing. He was actually leaning a little towards the door, trying to resist the urge to ran back out there. When you really love someone, the hardest thing in the world is to watch them going through something and be unable to help. But I could understand that Sylvie needed some alone time: I’d been like that, after some of the stuff I saw in Iraq. Your brain needs time to process, without interruptions. Plus, she wasn’t just dealing with what had happened to her: she was reacting to my decision to shut us down, too. Not only had they violated her mind: it had all been for nothing.

  I stood, put a hand on Aedan’s shoulder and led him gently over to the table. He reluctantl
y sat, still glancing at the window. Sylvie had disappeared from view.

  I called Calahan and explained what had happened to Sylvie. To give the guy his due, he never once said I told you so. His first question was how’s she doing?

  We all looked out of the window. Sylvie was tying some boxing practice pads to a tree. As we watched, she started to punch the makeshift punch bag. “She’s dealing with it,” Aedan said.

  Next, I explained everything we’d learned. I could hear the grudging admiration in Calahan’s voice as he asked for clarification on a point. We’d gotten further than he’d done. Just not far enough to find our brother.

  We heard a bang, followed by another and another. Outside, Sylvie wasn’t just punching the pads, she was intent on destroying them, hammering the vinyl and foam into the trunk of the tree. The whole thing was shaking, branches rustling all the way to their tips, and tears were running down Sylvie’s face. Aedan rose but Carrick clamped his hand on his brother’s wrist and shook his head. “She needs to get it out,” he said.

  “We’re wrapping it up here,” I told Calahan. “It’s too dangerous, plus I can’t see how we can get any further. Every group is disconnected from the others. There’s no way to find out where the whole thing’s being run from.”

  Again, Calahan was big enough to not crow that he’d been right. He just sounded relieved that no one else would get hurt. “Smart move,” he said.

  Outside, the bangs were coming faster and faster. All of us at the table tensed, our shoulders rising in sympathy. All of us could feel Sylvie’s pain. All of us would have cheerfully beaten the cult members to a bloody pulp for what they’d done to her. We heard a low howl of rage which rose to a scream. The noises sped up to a vicious, desperate flurry—

  And then it stopped, like a switch had been thrown. Outside, Sylvie had dropped her fists and was staring at the ground, panting.