by Jay Posey
“No, it cuh – no, it couldn’t be her,” he said, not denying it so much as saying there was clearly a misunderstanding. “It couldn’t be. Why would you think that?”
“Miss Rae went out and showed her picture around, asking about her, and a woman said she knew her, but hadn’t seen her in a few days. A woman named Charla.”
Painter’s hand went to his mouth, fingers lightly touching his lips. Still shaking his head. “That doesn’t make any suh- sense.”
“Have you seen her since… the first time?” Wren asked.
Painter shook his head. “Nuh… nuh… no. She wouldn’t…” He shook his head again, and looked off to the corner of the room. Remembering, maybe. After a moment, he looked back at Wren. “But I’m sure it’s not her. I’m sure she’s just off, you know… she used to go off on her own, some, some, sometimes for days. Probably just exploring. She luh-luh-luh… she loves exploring.”
“Well, could you come back to the compound with me? Just to be sure?”
“I c-c-can’t, I’m working.”
“I’m sure Mister Sun would say it was OK. It’s your sister.”
“It’s not my sister!” Painter said, sharply enough that Wren flinched. Painter softened. “It’s not my sister, OK? I’m shh… shhh… sure of it.”
There was a tap at the door, and it opened a crack. Mister Sun leaned his head in. “Master Wren, Mister Able says it is time.”
He replied, “OK, I’ll be right there, Mister Sun. Thanks.”
Mister Sun nodded and smiled, but Wren could see the concern on his face as he withdrew.
“You won’t come back with me?” Wren asked.
Painter shook his head. “Maybe luh… later tonight, after I finish.”
“I don’t think it’s safe to come alone, Painter. Not at night.”
Painter just shrugged. He wasn’t going to change his mind. And Able was waiting.
Wren nodded. “OK. Well, I’m sorry. I hope we’re wrong.”
“You are, and it’s OK.” Wren nodded again and moved to the door. “I’ll come by in, in, in, a day or tuh – two, OK?” Painter said.
“OK.”
“And Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“Nice hat.”
Wren smiled and tried to force a laugh, but it came out like a lie. “Thanks. See you, Painter.”
“Yep.”
Able was standing at the door when Wren stepped out of the room, looking like he already knew how it had gone. He nodded slightly and put his hand out for Wren’s, and together they left the Tea House.
Wren cried the whole way back.
As they neared the governor’s compound, their path led them by the north-eastern gate and though Wren’s eyes were on the ground, he felt Able’s stride slow and his hand tensed.
“What is it, Able?” Wren asked, out of reflex. Able wasn’t looking at him, so he didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. When Wren followed his gaze, he saw what had caused him to react.
The remnants were strewn all over the street. The gate itself didn’t seem to be damaged at all, though Wren couldn’t tell if anyone had been trying to break into the compound anyway. But what once had been a memorial to those who’d been taken was now little more than a pile of debris smashed against the base of the wall. The wreaths had been pulled apart, the vigil lights stomped on and smashed against the concrete, the various articles of clothing and other personal effects were all torn, crushed, or shattered. And the pictures. The pictures were mostly pulled down and scattered along the street. Some swirled, caught in little eddies of the night air.
Able swung Wren up and carried him quickly towards the main gate. As they headed inside the compound, Wren wondered if his grand idea not to keep extra guards posted was another catastrophe in the midst of unfolding.
Painter stood at the window of his second-story room, biting a towel between his teeth to keep the fear and heartbreak and tears in check. He stared out at the street below, but only saw the look on Snow’s face, with crystal clarity, the moment she had first seen him after he’d returned. The reunion he’d imagined shattered by the horror in her eyes, the stark disgust on her face. For weeks Painter had been telling himself he’d go downstairs to work, and she’d be there, sitting at one of the tables, and she’d apologize, and Snow would wrap her arms around him and tell him how glad she was that he was alive and OK, and they’d be together again. And now… what if it was true? What if Wren was right? What if his baby sister was gone?
His eyes refocused on the flexiglass window, his faint reflection there staring back at him, staring back with those hellish electric eyes. His hand flashed without thought, fist driving through his own image, through the plate, out into the night air. The flexiglass exploded outward with a sound like a thunderbolt, the sharp crack snapping Painter’s attention back to the here and now. He pulled his hand back in through the window, stretched out the fingers, watched the black fluid welling up around the shards stuck in his knuckles and in the back of his hand. Sharp fragments of what should have been unbreakable. Black ichor that should have been blood. He tugged at the slivers, drew them from his flesh, and wrapped the towel around the wounds. There was pain, but not what he would’ve expected. It was sharp but distant, with a fiery tingle. Already his modified body was reconstructing itself. Modified. Optimized.
Painter inhaled deeply, letting his eyes fall closed, felt the cool night air across his face through the hole in the window. He had been unfair to Wren. Only now he realized how much trouble the young governor had gone to, how much danger he had exposed himself to, just to be the one to tell Painter about Snow. Even if Wren was wrong, he had still taken a risk for no reason other than kindness. If Painter hurried, he might be able to catch up with them.
He bounded down the stairs two at a time, nearly colliding with Mister Sun at the bottom. Mister Sun caught him by the shoulders, held him upright.
“Everything OK, my friend?” Mister Sun asked.
“Yes, fuh- fuh… yes, fine, Mister Sun,” Painter said. Mister Sun held him fast, the old man’s good hand surprisingly strong on his shoulder. Mister Sun’s eyes searched Painter’s. “Really. I just need to go. I’ll mmm- make up the time tomorrow, pruh- prrruhh- promise.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment he nodded, and squeezed Painter’s shoulder, and then let him go. Painter hurried through the Tea House, realizing he’d have to be careful chasing after Able and Wren. He couldn’t draw too much attention to them, after all.
He was lost in thought as he leapt down the stairs in front of the Tea House, and couldn’t quite stop himself in time as he hit the street and ran right into a trio of men, nearly knocking one of them down. Painter reached out instinctively and grabbed the man’s arm to steady him.
“Suh – suh – sorry, I’m sorry, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, just watch–” the man cut himself off as he looked up into Painter’s face, snatching his arm away roughly. “Get yer stinkin’ hands off me, deadling!”
Painter held up his hands, hoping to defuse the situation. “I’m sorry, s-s-sss, sorry, sir.”
The other two men closed ranks, one on each side of Painter, as the one he’d run into drew himself up. He was a good four or five inches shorter than Painter, but about twice as wide, and he had a gap between his front teeth big enough to stick a finger through.
“S-s-s-s-sorry!” Gap-tooth mocked. “S-s-s-sorry, he says. You got a busted mouth, deadling?”
“No, sir–” Painter started to say, but before he could say more, Gap-tooth smashed a fist into his face, and Painter hit the ground, his head bouncing hard against the concrete.
“Ya do now!” Gap-tooth said, and his buddies laughed at that, and one of them took a big step forward and kicked Painter in the gut. The shock wave sent all the breath exploding out of Painter’s lungs and made him choke. Then Gap-tooth was on him, a knee in his crotch, crushing but dull pain; a hand around his throat under his jaw, shoving his he
ad back into the concrete. Gap-tooth’s face was right in Painter’s, his foul breath spilling like kerosene over Painter’s mouth and nose.
He said, “You and yer kind better think hard about where you belong, cause it ain’t here. It ain’t nowhere close to here, you unnerstan’? There’s a storm comin’, there’s a storm comin’, and you and all yer kind are gonna wash away or twist in the wind.”
Painter fought to breathe, his vision mixed with dark spots and bright flashes. And floating images, images of Snow, and his reflection, and the window shattering, and dark things. Dark things that he had done before – before Wren had found him. How easily they had come apart in his hands before.
Gap-tooth reared back and punched at him again, but it was badly aimed and little more than a glancing blow. The man spat and Painter felt the wet spatter on his cheekbone and eyelid and upper lip, and then the weight was gone, and the three men melted away, laughing in the haze of Painter’s stunned and battered mind. After a minute, or five, or twenty, he managed to roll to an elbow and push himself up to a sitting position. The world reeled, then settled to a lazy swirl, and Painter felt bile in the back of his throat and realized his hands were cold and sweaty, and he was shuddering uncontrollably.
He held them up and looked at the palms, torn from the fall. Up his slender fingers. How they trembled. And there, at the ends, graceful glints of steel reflecting the yellow-orange street light and the blue of his eyes. The talons of the Weir, a scant half-inch long and sharper than any blade or razor ever honed by human hands. Elegant. Utterly efficient. Painter couldn’t remember having extended them. But for a brief moment he stared at them, and let himself imagine a different outcome. The tearing of Gap-tooth – the gush and spill as the man’s friends screamed in helpless horror.
No. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t like that. Painter watched as the claws withdrew, settling into their housing beneath his intact fingernails. He was better than that. Better than them. In every way. It was his mercy that allowed them to live, not his weakness.
He pushed himself up to his feet, just as a well-dressed couple emerged from the Tea House. The woman gasped when she saw him, and for a moment Painter took it as a sign of her fear. But her eyes softened with concern as they came down the stairs towards him.
“Oh, Painter,” she said, “are you alright? Do you need help?”
“I’m fff-fff,” the word caught. Such a simple word. Say it! “I’m fine, ma’am. Took the stairs too fast is all.”
The man with her shook his head and produced a handkerchief from his fine coat pocket. The idea of anyone carrying a handkerchief struck Painter as supremely absurd.
“Here, son,” the man said, handing him the handkerchief. “You’ve got some… something, there.”
“Thank you,” Painter said. He wiped the spittle off his face and handed the handkerchief back. As the man took it, they both noticed a dark spot on it, and the man hesitated. “I’m sorry, I’ll cuh- cuh-, I’ll clean it.”
“No, no,” the man said, smiling graciously as he took the handkerchief. “It’s alright. That’s what they’re for after all. You sure you’re OK?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Mmmm- ma’am.”
“Alright. Well. You take care, Painter.”
“You too.”
They smiled again, a little sadly, and turned away towards their home. As they disappeared down the street, Painter reflected on Gap-tooth’s posse and the couple walking away from him now.
And he couldn’t decide which of them he hated more.
FIVE
Cass could feel the pressure building in the city, an emotional power grid straining under the load of fear, tension, and long-harbored mistrust never resolved. She looked out over Morningside in its troubled sleep, the night air around her almost brittle with cold. From her balcony she could see down the long, wide street, almost all the way to the western gate. The roadway was warmly lit by its innumerable lamp posts, though the walks were all deserted this deep in the night. It was still hard for her to sleep at any time, but most especially at night, the time for which her body had been rewired for optimal performance.
She had had great hopes once, in the early days of her Awakening. There had been horror from some, a hatred born of a lifetime of terror. That was to be expected. But kindness had surprised her, and compassion. And after she had taken to wearing the veil, she’d found more and more people were able to overcome their instinctive reactions and Cass had begun to believe that one day she might be accepted as human again.
And when Wren began rescuing others, a network of support had formed almost without any real effort; good, honest men and women of Morningside came forward and gave of their time and money to help the survivors build some sense of a new life, and maybe even come to terms with who they had become. People like Aron, and Mister Sun, and others throughout the city who’d offered places to stay, clothes to wear, jobs to do.
Of course it couldn’t have lasted. One or two, maybe the city could’ve absorbed them, thought of them as poor, wretched anomalies. But there were nearly thirty of them now. Too many to be ignored. Now, in some circles, they were seen more like wild animals that had strayed into civilization; no longer just a handful of damaged people looking for shelter.
Damaged. Rae had called them that once, in passing. Funny. Cass didn’t feel damaged. Different, certainly. But vibrant. Alive. Alive in a way she’d never felt before the change. Before the change, she’d relied on chems to speed her reaction times, to make herself faster, stronger. Now she felt all these things without needing the chemicals. Sometimes she wondered if the pathways that had been forged by her use of quint had been exploited by the Weir’s tampering.
There had been adjustments to be sure, new normals to learn, like how to see the world through her new eyes – or how to process the way Cass felt the presence of the people around her, sometimes even through walls – or how they exploded in light and… and something she didn’t even have a word for, whenever they accessed the digital. No, she didn’t feel damaged at all.
Out beyond the wall, Cass heard a Weir cry; a howl somewhere between a scream and a burst of static through organic vocal cords. At one time she would’ve been able to interpret it. Now it was just noise again. Even so, the sound had a different quality that she noticed but couldn’t quite identify. Another Weir answered the first, somewhere off to her left. But not far. And a third, closely following the second. Cass felt the hair on the back of her neck bristle, found herself alert. There was an attack coming. She knew it without knowing why.
As she turned back into the compound, her brain started peppering her with all the reasons she was wrong. There hadn’t been an organized attack in almost a year, not since they’d brought everyone inside the wall. The Weir had been scattered. Without Underdown’s control, they’d reverted back to their pack behavior; no longer a collaborative entity. They were more like scavengers than predators. They would never assault the city directly.
Except they would, and Cass knew it.
She streaked through her room and sprinted down the hallway towards the front entry, pimming Gamble, the captain of the governor’s Personal Guard, as she ran.
“Gamble,” Cass pimmed, sending the message through the digital directly to her, wherever Gamble was. “The Weir are at the west gate!”
She didn’t wait for a response. Cass saw Joris, one of the night guardsmen, flinch from down the hall as she approached. He raised a hand, but she couldn’t tell if it was to slow her down or to defend himself.
“Joris, the Weir are at the west gate!” she called. He still had his mouth open when Cass passed him. “Get the guard to the gate! The west gate!”
She called it over her shoulder, trusting that his training would kick in and Joris would know what to do. Out through the front doors, she leapt from the top stair and cleared the bottom one ten feet below without missing a step. Instinctively, she tried to boost before her brain reminded her she no longer had the implant,
no longer needed the chemicals in her bloodstream. No longer had a bloodstream, for that matter.
Down the wide, empty street she sped, breathing quickly but easily. The cries of the Weir came more rapidly now, growing in number, converging to a single point. It was maybe six hundred yards from the governor’s compound to the western gate. Cass reached it in just under a minute.
There were stairs near the gate, leading up thirty feet above the ground to the top of the wall in a switchback. She took them two at a time and was almost halfway up when the first shockwave hit the gate. There was a sound like thunder, followed by scattered impacts, like rocks after a landslide. When Cass gained the top of the wall, she found one of the city’s watchmen staring down below, open-mouthed, frozen in fear.
“Hey!” she called, without thinking. The watchman’s head snapped around and, seeing her, his eyes went wide, and she saw him fumbling at his hip. “No, no, no, wait!”
But it was too late. He had the weapon up and pointed. It all seemed to happen in half-speed, but the distance was too great. As Cass closed the gap, she saw the leap of blue fire in the muzzle as she twisted her head and body, heard the snap of the round as it passed by. She spun, whipping a hand out and caught the watchman’s wrist as he fired the second time, sending another wild shot out into the night.
“It’s me, it’s Cass,” she shouted at him. The man stood paralyzed for the seconds it took for his brain to process what had just happened, and then his face melted from terror to pure dismay.
“Lady Cass, I’m so sorry, I thought–”
“I know! Did you hit the alarm?”
“The alarm?” He looked confused, like “alarm” was some word she’d just made up.
“Yes, did you hit it?” she asked.
“What?” he said. Cass could see the realization dawning in painful slowness. “No. I…”
