by Daryl Banner
Then Obert recovers at once and reels his eyes upon Halves. “Remember the attack on Pylon #105? The fucker who set off a bomb of ice on us? The ice got to me, Lesser. The doctor keeps trying to explain it to me. He’s explained it seven hundred different ways, it makes less sense each time. There’s ice in my liver. There’s a cold death grip on my left lung. On my kidneys. Spreading to my bowels. I haven’t shit in three fucking days, Lesser. The ice won’t go away. Nothing touches it. I’m a fucking dead man, Lesser. The fucker got to me.” Obert growls the word “fucker”, contempt burning brightly in his sharp, unfeeling eyes.
Halves keeps his hand on Obert’s thigh, suddenly wishing he hadn’t placed it there at all. He meant to comfort him, perhaps, but his Lead Officer’s words touch him deeply. We’re both afflicted. You with a poison of ice. Me with a poison of blood. But he can’t say the words, so he gives Obert the benefit of the doubt of having realized the parallel himself. Maybe that’s why he’s telling me at all.
Except I’m recovering from my poison … and Obert is dying of his.
“I knew him, too.” Obert hesitates, his breath jagged and his eyes misty. Halves watches him carefully, listening. “Kendil was his name. He burned his house down, burned his father Loridic alive, and froze his mother Lenida solid … all when he was but five years old. It reeked of ash and charred furniture, that little house. I’ll never forget the smell.”
Halves wrinkles his forehead, trying to make sense of his words.
“I brought a team of my strongest Guardian to that house and I found him … the boy, the Kendil boy … I found him kneeling before his mother, frozen solid in that kitchen chair. The boy, the sick boy, the fucker had done his mother in. We knew he was evil. He needed to be destroyed. Do you know what an Outlier is, Lesser?”
Obert’s eyes don’t meet Halves’. With a heaviness in his heart that may or may not carry dear thoughts of his brother Anwick, he gives another short nod.
“No, you don’t.” The Lead Officer grunts, his face turning into a scowl quite suddenly. “Not until you meet one, not truly. Kendil is not right. There is something fundamentally broken inside him. His Legacy … it is unstoppable. He can level the whole of Atlas with his power. Easily. He needs to be stopped. I voted, I told them Kendil needed to be destroyed. ‘Oh, but he’s a child.’ The shit I heard. Even Janlord voted to keep the fucker alive.” Obert snorts derisively, his eyes burning with anger. “It isn’t a matter of ethics. Taking one boy’s life in order to save the lives of everyone else in the city? Kendil’s life will be a necessary loss. It is the duty of Guardian to protect the city. It always was, no matter the cost. Kendil should have been killed … but hungry Sanctum wanted to utilize the boy … to weaponize him. But as you clearly saw in the Pylon that day, the Weapon is no longer under Sanctum control. He’s gotten away. He’s on his own whim. He is dangerous, Lesser. Very, very dangerous. Outlier. You don’t know what one is. But you will. The whole of Atlas will, unless he’s stopped.”
Obert’s hand lands on Halves’ shoulder so suddenly, he jumps, and then Obert’s face is an inch from his in the same quick instant. His eyes are fierce and full of something between anger and fear.
“I’ll tell you a truth, Lesser, and you only need look in my eyes to know it’s true without the use of my Legacy.” His jaw sets tightly as he speaks. “Impis, the Madness … that is secondary. His ridiculous Reign will end. It is Kendil who will be our ruin. It is Kendil who is the true danger. Not a man who is tearing our city asunder, casting his red lightning and murdering us one by one—but a dangerous boy who’s become a dangerous man who can obliterate us in an instant. Fuck Impis and his twitching eye and his laughter. Let that fool die laughing; the rest of us will die cold.”
Halves feels himself shivering from Obert’s words. Finally, he lets go of Halves and rises from his creaky chair, moving across the room with a sigh leaving his lips. He stands by the glass wall, staring down at the city with a faraway fury burning in his eyes. He sets his jaw several times, as if gnawing on his own teeth. Halves watches him and, in some sick pocket of his soul, wonders how many days Obert Ranfog has left to live. Thirty? Ten? Two?
“Outlier,” mumbles Obert. “I know what you’re thinking, Lesser. It’s just a word. Some argue that it’s just a word used to fearmonger. That it’s just a label Sanctum uses. That it’s just a word to taint the beauty in someone’s Legacy. Outlier. It’s an ugly word. It’s vulgar. And it should be, for those out there who deserve the weight of it.” He sighs shortly. “You may find a time when you are face-to-face with such a decision that I had. Kendil, the boy. Kill him or spare him?” He laughs suddenly, then winces at a pain in his ribs. “Didn’t I ask you once if your blood’s thick enough?” Obert turns the side of his face to Halves, an eye staring down at him. “I ask you because once, long ago, my blood wasn’t. Kendil was spared. Now Kendil’s come back to kill me.” His eyes narrow. “I should have killed him as a boy. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
Two Answers. Halves detaches his gaze, staring at the floor as he thinks about what he saw that day at the Pylon. He didn’t quite see Kendil, but he saw the flashes of light, he saw the way the whole room seemed to ripple with his power, and he felt a chill of death that dug so deep into his bones, Halvesand thought he’d never be warm again.
“Three Sister, save us from our past mistakes and our past joys,” Obert mutters at the glass, staring out at the city. “They’re as painful to lose as they are to remember.” He shoots Halves a look. “Don’t judge me for my sudden piety. Nearing death as I am, suddenly I find myself clinging to the idea of three beautiful women waiting to greet me on the other side.” He smirks, then crosses back over to Halves and offers his hand. “Up, Lesser. You’ve heard enough.”
Halves accepts the help and rises. Slowly, Obert guides him down the hall and back to his room. There is still a disturbing calm throughout the building and an utter absence of people. Halves has a fleeting moment of wondering where Ennebal is and whether or not his brother is between her legs. The thought somehow sends a sharp pain through his ribs, which causes him to buckle near his bed. He rasps deeply and winces, bracing himself against the nearest bedpost. Obert, hardly giving the pain any attention, helps Halves into his bed and then leaves him there to stew on all the things he told him.
But at the door, just before he makes his exit, Obert turns to say one last thing. “You can stop things.” His figure is like a tall, crooked silhouette against the greyish, half-lit hallway. “You started with a train. Stopping that knife at your throat was not the end. Your job’s only just begun, Lesser, and you do not have my permission to die. You will get that strength from somewhere, from someone … I don’t fuckin’ care. You may never have your voice, but Three Sister help me, you’ll always have your hand.”
0153 Ellena
Ellena washes the linens much slower today.
Even with her hands free, she’s lost, afloat in a slow-moving river of confusion and guilt. She never let herself grieve. Sure, she was always suspecting the worst, but to know it for sure? I only just learned that my husband is dead, and I already let Gabel kiss me.
And kiss me.
And kiss me.
And she kissed him. Deeply. She felt his hands move down her body and she let them. ‘All I want is a fuck,’ he said to her. That got her so wet below, she fears nothing short of the sky shattering could have stopped her from letting him invade her. And invade her he did. For hours.
He came inside her and roared louder than even the Screaming King himself ever did.
She hasn’t seen him since that day. He’s avoiding me. Some other Guardian watches her doors now, the one named Bee, the tall girl with the long eyes and the soft skin and the permanent scowl. It is also sometimes the younger one, the boy with the rosy cheeks and the frightened composure who was in the room with Bee and Gabel that day when she was apprehended just after moving her broken bones into dear, sweet Taylon.
Is Gab
el guilty, too? Does Gabel feel he’s committed some sort of crime? She can’t think of any rule he might’ve broken. Of course, she never prided herself in knowing the intricacies of rules between criminal and Guardian. Maybe there is some secret clause forbidding the very act they so hungrily performed.
The next sunrise, she’s given a reprieve back in her room in the corner of the building, where she leans against the glass and stares at the dead towers and streets of the slums as they are slowly painted in blood and orange and egg yolk. She hears no word from Gabel.
The evening has her washing dishes in the rusty basin, of which she has to avoid the left corner, for it is sharp and has a deep crack running down its side. She suddenly finds herself thinking about Anwick, wondering where he ran off to the day he packed his things to leave home. It was shortly after Forgemon was arrested. She knew he was involved in something, but didn’t know the precise nature of it. Forge knew; he always said Anwick kept secrets deeper than any of their other boys, and that was beyond the one about him sleeping and dreaming. Forge knew so much. Where am I without him? I know nothing. I’m lost.
Afloat in a river of guilt … a river of aches.
Who’s going to take away my aches?
The lights flicker. Ellena looks up, startled. The steady hum of the building shudders at the same time the lights do, giving her ears reason to perk up. She wrinkles her brow and stares after the door, noticing Bee as she tilts her head, pressing a finger to her ear and speaking to some unseen person at the other end of her radio device. Maybe it’s Gabel.
The building seems to shudder again—the lights winking—and she hears shouting in the halls. Ellena stares at the window of her door, alarmed to find Bee gone.
She watches, wide-eyed and waiting. Where’s she gone?
Ellena abandons her duties at the basin, the last plate she was cleaning dropping into the water with a heavy splash that she utterly ignores. She moves across the room, listening to the shuffling of feet and the distant shouting that comes from the hall.
She reaches the door and finds no one on the other side of the glass. The shouting and noise has become more distant. It’s moving away. She leans toward the door, pressing her ear to the glass, but she hears nothing to aid her in answering any of her own questions. Her eyes drift down to the door handle. She reaches for it, her fingers wrapping around the cold metal. She pulls.
The door clicks open.
Her jaw slackens. Bee never locked it.
Opening the door, she slowly slips her head out. The noise has vacated the hall, and along with it, every Guardian in sight. She looks to the left where the hall ends at a set of stairs leading down. She looks right to where the hall bends out of sight, lined with stacks of unlabeled barrels and boxes. A desk by a door sits unmanned with a lamp on its cluttered surface.
The lamp flickers. The hall lights sputter. Then darkness.
Ellena blinks until traces of streetlight coming in from the one window in the hall touches her eyes, outlining some of the furniture. She hears nothing at all anymore, as if the whole world just packed up their things and abandoned her. Just like Halves and Aleks did when they took off to Guardian. Just like her husband left her when he was arrested. Just like Anwick. Just like Link.
She steps out of the room and wipes her hands off on her pants, drying them. Turning her head left, then right, she opts to hurry in the direction of the stairs. Her feet carry her too fast, making her trip twice on her way down the steps. Hurry slowly, she advises herself. You have no idea what’s the cause of this disruption. It could be a force worse than the Guardian who hold you captive.
But she doesn’t want to be a fool, either. There is no way that Three Sister could have answered her daily prayer in such a literal, dropped-straight-into-her-hands sort of way. The Goddesses could not have simply made everyone in the building disappear, granting her this golden opportunity to flee from their custody, could they?
She stops halfway down the stairs when she hears a boom and feels the building shake. She grips the handrail tight and crouches down, balancing herself with wide-open eyes and held breath. She waits, listening and wary.
She hears voices coming from downstairs. Soundless, she travels down the rest of the stairs in pursuit of them. If she sees who they are and where they’re coming from, she can better avoid them. I need to see what I’m up against, and whether the voices mean to aid me in my escape, or to put the bird back in the cage.
The stairs dump into a hallway. She stands at the corner on the foot of the stair and slowly brings her face around the wall, peeking. The source of the voices still isn’t visible, but she doesn’t dare risk finding out who they belong to. Deciding that her shoes are making too much noise, she slips them off and pads across the hall to the nearest corridor. Without power, she’s going to have to descend many flights of stairs to make it to ground level. She stares at a nearby window, darkened by night’s kiss, and gives an honest wonder if it’s a better bet to jump out of it than to descend the stairs and be caught by one armed fool or another.
Something loud bursts in a distant hall, flashing her world with a fiery white light for an instant. Ellena jumps, pushing herself into the corridor and risking the stairs, determined to get away from it. She has no idea what she’s running from, but it can’t be Guardian. Maybe someone has invaded the building. Maybe the Finger has struck and brigands from all the neighboring wards are flooding in to pillage all they can from the Guardian supplies.
This could be my means of freedom, or my ultimate undoing.
Her foot catches something on the floor and she flops to the cold tile, banging her knee. She grunts, suppressing the sharp cry she wanted to let out, then grips her leg and curses, hissing in pain.
A soft sound comes from somewhere nearby. When she lifts her head, she finds the sound coming from the very thing over which she tripped: a Guardian earpiece.
I needed eyes, but I got ears. It could suffice.
Gritting her teeth through the pain of her busted knee, she lunges for the little sleek piece of technology and brings it to her ear. She hears nothing. Had someone just spoken something a second ago? She pulls herself back against the nearest wall, sitting upon the floor with a throbbing knee and a racing heart, and holds the object against her ear desperately.
A nearby door swings open, and an armored young man dumps out of it in a bundle of twisted limbs. When he rights himself, his two scared eyes find Ellena’s instantly. He points his neon at her.
She lifts her hands to express her innocence and shouts, “Don’t shoot, please! I-I-I’m unarmed!”
“Ellena,” the young man whispers, recognizing her, but yet not dropping his weapon. “You have to come with me.”
And then she suddenly recognizes him. It’s the boy she met the day she was arrested—the one who sat with the Bee woman and the ever-faithful Gabel and sometimes guards her door. He looks half her years, this boy who might be about Lionis’s age, were she to guess.
“What’s happening??” Ellena asks in a hush.
“Security’s been breached. It isn’t safe. Come with me.”
She slowly rises from the floor, forcing herself to fight against the pain of an angry, reddened knee. “Brigands? Rebels? Or Chaots?” she asks, wincing through the aches.
“I don’t know. Come. N-No questions.”
Hearing the boy sputtering out the words, Ellena suddenly feels a maternal need to protect him instead of having him protect her. Nevertheless, she ignores the gun he still points at her and forces herself to walk in the direction he indicates.
She hears squawking in the boy’s earpiece, but not her own. What was his name? It’s lost on her. Did she ever learn it? “No, solo.” He rushes in front of her to check around a corner, then flags her to move on with his gun. “Yes, I have her. Yes, she’s complying.”
“For now,” mutters Ellena under her breath, trying not to limp.
“Meet me at the Core-side exit. We’ll take the back leg outsid
e. No one’s there, as far as I can—Alright. Copy.”
The boy Guardian continues to lead her with his gun. She feels a sting of helplessness until she remembers something. My knee. I can give my knee to this boy the moment I’m outside and be free from him and the Guardian who’ve kept me. After all, it’s the reign of madness and no one’s in charge, not truly. This is her chance to get away.
Maybe her only chance.
On the fourth floor, the boy presses Ellena to a wall, narrowly avoiding a band of people who scurry by, each of them armed with something huge and blunt and sharp. The band doesn’t notice the boy or Ellena, hidden in the shadows as they are. With the boy’s hand on her shoulder holding her back, she realizes he doesn’t know how dangerous it is to be within touching range of her, considering her power. The timing must be perfect, she reminds herself, gritting her teeth and waiting.
After descending many more stairs and twice halting at the sight or sound of something formidable approaching, they finally make it to a set of double doors at the end of a second floor corridor. The boy procures a key from his belt and opens the padlock on the doors, pushing one open and flagging Ellena into the night.
She complies. The breeze of the city brushes over her face, tossing her hair and making her squint against it. They’ve emptied onto a damp, cement loading bridge that descends to the street in the distance. Stacks of boxes and rows of crates line the outside of the building and block the way ahead. Ellena breathes in the dirty smog of the streets, and somehow it reminds her of home.
Until the point of a gun pokes her in the back. “Keep going.”
He would be easier to obey if his voice wasn’t a squeaky teen-turned-adult one. She continues nonetheless, walking in the general direction he guides her. Soon, she makes out two other shapes who wait in hiding, crouched behind an oblong crate.
