Outlier: Reign Of Madness

by Daryl Banner

  “I abandoned mine too,” says Link calmly, trying to reach Ames however he can. “Ames … we have to be smart. Please. Let’s at least take some time here to gather ourselves, to rest, to eat. We might be unkillable, but we still need to eat, you and I.”

  “Fuck eating!” Ames breathes heavily, so angry that his face wrinkles, exaggerating all the swirls and bumps of his burns as they fold with his every changing facial expression. He pulls back his fist to throw it in the wall, then stops himself with a sigh. After taking two more breaths, he nods once in surrender. “Fine. Okay. You’re right. We …” He swallows. “We have a safe place here. This is safe. No one will find us here.”

  “We can … still explore a bit,” reasons Link cautiously, taking a glance at both Kid and Faery for support. “We can gather food, yeah? We’ll live here and take journeys to the eighth and ninth to visit our loved ones … from a distance.” He faces Faery. “Your loved ones are of this time, so really, if you want to lead us to them and actually visit with them, you can do that. We can take you there safely.”

  Faery shakes her head at once. “N-No,” she murmurs. “I don’t want to go back.”

  Link wants to ask where she’s from and what happened to her that causes her to avoid home with such fear, but it is a very taxing effort for Link to keep his eyes on hers and not let them drift to her full, round, beautiful breasts wrapped in that slip of fabric. A boy of his age is too easily distracted. “Okay,” he says. “We don’t have to.”

  The four of them, figuring it to be safest to stay together, make a temporary home out of that front bedroom, the dormer windows acting as their watchtower, providing a view of the street below. Ames and Link make a quick trip around the house to ensure that all the windows and doors are locked—especially the back one through which they’d snuck in.

  By the time night falls, the streetlamps are the only source of light, their amber glow pouring in through the windows. Link finds himself downstairs in the empty living room, sitting on the floor by himself and peering up at the wall, thinking on his family right now. What are they doing? What is little Link doing? What about Anwick and Lionis?—fighting as usual? Or Aleks and Halves, racing each other down the broken street on which their house is built? Is Ellena at the hospital working, or has she already lost her job and got hired at the Greens? Link can’t quite remember when she changed jobs. If he went to the metalshops, would he find his father there, banging his hammers at the anvils? He remembers a day when his dad took him to work to show him all the things he did. Link must have been nine or ten. He remembers thinking that Forge’s boss was a jerk. He was a big mean guy with an orange puff of a beard that hid his lips completely. Forge made Link laugh a lot, but almost hammered into his own fingers in the process, not paying attention. It’s one of Link’s happier memories of his dad.

  “Have you ever met the Goddesses?”

  Link turns his head to find Faery standing near the sliding glass doors. “Sort of,” he answers her. “When I did my Three Hours.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, when I was part of The Brae—that’s a sanctuary devoted to Three Goddess—I learned how to pay my respects to the Sisters. It was through Three Hours of prayer, an hour for each Sister.”

  “Who are these Sisters?”

  Haven’t we gone over this before, back in the Waterways? Link doesn’t seem to mind, feeling strangely overjoyed that Faery keeps gravitating toward him, as if he’s the only person in the whole world that she trusts. “From what I was told, there’s the Sister of Want. She might be the reason we all have Legacies. But it also might be the second sister, the Sister of Chaos. And then there’s the Sister of—”

  Link stops, thinking on the name Baron had given her, which had made Link wrongly presume what the Third Hour was. It wasn’t an Hour for dreams; it was an Hour for death. Link much prefers the other name and doesn’t wish to alarm Faery.

  “The Sister of … Dreams,” he finishes. “That’s the three hours, too. In the Hour of Want, you pray for all the selfish things you want. In the Hour of Chaos, you pray for all the obstacles in the way of the things you want. And …” Link looks away, his eyes detaching from the beautiful figure of Faery. “Well, I was left to presume what the third Hour meant. I figured the Hour of Dreams was an hour to … dream of the way you might obtain what it is you want. But maybe I’ve been wrong. I …” Link sighs, closing his eyes. “I wish sometimes that I could just … just …”

  “Just what?”

  He opens his eyes and turns, startled to find Faery sitting next to him suddenly. She is so beautiful and attentive and curious. She is what I used to be before I filled with anger and dyed my hair black and joined the Wrath. It is so refreshing to be in her presence.

  She blinks, waiting for his response.

  “I … I wish I wasn’t so afraid to just …”

  “You don’t look afraid.”

  “I’m … He’s … It was …” What is he trying to say? “I just wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted to be big. I was so tired of being seen as weak and small.”

  Faery looks confused. “But you’re strong. I … I pulled down the ceiling underground and you survived. You drowned and you came back up. You fought off two brothers who wanted to end your life.”

  “One of those brothers did end my life,” Link points out. “He’s ended it twice. It’s just that … the second time hasn’t happened yet.”

  Faery seems to be getting closer to him. How is that possible? Is the room shrinking? Are they pulling together?

  “I’ve never really had a life,” she tells him, her voice making the tiny hairs in his ears tickle. “I was so lonely. I lived in a room and I dreamed of worlds, of people, of marvels, of incredible things. I lived in that room for so long and I kept everything—and everyone—out.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  The words leapt out of Link’s mouth so quickly, and now he can’t take them back. Faery stares at him, her eyebrows lifted and her mouth parted. She says nothing.

  “I-I mean …” Link swallows hard, feeling his face flush. I can’t believe I just said that. “O-Obviously you are. I mean, I’m just …” His imaginarily beating heart dances funnily in his chest. His stomach is trying to jump out of his neck. His hands won’t stop sweating. “I just needed to say it.”

  “I think you’re sweet.”

  Link flushes even worse. “Sweet?” He manages a chuckle. “I’m not sweet. I’ve done bad things, Fae. I’ve—” Link screws up his eyes. Did he just give her a nickname? “Sorry. Faery. I’ve had to do—”

  “I like it.” She smiles. “Call me that again.”

  He meets her eyes, alarmed. “W-What?”

  “Call me that name again.”

  He lifts his brows. “F-Fae? You want me to call you Fae?”

  She giggles, pulling her knees up to her chest. She seems to be sitting right next to him now. There’s so much space in this room and they couldn’t be sitting closer together on this unforgiving floor. “I like it a lot.”

  “I like you,” he mumbles, barely able to get the words out.

  “And everyone does bad things, Link. I dream of it all the time. Even the sweetest people in the world do bad things. I dream of bad people doing good things, too. I dream many things.”

  Link studies her eyes, her beautiful, swelling, otherworldly eyes. “The Dreaming Sister …” he hums.

  Her eyes gleam at his words. “Is that who you think I am?”

  Link can’t dare say it. She is mesmerizing, yes. She is unlike anyone he’s ever met, of course. But she is no glowing, spiritual, magical Goddess. She is just a girl of the slums, like him. She is a girl with eyes that transport him across the galaxy. She is a girl who stirs feelings inside him he’s never experienced before. Fae fills his heart with hope and makes his head dizzy—and he likes it. He wants her to steal all of his breath. He wants to stay next to her because it makes him tremble. He wants to know what her lips feel like a
gainst his.

  “Fae …”

  “Yes, Link?”

  And the look in her eyes is hopeful, too. She inclines her body toward him, like she’s expecting the very thing he wants. She doesn’t seem to blink at all and neither does he, not wanting to miss a single moment of Faery, the girl who can command water … and his heart.

  “I … I want …”

  “What do you want?” she asks quietly.

  “I want …” Link swallows. Sisters, help me. “I-I-I want …” Link is staring at her lips. He’s never kissed a girl before. He feels so terrified suddenly. Why does this excitement feel so much like terror?

  “Yes?”

  You’re not alone. “I … want to kiss you,” he chokes.

  Fae leans forward. He closes his eyes. Their soft lips touch, like an experiment.

  A flood of desperation rushes through Link, from his heart to his face to the tips of his fingers. He has never Wanted so deeply. He has never felt such beautiful Chaos in his heart. He has never known that a Dream could be this fulfilling.

  When their lips part, Link still feels her on them. He opens his eyes. His astonishment is reflected on her brightened face. Was it her first kiss, too?

  “I want to kiss you again,” he whispers.

  “Me too.”

  And so the two kiss again. And again. And again.

  And again.

  0192 Mercy

  She sweeps quietly down the hall to the linen chambers with a fresh stack of dry robes. At the foot of the steps leading to the room, she stops, hearing a sigh brush down the steps.

  Soundlessly, she ascends the seven steps and peers into the dim chambers lit only by two slits of window at the far end of the room. Sitting at a table near one of those slits, the boy Sister has his face buried in his hands. The sigh he emitted is followed by chokes and quiet curses and sobs.

  Mercy narrows her eyes. Lovely. The boy is a crybaby.

  “Why …? No, no,” he mutters to himself in voiceless rasps. He sucks in air, then crumbles into another fit of soundless blubbering, muffled by his hands.

  Mercy smirks, then pushes farther into the room to put her stack of linens on the shelf where they belong. Regrettably, that shelf is right behind the sniveling fool. She pays him zero mind as she reaches the shelf.

  He, however, pays her all his mind. Not having seen her come in, he quickly wipes away his face and sits up, glancing out of the window as if he wasn’t just a second ago crying.

  The linens slip onto the shelf with a soft swishing sound. Mercy starts to leave the room.

  “Mercy?”

  She stops, stunned at the sound of her name. She turns, putting a cold gaze upon the robed boy at the table. His tiny mouth is parted and his button nose is red as the lines of his eyes from crying. His face is like a small hairless peach, smooth and baby-like.

  He runs a hand quickly over his bright yellow hair, which is still parted with the precision of an architect. Mercy doubts even a sneeze could disturb its perfect placement.

  “Sorry. I know we’re not supposed to use names. Sister,” he says quietly. “I was wondering—”

  Mercy has the retractable knife at his throat in the very next second. The boy’s eyes go wide. “How do you know my name?” she barks at once. “Who are you? Have you been sent to kill me? I will have you dead before you draw another breath. Your soft sad baby act doesn’t fool me.”

  His eyes glimmer with fear. Even afraid, they show no will to attack, no fierceness, no strength, nothing. He is the sort of boy who would cower at the corner of the room if a blade descended on him. He wouldn’t fight back. He might not even scream.

  The truth of it strikes Mercy cold. She pulls away from him suddenly. “You really are a soft sad baby,” she mutters.

  He’s still trembling even after she lets go, his hands hovering by his face as if expecting she might launch at him again. His lips shake and his eyes stay locked upon hers, terrified. What the hell has this boy been through? Mercy wonders.

  “Answer me,” she goes on, her voice softer now. “How do you know my name?”

  He swallows before speaking. “I heard another Sister say it.”

  “You lying to me?”

  “No. The one who looks like a crone. Creepy, unsettling eyes. She has a … a … a thing in her hair all the time. A net, I think, as she works with the food on the d-d-daily.”

  Mercy rolls her eyes. I’ve got him stuttering now. “Put down your damn hands. I’m not gonna cut you.”

  He drops them at once, palms slapping the surface of the table. His eyes are still glassy with fear and his tiny mouth won’t shut.

  Mercy smirks. “Mother? Lady Agdanagon?”

  “Who?”

  “Was it her?” she asks patiently. “Lady Agdanagon? The one who used my name?”

  He shakes his head. “N-No. The one who looks like her. She sits across from you at the mealtimes.”

  Her biological, actual sister. “And she’s used my name? Who was she speaking to when she uttered it?”

  “Another of the Sisters. The one with the … the hair.”

  “Frizzy hair? The one who sits next to me at mealtimes? Nosy as fuck?”

  He shudders, as if the use of the word “fuck” walloped him in the gut. Mercy tries not to roll her eyes. “Y-Yes. Her,” he confirms.

  Mercy pockets her knife with a huff. How do Lady Agdanagon’s twinkly-eyed biological sister and that nosy one know her name? Had Mercy accidentally muttered it once, or is there a darker work happening beneath the surface? The frizzy-haired one asks Mercy questions of her past all the time, despite knowing that they’re not allowed to talk of pasts and sins and names. Perhaps she’s not just been nosy; maybe the woman is digging for information. Maybe the pair of them are in on some sort of plot to oust Mercy, to turn up her darkness, to find a reason to kick her out.

  Or maybe the plot is deeper and darker yet. Maybe they are kin to someone Mercy has killed. Maybe they are seeking their own evil revenge under Mercy’s nose. They can try to poison my meals, Mercy jests to herself, but their poison will just be more spice to my bite.

  Regardless, the notion unsettles her. Mercy turns at once, her grey robe brushing along the stone as she returns to the steps.

  “I won’t say your name again,” the boy promises, his voice light and timid as it skitters through the room.

  “No, you won’t,” she agrees, turning around to face him, “if you plan to still be able to say a thing at all after uttering it.”

  He swallows, understanding the threat, then nods quickly.

  When she starts to head out again, his voice stops her once more. “M-My name is Scot,” he blurts. After a second, he adds, “I just figured if … if I knew yours, perhaps you’d feel safer knowing mine. I don’t mean to compromise your anonymity. I know there’s no room for the self here in the Sisters Of Sisters, but—”

  “How does a man come to be a Sister?” questions Mercy without facing him.

  “I …” He sighs. “I … come from a family of women. I have five sisters of my own. I have always lived to serve the needs of others. I was a medic at Maiden’s Mercy. I helped people. I wanted to keep doing so.”

  Mercy smirks at the name of that hospital. She’d always thought it was called Maiden Medical.

  “There are a number of Sisters who have come from hospitals,” he points out. “No one from Maiden’s Mercy, I’ve learned. But some from Sixth Grace, which is no longer in operation since … well.” He shuffles his feet on the floor, causing Mercy to turn slightly, setting off her self-preservation instincts. When her eyes find him seated at the table and not advancing upon her, she relaxes. “We have a lot of healers among us. A-Are you a healer?”

  Mercy could laugh at his question, but instead it pains her. He must notice because his face flushes and he looks away suddenly, as if wishing to withdraw his question.

  But he asked it, and now Mercy is forced to think of her brother, who fell ill because of her poison
s. It was a terrible accident, but it happened, and when Mercy desperately tried to create an antidote to her own poison, she only intensified its effects instead, pushing him past the brink of saving. Healer? The word turns her sour at once.

  Without acknowledging his question or his proceeding silence of regret, Mercy turns to leave. This time, he does not stop her.

  At the morning’s meal the next day, Mercy stares at the woman in front of her with the sweet, twinkling eyes while they eat. The woman only gives her one nod, smiling kindly, then seems to ignore Mercy’s incessant, burrowing eye contact as they resume their meal. The frizzy-haired woman at her side asks no questions today. Mercy only once glances down the table, instantly meeting the eyes of the boy, who watches her knowingly for a while before continuing to slurp his soup one timid spoonful at a time.

  Lady Agdanagon joins them at the conclusion of their meal with news. “Mother,” many at the table say, giving a short bow of their heads. “Mother.” “Mother, bless.” “Oh, Mother.” “Good Sisters’ day.” Mercy’s greeting comes in the form of an icy stare.

  “Thank you, Sisters,” the woman responds, her hands clasped in the back, making her long hanging grey sleeves look like two folded wings of a great bird. “I will get straight to the point. It has always been our duty to serve Atlas. Now, I believe we should continue to do so … outside these walls.” She takes a deep breath, then decorates her face with a stretched, warm smile. “The Red Light has struck our neighbors. They are in need of our help, Sisters. We must go to them now. We must help.”

  A number of the Sisters stir, alarmed by the idea, or downright scared of it. One Sister looks away, her eyes so wide and wet with fear, she looks a step away from crying. The boy stares blindly ahead with his tiny mouth shut, seeing twenty nightmares before his eyes.

  “I know,” says Mother, giving a weary shake of her head. “The looks on your poor faces. I know. Many of you have come here with your own thoughts of safety in mind. Many of you stay here because it is good to help others … but it also helps you. These walls are tall. These walls are thick. And within them, you wouldn’t mind bringing a hundred wounded souls to perfect health and mental wellbeing. But Sisters, my Sisters, we are not truly serving Atlas. Not in here.”