Outlier: Reign Of Madness

by Daryl Banner

  She doesn’t like the unsettled feeling that Ames is just a bomb waiting to go off and ruin their cover … but she also can’t blame him. Kid wants nothing more than to embrace her parents again and to warn her stupid father to not answer that door that one fateful day when she was six years old. Kid wants to tell her mother not to go wherever it was she went, warning her that she’d never come back.

  How can she possibly think ill of Ames for his wishes?

  And her own wishes extend beyond her family. Kid wants to be at the orphanage in time to pull her friend Aryl from the chaos so that she’s not taken by the masked men. Kid wants to find the cold boy Kendil and ward him away from the evil folk who did him wrong. Kid wants to already be at The Brae that day that Link and the black-about-the-eyes boy and his Wrath invaded them and broke a man’s back.

  Kid wants to thank the other Lesser boy who stopped a train and saved her life. Did she ever tell Link that story? She glances up at him, still seeing the deep tension in his brown wistful eyes. Another time, she decides. A better time.

  And all they have is time now.

  After disembarking in the ninth, the four of them walk many a street until the hanging lamps at the side of the roads turn on due to the waning light of day. The buildings turn into houses as they walk, becoming multicolored and squattier. In the middle of a particularly more broken road than the rest, they come to a stop in front of a house that glows with the warmth of the light from within, one of its windows painting a large tree in the front yard a yellowish hue.

  There is a boy in that tree with a book.

  Link sighs longingly. The four of them stand on the curb of the street, their hands gripped and sweaty. “Lionis …” he whispers.

  I remember his name. Kid is sure he intended the name to only be heard by them, but the boy in the tree lifts his little eyes from his book, confused for a second. He’ll think it was just a stray bit of wind, Kid decides, feeling herself twenty times more forgiving of Link for his mistakes than she was of Ames, who acts as recklessly as a slummer at dinner. The boy in the tree returns to his book, giving up his quest for the rogue name that the wind carried to his little ears.

  Then a pretty woman is poking her head out of the door. His mommy, Ellena. I know hers, too. “It’s getting dark, sweetheart. Come inside.”

  Little Lionis hops out of the tree and rushes inside at once.

  Link takes an automatic step forth, his eyes wide, as if he boldly wishes to follow them right into the house, but he stops, perhaps reminded of the hands that firmly hold either of his.

  After a moment of gathering his wits, he gives a nod to his friends, and then the four of them advance upon the window to look inside. The mother is at the kitchen counter and there are three boys sitting on the mismatched stools before it. One is the boy from the tree, who looks to be about Kid’s age. The two other boys look just a touch older and they don’t look very happy. Kid wonders if they just had an argument or if something’s wrong between them.

  Seconds later, two more boys appear, seeming to have come from the stairs. Kid needs no prompting to know exactly who those boys are. Little Link and his brother Wick, the one who would sneak out to the Noodle Shop at night, the one who pretends to sleep; she’s watched it through his window many times. Maybe I’ll admit that to Link too someday. I’ve met all of his brothers but one, in fact.

  A girl on the couch lifts her head, a girl Kid hadn’t noticed until now. She seems to be listening to something the mother is saying, then brings her hands to the back of the couch, leaning against it to hear. Her hands are gloved.

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” mumbles Ames, having noticed the girl himself.

  Link stares at her for a while, then shakes his head. “I don’t. It’s one of the …” He shakes his head again, watching. “It’s one of the girls from down the street, maybe. I think. We … We must’ve been babysitting her while the parents were at work or something.”

  “Oh.”

  All the boys turn to acknowledge the girl—all except the two oldest, who seem to be in the middle of an argument—and then quite suddenly the mother rushes to the living room and grabs the girl from the couch, lifting her in the air and spinning her around. The mother laughs as the girl squeals with delight before being set back onto the couch.

  “Your mother’s sweet,” observes Ames thoughtfully.

  Link doesn’t respond, his eyes wet with astonishment at what he’s seeing.

  Kid looks upon the two older brothers. She can’t tell which of them she will, in roughly ten years’ time, be thanking for stopping a train and saving her life. They look so similar—in height, in face, in hair, even in clothes. Half-Sand, she remembers the name, though it sits in a cluster of syllables on her tongue.

  The girl soon joins the boys at the counter. A meal is shared among them, which makes Kid’s stomach growl with frustration, since the four of them haven’t eaten all day. Soon, four of the boys head upstairs while little Link and the girl retreat out back, Link taking the girl by her still-gloved hand. The mother cleans up in the kitchen humming a tune to herself.

  Suddenly Link takes a step forward and Kid watches as his face falls apart. His mouth opens. His eyes flash wide. He holds his breath as the mother’s tune vibrates gently through the glass, touching their ears. Kid sees a tear in Link’s eye, which grabs her by the heart. Why is he crying?

  Then Faery starts to hum the tune. Kid turns to her, caught off-guard, as if just now remembering that the strange girl is with them. Faery’s eyes close as she hums along, following the melody note for note. Link joins in, but only for two little squeaks of his throat before he draws silent, staring at his mother.

  “Are you okay?” asks Ames gently.

  Link nods. “That song, Ames.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s the song.”

  After a moment of being perplexed, Ames’ eyes suddenly flash. “The song? That your mother sang? The one in your vision?”

  “Yes. Fuck. I never thought …” He closes his eyes and a tear traces down his cheek. “I never thought I’d hear it again.”

  The mother, her chores in the kitchen done, moves up the stairs. A moment later, she appears in the window of the Wick-boy’s room, where she resumes the humming after shutting the door behind her. The four of them step back from the house to peer up at the second-floor window, though it is dark and they can only listen.

  Not long after that, a man approaches the front door. He is a brawny man with a beard and short hair, his arms so big that they pull on the sleeves of his grease-stained shirt, wet at the armpits. The mother meets him at the front door, then steps outside to join him on the front step.

  “You look weary,” she murmurs.

  “Tough days lately at the shop,” he grunts back, then gives her a deep kiss, his breath jagged as it ripples over her cheek and disturbs the loose strands of hair by her ear. “Anwick asleep?”

  “Just got him asleep, yes.”

  Link’s face wrinkles, pulling Kid’s attention to it. She watches the confusion unravel in him through his pinched eyebrows.

  “Forge, it’s getting worse.”

  “Anwick? He’s sleeping less, you mean?”

  “No, no. It’s Elle. Her hands, Forge. Everything she touches …”

  “I know.” The man—Forge—sighs, then wipes his face with a large hand before shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t know. I’m out of options. I don’t know.”

  “Stronger gloves, perhaps? Or a different material? We should try the textile markets in the seventh. It’s quite a bit of ways, but—”

  “If I could make her a gauntlet,” Forge reasons, “maybe from a light metal, that might resist the stone-touch. We haven’t yet tried metal. I may have to find the right alloy.”

  “A gauntlet,” moans Ellena. “She’s just a sweet little girl.”

  “I know.”

  “A sweet little girl in gauntlets … gauntlets …” Ellena wraps her a
rms around Forge and squeezes him, hiding her face in his chest as she starts to weep soundlessly.

  He rubs her back, lays a kiss on her head, then says, “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” she lies.

  After a moment more of comfort, the two enter the house, its door shutting softly at their backs, and they retreat to a room under the stairs. Soon, no one is in sight through the front windows. The sounds of the three older brothers laughing and chatting upstairs is all that is heard.

  The four walk away soon after to fetch food, but Link’s mind seems to be anywhere but on his stomach. “I had a sister,” he says, as if it was the strangest word in the word—sister. “What happened to her? Where’d she go? And my b-brother … My brother Anwick …”

  “It could just be a strange anomaly,” reasons Ames. “I always wondered if, like, maybe there was a kid in the world who slept until the age of three. Or even four. I mean, really, what is it that’s so special about the age of two?”

  “But Anwick is seven right now. Or … fuck, eight.” Link shakes his head. “His birthday’s just past. He was sleeping when he was eight years old? Does he still sleep?”

  “Yes,” mutters Kid.

  The three others turn to her. She clenches shut her eyes, afraid of Link’s reaction.

  “You knew?” asks Link.

  She sighs, coming to a stop near the train station, then faces Link. “I followed ya. A lot. I even followed ya to the Waterways that one day when I took the gold from ya. From … you. I followed you … and even followed you to your home.” Kid dares to bring her gaze up to Link’s and is surprised to find him looking more curious than angry. “And your older brother saved my life.”

  Link lifts an eyebrow. “They’re all my older brothers,” he says. “Which one? Wick? Lionis?”

  “Half-Sand,” she answers. “Half-Sand stood in front of a train as it was coming for me. And he stopped it with just his hand. He stood there and he … stopped it.”

  A smile crashes over Link’s face. Then, he starts to nod. “Yeah. He … He can do that. Stopping things. A momentum-catcher.”

  “He saved my life,” says Kid. “I hope someday I can repay the favor.”

  “Maybe you can,” murmurs Link thoughtfully, but then his eyes detach again, lost in the cacophony of things he’s learned tonight. His brother’s sleeping. His sister’s existing. He doesn’t seem capable of making any decisions in his current state.

  So Kid figures she’ll make them for the group. “To first block!” she announces. “I know where I can get us a tasty dinner!” Then, she tugs on their hands and drags them to the train station to board the one she knows will take them to a block full of delicious options. A Noodle Shop that will someday be host to a rebel group, if it isn’t already. A bakery at which she’ll someday meet a man whose porch she will deposit a purse of twice-stolen gold upon. It’s strange, she muses, to remember things that haven’t happened yet.

  0195 Ruena

  “You are welcome to come with me, or you are welcome to stay here,” says Ruena. “The choice is yours.”

  Erana sulks, her arms folded tightly to her chest as she stares at the window, the afternoon sun painting her yellow from head to toe. “I’m dead out there. Girls like me don’t survive things like this. It’s historical. I ought to know.”

  “You know lots of things. You’re very smart, Erana. It’s why I’d prefer you to come with me. You know all of the members of his Posse, who are likely the only ones who’d occupy the streets, and—”

  “I only know most.”

  “Better yet. Put that knowledge to use. Come with me.”

  “A smart person wouldn’t come with you.”

  “Then be a fool with me, damn it,” blurts Ruena impatiently, sighing as she turns to face the wall that carries her power. Just a push more of her Legacy can send the wall crumbling to the ground. She presses her hand to it for the twenty-second time this week. Today, I will break down this cursed wall and resume my life.

  “Rone said he’s a member of Rain,” murmurs Erana, poking the bridge of her glasses with a finger, “but I already knew, it turns out. Athan Broadmore said it once when he came plunging into the Windstone Academy the night his family was murdered. I think they wanted me to think he was misremembering Rone’s name, calling him ‘the Rain guy’ … but I hung on to that slip of Athan’s tongue. Of course I did; I hang on to everything, forever.”

  Ruena blinks several times, annoyed. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I wonder if they were all members of Rain. I wonder if Rone was involved with a deep, underground effort to dismantle Sanctum. I know it seems like a radical leap of logic, but it aligns with about thirty-three other things I’ve overheard or observed in the past year. That’s exactly thirty-three things,” Erana points out. “I counted.”

  Ruena looks away, a thought suddenly striking her. “Rain. Let it rain. I heard that before. No,” she decides just as suddenly. “No, they can’t be related. That’s foolish.”

  “Let it rain. Those were the words painted on the ceiling of the arena by blue paint bombs,” recites Erana. “That was a rebel crime of treasonous intent for which Dran and Fylan, brothers from the tenth, were executed. Fylan at the hands of King Greymyn. Dran at the … hand of Metal Hand. The crime never quite befit the punishment, in my opinion. But that’s judging from the three hundred and sixty-one executions I have witnessed.”

  Ruena’s face snaps back to Erana, wide-eyed. “How many did you say? Three hundred and … and sixty-one??”

  “Yes. Two hundred and twelve were by Metal Hand alone. Dran was the last execution broadcasted, however.” Erana sighs and gives a short shrug. “I don’t know how they were all involved, but I am certain they were. Athan. Rone. Wick. Dran.”

  “Rain.” Ruena feels like all the breath has been pulled right out of her. “How could I have not seen this?”

  “I should’ve said it sooner. It was the day Rone told you about his involvement with Rain that all the pieces fell together in my head. I heard it from the couch. You two were arguing quite loudly.”

  Ruena bristles at those words. I didn’t see it as arguing … not exactly. “Well, it makes no matter. Rone’s involvement with Rain or with … with Dran is simply no matter. At least not now. We can discuss it when we find him.” Ruena resists a sigh of frustration, thinking on her brief time in the cells where she interrogated Dran and he made her body flush with heat in more places than just her cheeks. The heavy emotions burst through her so potently, she feels like Dran’s still in the cells awaiting her final verdict and her weary grandfather is still alive, patiently waiting for her to do the right thing. I didn’t know what the right thing was back then, and I certainly am no closer to knowing it now.

  “Athan was a kind boy …” Erana starts to say.

  But the name of the Broadmore boy makes Ruena think of the other, Radley, who nearly professed his undying love to her with all his passionate words of futures and Kings and peace. Ruena quite instantly decides her heart has been played with enough for a day. “Enough, Erana. I have heard enough.”

  But perhaps Erana feels she has, in fact, not said enough. “The dream you shared with Rone and I. Us, living here as long as we want. We can still live that dream, Ruena. You and I. It would have been nicer with Rone, sure, but we—”

  “I can’t LIVE with this on my shoulders, Erana! If Rone were to die out there …”

  Ruena didn’t mean to snap, but she did, and now she feels the cold, stunned silence of Erana at her back. The girl doesn’t respond after that, the two of them standing still.

  Ruena feels a pang of regret from her words, wishing there was an easier answer to this. They both know that once Ruena breaks her way out, she is also compromising Erana’s security here and might be inadvertently forcing her to join Ruena anyway. Am I really even giving her a choice at all? Is this the bossy brain of a Queen who makes choices for her subjects after giving them the guise that they have a
ny say in the matter at all? Is this the kind of Queen I want to be …?

  “I am not a Queen,” murmurs Ruena to herself in answer, then brings her hand to the wall again.

  Erana starts to say something, but Ruena has already pushed her electricity into the fallen rubble, and it responds, vibrating out of control. Ruena backs away, holding onto the current as it flows and crackles with power. She feels her hair rising slowly, the sound of pure electricity pouring before her like a boiling soup of energy.

  In this moment, the room is on fire with purple, buzzing light.

  Ruena must push her charges seven separate times before there is a manageable clearing over which she—and Erana, if she chooses to follow—may cross. The electricity dies away, but the effort of her Legacy has left Ruena’s hands trembling and her hair floating all around her as if she was submerged underwater.

  She hears a single footstep. “Stay where you are,” warns Ruena. “My power is everywhere. Give it time to dissipate.”

  “Okay.”

  The two girls stand in place, staring at the opening Ruena has created. The afternoon sky is pouring in from the now-crumbled wall, golden-white and warm as Rone’s breath when they’d be curled up in each other’s arms, caught in a mess of pillows and silks and blankets on the floor. She already misses him so much. Dran … Radley … I’ll never let myself get close to another man again.

  Unless that man is Rone.

  Is that the real reason she broke down this wall? Does it have anything to do at all with her conscience, with the welfare of the Lifted City and her people, or with retribution? Or is her reasoning entirely a selfish one of the heart?

  Ruena crouches down slowly, placing her hands on the floor. She closes her eyes and feels for the presence of her electric current, drawing it towards her as carefully as she can. In a matter of seconds, she feels nothing more. Rising, she takes a few tentative steps, then crouches by the fallen wall and tests it once more, feeling for energy. When she’s certain it’s gone, she rises again and turns to face Erana, who still stands in place with her glasses reflecting the sunlight and making her eyes look like two enormous gold coins.