Outlier: Reign Of Madness

by Daryl Banner

  “I can’t disturb my family,” he says. “I can’t break the rules.”

  “We already did. We breaked the rules by coming here. Broke. We broke them. Why not break some more? Why not find out what happened to your little sister? Why not follow the masked men who killed my family and find out where they comed from?—came from?”

  “Kid …”

  “I know.” She sighs, exasperated by the dumb logic and dumber excuses he keeps giving, still determined to follow Baal’s rule about not messing with history. “I just can’t stop … thinking.”

  “Good.” Link puts a hand on Kid’s shoulder and gives her an encouraging squeeze. “Keep thinking. Build that brain of yours. You hear yourself? You’re speaking so much … smarterer.”

  Kid’s face wrinkles. “Smarterer isn’t a word.” When she glances at Link and finds him grinning stupidly, she punches him in the arm and giggles. “You maked fun of me!”

  “I’m glad we’re together, Kid. You, me, Fae. I feel like this is how it was supposed to be, the three of us.”

  Kid feels herself warmed by that. “Me too.” Her heart swells in an instant. “And … a-and when my mommy and daddy show up to this house …”

  “I know. You’ll get to see them at last.” Link smiles, then looks back at the window, catching the moonlight in his eye. “And sadly, we’ll also need to find a new place to dwell.”

  “I’ll get us to that new place,” Kid insists. “With my invisibility.”

  “We have each other’s backs. We’re the perfect team.” Kid nods, encouraged. Then Link shuffles his feet. “Tell me about the first time you saw me.”

  Kid sighs. “I already apologized for stealing the gold—”

  “Not that. The Brae.”

  Kid stares at him, her eyebrows lifting. “Oh. That.” She smirks. “I knew, ever since the day I saw ya with those other boys at The Brae, I knew there was something different about … about you.”

  Link squints at her. “I’m trying to imagine you there. Invisible.”

  “I saw ya on your first mission with the black banded boys.”

  Link looks off, thinking about it. “You were really there? Well, I guess you had to have been, otherwise you wouldn’t know about it.”

  “I sawed the whole thing.” She nods. “But even when you did all of that … I knew ya didn’t want to. You wanted them to like you. I could understand that. I had also saw where you came from. I saw your brothers, so I knew you lied to them about having any.” She’s back to picking at her fingers. “Your brother Wick snuck out all the time. He went to a Noodle Shop—the one we ate at recently, the one I took us to after you saw your sister. He’d go there and meet with friends, but I don’t know why.”

  Link’s mouth is half open, his eyes unblinking as he hangs on her every word. “A Noodle Shop to meet friends. I guess he sort of had a secret life, too.” Link chuckles. “I’m not surprised.”

  “Your older brother Half-Sand saved my life.”

  “I know! You said he stopped a train!” Link leans forward, his eyes wide and eager. “Tell me about that.”

  Kid bites the inside of her cheek. “It isn’t a nice story. It was the masked men who found me when I hid at an orphanage. They were looking for me … but they took my friend away instead. Aryl was her name. The masked men taked me and tied me to a train track in the Abandon. That’s where Half-Sand found me. And then a train came. And with a hand, he … he stopped the train.”

  Then, quite unexpectedly, Link pulls Kid in for a hug. Kid’s eyes go big as the side of her face presses into his flat chest. She doesn’t hear his heartbeat. It’s strange; until now, she’d actually doubted that he was serious about not having one. Legacies are weird.

  “Is Faery gonna stay with us?” asks Kid suddenly.

  Link pulls away to look down at Kid. “Of course she is.”

  “She’s from this time,” says Kid. “Won’t her mommy and daddy miss her?”

  Link bites his lip, looking away, though his hands remain on Kid’s shoulders. After a thought, he says, “Do you believe in Three Goddess? Like, truly believe in them?”

  She shrugs. “I dunno. Why?”

  Link smiles. “Never mind. Fae will stay with us for as long as she wants.”

  “Are ya mad at me about not telling you that I met two of your other brothers? Like, before? That I didn’t tell you sooner?”

  Link shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I’m glad you did.”

  “Why did you hug me just now?”

  Link chuckles lightly. “Because … after that visit to my house where it all came out about Anwick’s Legacy … I feel so relieved to finally know. It’s something that’s perplexed me for a while. Now it all makes sense. The closed doors. My mother singing lullabies to him. I can’t believe how … dense I’ve been.” Link sighs, slapping his forehead suddenly, taken over by a sudden desire to laugh. After he settles from it, he gives Kid a rub on the top of her head, fussing up her messy half-undone braids of hair, to which she shrugs away from him like an annoyed cat. “I have more to thank you for. I’m happy you’re with us, Kid. I’m …” He glances up at the ceiling. “I’m going to check on Fae.”

  Then he gives Kid another brief smile before heading out of the kitchen. Kid hears his footsteps creaking as he ascends the stairs. She feels a hundred times lighter after revealing all of that to Link, and yet the stone that sits in her chest is still there—a stone named Ames, a stone named betrayal, a stone named liar.

  She glances down, as if she might see the stone in her belly.

  She sees blood instead.

  Kid pulls at her dress, her eyes wide with terror. Blood. She sees the horror of the scene at the orphanage all over again—the children being beheaded, being gutted, being turned into nothing but skin and blood, blood, blood. Kid backs into the counter, her breaths fast and jagged with fright. Blood. A huge spot of blood has pooled at the front of her dress right at her thighs. Blood …

  Kid pulls up her dress. There is blood painting the inside of her thighs. It’s everywhere. I’m dying. I’m peeing my life’s blood out of me. This is the price a liar pays. Blood, blood, blood.

  “HELP!” she screams. “LINK! FAE! HELP!”

  The two of them are down the stairs in seconds. Link stops cold at the kitchen door, his eyes wide with alarm. Fae rushes past him and crouches next to Kid, her eyes on the blood. “What happened??”

  “I DON’T KNOW!” Kid can barely see anything, her whole world blurred by the tears that have filled her eyes. It’s too soon to die. We haven’t even made it a year. I haven’t gotten to see my parents. “FAE! HELP ME!”

  The tension in Fae’s face releases as she looks into Kid’s eyes. “Sweetie,” she coos, then rises to pull Kid against her for a soothing hug, rubbing her back. “Calm, calm, calm. It’s okay.”

  “W-W-What’s happening to m-m-me??” blubbers Kid.

  Fae turns her head toward Link. “The supplies we gathered two nights ago. Can you fetch them?” Link nods and hurries away, his footsteps slamming up every step of the staircase.

  “F-F-Fae??”

  She crouches down again, bringing her face close to Kid’s. “This has never happened to you before? When you bleed from … between your legs?”

  Kid shakes her head quickly.

  “Mmm, of course. You lost your mom and dad too young. They wouldn’t have told you about this yet.” Fae gives her a reassuring smile. “Kid, it’s perfectly, totally normal. I bleed too. All women do.” She gives her a soothing, gentle rub of her shoulders. “You’re at the age now where it’s going to start happening.”

  Kid’s eyes widen. “This … Th-This is going to happen again??”

  Fae nods gently. “Yes, sweetie. Once a month.”

  “W-Why?”

  “It’s simply nature. Boys go through something at this age too. They grow hair between their legs and under their arms. And, well, so do we, but … we also bleed.” Fae’s lips pinch together. “It means you’re
a woman now.”

  Link returns with a bag containing the supplies, handing them to Fae. “Is she alright?” he asks quickly.

  Fae looks up at him. “Girl stuff,” she answers.

  Comprehension dawns on Link’s face as he nods slowly.

  “I’m a woman now?” Kid blinks, the fear draining from her. She lifts her brows. “I’m … I’m a woman like you now?”

  “You’re a woman now. See, I bleed too, and …”

  Suddenly Fae’s eyes grow blank and faraway, as if she’s staring straight through Kid’s head.

  A tiny bit of alarm arrests her again. “W-What is it, Fae?”

  Fae turns her face away slightly, her mouth agape. “Bleed …” She glances back at Link. “I …”

  Now Link looks concerned. “Fae, what’s wrong?”

  “Bleed,” she answers, staring at him. “I haven’t bled this month.”

  The two of them stare at one another, wordless. Kid peers back and forth between the two of them. “What does that mean …?” she asks, clueless. “Fae? … Link? … W-What does that mean?”

  Neither Link nor Fae answer, their eyes locked on one another in the cold silence of the room.

  0206 Wick

  The train, which has been dead since the Fall, comes to life with the insertion of a Sanctum tech keycard. Arcana gives a knowing quirk of her eyebrow as the creaky vessel carries them along the rail, scraping the metal that has, for months, slept.

  They ride in the front car with the engine, where Wick has never been before. Even Lionis has a life in his eyes that is somewhat uncharacteristic as he stares at the controls in wonder. Athan stands by Wick’s side at the window, watching as the slums pass by. The train slowly edges up an inclining track that cuts through buildings, bypassing train stations that stop at the fourth and fifth floors of major buildings throughout the ninth and the closer edge of tenth.

  The track skirts the edge of a Pylon, and that’s when Arcana removes the card from the engine, and the train ungently squeals to an abrupt halt, throwing Lionis away from the controls in the front and causing him to slam clumsily against the wall, wide-eyed.

  Arcana leads them down the throat of the train to the center car, which opens against the Pylon to a door that runs flush with the wall, completely hidden in plain sight. The door slides open with another swipe of a keycard and her bending gracefully toward an interface to allow it to scan her eye. They pass through the door and into a small room, which Wick belatedly realizes is a lift when the doors slam shut and the room begins to gently rise.

  Wick and Athan and Lionis share bewildered looks at one another, as if each of them is asking the other the same question: Are we really doing this? Did we really agree to this?

  Halfway up the lift, Wick turns to Lionis. “It’s your birthday,” he says suddenly, realizing it.

  That fact seems to have slipped completely from Lionis’s mind, as his eyes reflect surprise when he says, “Why yes, yes it is.”

  “Twenty,” mutters Wick.

  “An unremarkable year,” Lionis grunts, then turns away.

  The lift comes to a slow stop, and then its doors slide open with a soft, slippery sound. They disembark the lift and cross into what appears to be the lobby of a large, dark, empty building. The time it took to pass through the ninth and board and ride the train has brought the sun down and the moon up, and it is only the pale moonlight that paints the Lifted City a cool, milky blue as they leave the building and enter the streets.

  Wick, Athan, and Lionis are walking in a tight trio, keeping so close to one another that Wick worries a slight change of his pace might cause either of the other two to trip. Remember your purpose, Wick tells himself, pulling out one of Arrow’s tiny charms from his pocket and planting it by a streetlamp they pass.

  We’re okay, thinks Athan.

  Wick flinches at the sound of Athan’s voice, belatedly realizing that he’s still drawing upon Arcana’s ability, even with her walking several paces ahead of them. Wick stares at the side of Athan’s face as he hears his worried private reassurance to himself. We’re okay. We made the right choice. I’m panicking inside because of my normal nerves, not because of my Legacy—whatever my Legacy is. Lionis is smart and will smell a scheme. Wick is brave and can use any powers he grabs ahold of. We’re safe. We’re all safe. Impis isn’t evil. He’s just twisted. Maybe he’s twisted in our favor.

  Wick hears Lionis too. We can manage the madness. Any person can be guided, even the crazy ones. Impis killed the last King, that much is true. He has a distaste for the order of Sanctum, and maybe that gives us an unprecedented advantage … despite his constant desire to burn the slums one red lightning bolt at a time. I shouldn’t have worn these shoes. My feet are cramping. I hope Wick has a plan if everything goes to shit or if this woman is a double-thinker like I had suspected. Fuck, she probably can hear all of this.

  Wick could clobber his damned brother a hundred times in that still-bruised nose right now.

  But he can also hear Arcana’s thoughts, and that might intrigue him more than his boyfriend and his brother at his side. Let them see who you are, Arcana is thinking worried yet warmly. Let all of Impis’s fools see that it is not just a permanent party up here in the beautiful Lifted City, which we have ruined. Let them realize that there are consequences to the Madness. If Impis cannot get onboard with the future I envision, then may he quickly learn how very outnumbered he is. And yes, dear sister, that means you too.

  Is it possible that Arcana really can be thinking one thing, but believing another? A liar who believes their own lies … The words still unsettle Wick. Can a person really be that clever, to guard their own mind with such double-think? If Arcana was truly doing that, isn’t it likely that she’d, even just for a second, slip out the wrong thought, much like a liar losing track of their own lie?

  A band of three Chaots coming down a side street stop at the sight of them walking by. Wick hears the suspicions and the ugly words in their minds. Two of them assume that they are Lifted folk who have been hiding in their house and, after being caught, are being taken to the King. The third one suspects they’re slummers that have been gathered from Impis’s list.

  Wick, Athan, Lionis, and Arcana come around a wide bend in the road where Lionis tosses another of Arrow’s tiny charms into the flower bushes that grow from a chrome pot in front of a house. Just when Wick is wondering where the hell they are, he picks up on a cold train of thought of Athan’s, identifying their location. They are coming down the Sunstone Channel, which is an arm of the Lifted City that overhangs the ninth ward and leads to the center of Atlas. Tangents of the arm run off into the Eastly where Broadmore Manor stands and the Lord’s Garden used to stand.

  Athan turns some of those thoughts into words, catching Wick by surprise. “My house,” he murmurs quietly. “It’s just down the road to the left, a ways through the gardens and past my gym and beyond the salons.”

  Wick feels his own heart race as he suddenly sees Athan’s brother lying on the ground, dead. I’m in his mind. Then he catches a flash of Athan’s sister with her face pressed into her plate of food. Wick tries to blink away the images, but they enter him as quickly as a foul scent in the air, and tears start to sting his eyes. What if that was Halves’ face in a plate of food? Aleks across from him, dead? Lionis on the floor? Link in a pool of his own poisoned vomit? Mom? Dad?

  For the first time, with both the aid of Arcana’s power and the unfortunate location they’re in, Wick feels Athan’s true grief and the trepidation that builds with his every step in this wretched place. He came just because I did. I could’ve refused and spared him this torture. The thought fills him with sudden, ill-timed remorse.

  Forty more minutes of walking takes them into the parts of the Lifted City that Wick himself is even somewhat familiar with. The plazas are darker than usual, perhaps because a number of the usual streetlights have no power, only the occasional self-sustaining ones shining pale and weakly. Crossing two sho
rt streets and a plaza brings them to the mouth of the Crystal Court, which they skirt around. Wick feels Athan’s stab of fear at the sight of it, since the tall glass pillars are shattered and some of its tall, impressive walls are cracked, likely in the aftermath of the crashed coronation of Ruena Netheris that never saw its end or its rightful purpose.

  A charm finds a home at the foot of the glass steps leading in.

  Soon they are upon tall, daunting chrome walls which Wick learns, through a worried thought of Athan’s, are the outer walls of Cloud Keep. I never thought I’d truly stand before it. Wick feels like he’s in a dream, drifting through pretend cityscapes and make-up landscapes, none of it real. There is a huge gate that seems to have been bent inward by some great explosive force, its enormous doors hanging off whatever equally enormous hinges hold them. Through the damaged gate, they cross two brief courts until they enter a wide expanse of nothing. Rubble and broken stone litter the path towards one lone tower that juts out from all of the mess. The tower—Cloud Tower, if Wick can allow himself to believe that—is impossibly tall and leans ever slightly to the side, like a great enough wind could topple it. With the unusualness of the architecture in the Lifted City, Wick isn’t sure whether the slight lean is a violent result of the Fall of Sanctum, or a design choice. It seems to be about half the width of the arena in which the Weapon Show was held, and only an occasional, narrow slit of window interrupts its otherwise smooth, unblemished exterior. Only at the top does he see the blunt presence of a balcony, upon which there stands a figure he cannot identify from this far of a distance.

  At the thick, colossal chrome doors to Cloud Tower, which are daunting to say the very least, Arcana turns and faces the three of them. “I must warn you, Impis Lockfyre is unpredictable at best.”

  “So we must take caution,” says Wick.

  “And you must listen to my thoughts at all times,” she instructs him. “I will advise you privately through our minds, since you will be able to hear me. Are we understood?” To punctuate her point, she repeats the question within her mind: Are we understood, Anwick?