by Lynn Vroman
“For years after, Kendal stayed away from Arcus, even worked for the Synod, took on a Guide. But she couldn’t handle it: the life, the repetition. She wanted to live, feel–with me. Said she couldn’t do that here, and so she went to Casimir again, believing he had the answers. He killed her, Tarek, for her energy. Think about what you would have done in my position.”
“I am in your position–because of you.”
“Yes, well, Lena’s fault, really. She was always so damn…involved.” A shaky hand ran through his hair. “And that insipid Guide…what do all of you see in that girl?”
“Go to hell.”
Anger flashed in Mateusz’s eyes, decaying the calm persona. “You should’ve killed the kid. I’d have made a deal with you, Lena’s notes for your life.”
“My life is worthless without her. The last seventeen years should’ve clued you in.” His patience wasn’t going to last much longer.
“Yes, but those notes have names of people willing to help. People who wouldn’t fail under pressure like Zander. Maybe I would’ve even thrown in Lena’s life if you would’ve killed that goddamned kid.”
To keep his fists off the guy’s face, he concentrated on the door. “Guess I screwed up.”
“As soon as I sensed that boy’s energy lurking around, trying to not be seen, I knew you gave him a choice. Always so noble, aren’t you?” Mateusz threw his glasses on the table, rubbed his eyes, and opened his computer. “You are sentenced to recycling. Don’t worry, I’ll recommend they send your energy somewhere fairly evolved. And lucky for you, you won’t remember any of this.”
An official hologram energy reading with Tarek’s name on the top brightened up the room. The red stamp, TAINTED, marred the bottom margin.
Well, that was quick. Guess an official Guide reading wasn’t even needed.
“You do realize what will happen if Casimir gets Wilma’s energy?”
Mateusz let the hologram float above the table for a minute as he gathered his things. “I don’t care.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Tarek’s leg bounced as his eyes stayed glued to the door. “Okay, Wilma. Now would be a great time.”
She couldn’t hear him, which was good because the few choice words he called her would only have gotten his ass kicked. Obviously she knew when Mateusz walked in. No way could the timing of her warning have been a coincidence. She had to know when the bastard left…
He tapped on the table. The tepid air blowing through the vents cooled the sweat running down his spine. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and still no Wilma. He pushed up from the seat, on the verge of losing it.
The door latch clicked.
Farren, his face tense, shut the door. Without acknowledging Tarek, the guy touched the communicator on his ear. “I’m in. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Be there in twenty.” He looked at Tarek. “You ready?”
“About two hours ago.” Relief had his knees shaking.
The guy’s face darkened in a blotchy crimson pattern, a by-product of red hair. “Ah, sorry, yeah, I had to be sure. Wasn’t going to let you go until I talked to Wilma. Mateusz–knew that son of a bitch was shady for a while, and when he rushed to get to you…you…”
Farren scratched behind the ear holding his communicator and winced. No doubt it was Wilma’s raspy voice yelling through it. “Want you to know Wilma almost ripped my head off when I told her what went down. She’s pretty pissed I brought you here.”
Tarek smiled. At least he wasn’t the only one intimidated by the woman. “Just…thanks, man. You have nothing to explain. And don’t worry about Mateusz. I’ll take care of him.” His gut tightened, but he had to ask. “Has she…Lena?”
“Damn right, you will. And I’m supposed to tell you she’s fine, so don’t go all crazy.” He grinned with a wink. “I have orders to take you to the execution facility. Covert thing. He doesn’t want anybody knowing you’re here. A lot of people are still mad about Lena–there’d be an outright rebellion if word got out you were on the chopping block.” He gave a quick snort. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
Even Exemplian executions were civilized. Like animals, they were put in a room and euthanized with one scorching prick of a needle. No fanfare, no hype, just a noxious poison that put them to sleep without a wakeup call.
Well, there wasn’t any hype unless the public found out a favorite was accused. When they recycled Lena, the authority had to control protests for weeks. The backlash shocked the Synod, seeing as how emotion–about anything–was rare. His popularity was by default only because she loved him.
“So, what? We’re just going to walk out of here?”
“That’s the plan.” Farren unclasped a set of cuffs from his belt. “Put these on.”
The restraints were made of flimsy, soft gallium, easy to break unless activated. One push of a remote and the cuffs melted in slow intervals into the skin, slowing the synapses in the brain and turning the wearer into a drooling shell. The cuffs created complacency in criminals to avoid any violence.
Civilized monsters were more dangerous.
He hesitated, moving backward toward the bed. “I’m not putting those on.”
Farren charged him, that damn smile still on his face. “You’re wasting time, brother.”
Tarek shook his head, the backs of his legs brushing up against the mattress. Brains never worked the same after a long stint in those cuffs, even in later cycles, like it damaged the energy itself. Every Protector in the building had a universal remote that worked on all the restraints within a two-foot range.
“I’ll unlock them as soon as we hit my ride.” Farren inched closer. When Tarek shook his head again, the smiling ginger snatched one of his wrists and snapped on a cuff while reaching for the other hand. “Come on, man. We have to make it look official.”
“Damn it! Give me your remote.”
Farren shoved the tiny black rectangle in Tarek’s pocket. “Happy? Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Is Wilma still at my place?”
“Ah, yeah, no. The field’s crawling with authority.”
When the guy’s face went all red again, Tarek’s nerves shot through the ceiling. “Something you’re not saying?”
Farren opened the door. “She told me not to tell you anything until we were on our way. Didn’t want you causing a scene.”
Ah, shit.
Tarek
As soon as they were off the landing pad, Tarek held out the cuffs for Farren’s thumbprint. “Take them off.”
Farren shook his head as he maneuvered the shuttle toward the exit. “Not until we leave the compound, man. Won’t get through the main gate with you all free and shit.”
“Not even a second after, I want your thumb unlocking these things.” The sweat pouring out of his face had nothing to do with the taser’s leftover effects. All it would take was one Protector close enough to get suspicious and his brain would turn to mush.
“My thumb’s all yours as soon as these idiots give us a pass.”
The shuttle hovered near the ground when they glided up to the exit. Farren closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and touched the control pad on the steering column. “Farren Anders transporting a Tainted to execution dock, 5-7TY8.”
A reedy voice came through, filling up the small compartment. “Slide your window, Protector.”
Farren smiled through clenched teeth as he did exactly what the woman said. “Time to act like a ghost, brother.”
Kind of hard when his body was so tight it rang, but he gave it a shot. Lolling his head to rest on the door, he focused on the dash and let his mouth go slack.
The woman made it to Farren’s side of the shuttle. “Who authorized the transport?”
“Mateusz Fuchs, authority commander.”
The woman’s eyes drilled the side of Tarek’s head as if daring him to come out of his drooling stupor. Finally, she stopped making dents in his cranium as she looked under the shuttle, in the back seat, and lifted the side storage unit. “You have the d
ecree?”
Farren’s voice was way too chipper. The pleasant tone grating on Tarek’s already frayed nerves. “Right here.” He pushed another button on the steering column, and the hologram of Tarek’s false Tainted reading jumped out and into her hands.
She scanned the mirage of pages, flipping and enlarging while Farren tapped on the wheel and whistled. Tarek dug his nails into his palms to keep from punching him in the temple.
After what felt like hours, she cleared her throat. “Looks good. Proceed on my signal.”
Farren slid the window in place and moved through the gate, giving Tarek a thumbs-up.
A rough laugh that had nothing to do with being happy escaped as Tarek pressed the cuffs to Farren’s thumb. Once the print registered and the things slipped off his wrists, he stuffed them in his pocket, careful to make sure they didn’t touch his skin. “Tell me what she’s up to.”
Farren made a right while lifting the shuttle into the buzzing traffic, chuckling under his breath. To the drone of the vapor engine, he said, “Yeah, I think I’ll let her tell you. I kind of like the way my shuttle looks.”
∞ ∞ ∞
“What the hell are we doing here?”
If Exemplar had a ghetto in the small dimension, this would be it. Houses were ancient by dimensional standards, with obvious solar paneling covering roofs and non-hovering vehicles that still ran on algae parked in garages.
This was the place where tired Guides and Protectors went when waiting for their cycle to end. They sat in these houses and refused any medic help to slow down the aging process. Kind of like the hospice for drained Exemplians. Most of these people wouldn’t come back–a lot of them using the few years they had left to spend time with someone they’d never see again.
The worst part about living in Exemplar was knowledge, knowing the way the universe worked. Exemplians knew they’d live again somewhere and everyone they ever loved or cared about wouldn’t be coming along–unless the choice was made to come back here and live life for everyone else.
Farren set the shuttle down at a house near the end of a cul-de-sac then touched the communicator on his ear. “Yeah, it’s us. Throw down your blocks; we can’t even open our doors. Ah, hell no, I didn’t tell him.” He pulled the thing out of his ear and looked over. “What? You never been to Wilma’s place?”
“Not this place.” As soon as his door slid open, Tarek peeled himself out of the seat and went straight for the front door. “Wilma?”
“Over here.” She sat at a small, round table in the kitchen holding a stack of papers. The place was as barren as the one she had on Earth. Complete opposite of her other home in the middle of Exemplar. She gave a slight smile. “So…surprise.”
“What–how long were you…”
“I was ready to blow this place twenty years before you called, begging me to take on Lena.” She gave a tight laugh. “Didn’t think I’d fall in love with her, too, but the girl got to my soft spot. Like my own damn daughter now.”
“I never knew you were so close to…” For the life of him, a full sentence refused to form.
She stood, stretching. “Well, no shit.” She waved a hand as soon as Farren came in, securing the blocks. Even the shuttle received special treatment, becoming invisible. “Time to start talking.”
Tarek took up Wilma’s vacant seat. Blurting out the important stuff seemed like the best way to break the bad news. “Casimir wants you.”
“Who told you that?” Wind began to swirl in the small space, causing him to hold the edge of the table.
What he had to say next would probably have him flying through the room. “Zander. I was right. He’s the so-called rogue Mateusz warned me about.”
Okay, he didn’t go flying, but about everything else in the room crashed against the walls. Farren had to duck as a chair narrowly missed his head and slammed into the front door. “That little shit. I knew it! Appearing out of nowhere, sniffing around her.”
Fighting the urge to hide under the table, Tarek reached out to grab her flailing hands. “Calm down. There’s more, and we don’t have time for a tantrum–especially one of yours.”
Her hands lowered, but the deep patches of red marring her cheeks stayed put. “You better make it quick because I’m ready to blow some shit up.”
No more time was wasted. He spewed out the details, careful to keep clear of Wilma’s twitching fingers. By the time he finished, Farren was shaking his head and cursing under his breath, while Wilma’s face transformed to stone.
“All right. Your turn. Tell me what you’ve been doing.” Tarek shot a thumb toward Farren. “He didn’t have the balls.”
She gave him a dull stare and found the pieces of paper she’d been holding on the floor. “This is all that’s left.”
Confused, he grabbed the notes that Lena had tucked inside the Arcus book. “Left of what?”
“Your house.”
Red. Everything went red as his fingers shook around the paper. “What’re you talking about?”
“Now, sit down and–”
He didn’t even remember standing. “What happened to my house?”
“It, ah, caught on fire.”
“It ca–what?”
She flailed her arms in the air, looking at Farren who held out his hands. “Don’t get me involved,” he said, inching closer to the door.
“Wilma? My house?”
“Once Farren told me what went down,” she pointed to the now crumpled papers in his hands, “and what that symbol meant, I knew we were in trouble. So, I took the evidence and torched the place. Created a distraction, you might say.”
Shit. “My house, though?”
“Mateusz has been out there with his army for days scouring through the rubble. Word is you blew up your place and went AWOL. You finally cracked. That’s the rumor he’s fueling.”
Too much to process. Too much. “Days? How long have I been out?”
She ran a hand through her hair. “Almost three days.”
His ass fell back into the chair.
“I know it’s tough, and it gets worse.” She picked up a chair missing its back, placed it right in front of him, and took a seat. “Casimir having Kendal’s energy is bad. Real bad. And Farren recognized some of those names on the list–most are rogues. No one knows where the hell they are.”
“It’s true, brother. They’ve been on our tracking list for years,” Farren said.
“Which means one of two things: they’re helping Casimir, or he has their energies. If not, the Warden probably knows where they are.” She took the papers from his hands. “And now he’s bleeding the lines?”
He rested his elbows on his knees, not at all feeling what she began to hint at. “All right, listen. My plan is to get Lena, take her to Empyrean, maybe kill Mateusz when the opportunity comes up. Don’t want to do anything else.”
“Too bad.”
“No, Wilma.”
“Casimir needs to die.”
Farren’s sharp intake of breath matched his sentiments exactly. “That’s crazy.”
Resignation settled on her round face. “He’s looking for Protectors like me, Tarek. He’s not messing around. If we turn our backs, he’ll infiltrate any dimension he wants, cherry-picking humans, using these idiots on the list. Kendal believed his lies, one of the smartest Protectors I’d ever met.” She pointed to the list again. “These people are probably just as convinced Casimir can give them what they want next cycle.”
He laced his fingers together to hide the shaking. “She dreamed about me.”
“Lena? No way.”
“I believe her. Maybe there is a way…maybe these people are right. Why shouldn’t we get to live how we want? We’ve sacrificed…hundreds of years…multiple lives for everyone else.”
“But with Casimir? You understand how dangerous that is–people trying to live in Arcus? And he wants my energy. He might be promising them a slice of truth, but he has more on his mind. He’s not looking to be the benevolen
t leader and give Exemplians a choice. He’s looking to be the next Exemplar. He’s looking to control the entire universe.” She slammed a fist on the table as her bottom lip shook. “I’ll do it.”
The sinking feeling in his gut made his voice come out in a whisper. “Maybe Cassondra could talk to him. He listens to her.”
Farren cleared his throat, not moving from his spot. “Cassondra is still at her Pairing. And she…I don’t think she’ll try to stop him. She’s been pleading for Arcus to be given good energy, asking the Synod to let some Tainted Exemplians live out the remainder of their cycles in his dimension instead of sending them to other places. She wants to speed up the world’s evolution.”
Tarek stared at his hands, his eyes filling as he swallowed the reality. “You can’t do it, Wilma.”
“The hell I can’t.” She stood, pulling at her hair, and went to stare out the window.
A groan hid the sob lurking at the back of his throat. This wasn’t how he pictured it ending.
Not. At. All.
On legs that felt like water, he went to stand behind her. “She’ll need you. Once Casimir is dead, Cassondra might come after her. She’ll have to worry about everyone else who threw in with the Warden, too. I can’t protect her like you can.”
“Fucking Cassondra… Fucking Casimir.” Pain filled her curse. “Lena’s in that place because of me.”
Never in his lives had he witnessed this woman bawl like an infant. Guess there was a first time for everything. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and bite his lips not to join her.
He was right, and she knew it.
His voice weak, he said, “She’s there because of Mateusz.”
“Lena will never forgive you…she’ll never forgive me.”
With a few swipes at his eyes, and a hell of a lot more throat clearing, he said, “We were made for each other. More now than ever, I believe it. This is just another hurdle.”
Was that…? Yes. Farren had his head bent and his fist slammed up against his mouth.
They were all sensitive girls.
And they were all wasting time.
He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the wet evidence off his face. “We need to go. She’s been there long enough.”
