by Perrin Briar
“Important?” Dexter said. “Important how?”
“We’ll be in charge of the Undead,” Quinn said. “It’s a very important job. It’ll be up to us to protect everyone else in the community. And they’ll be nice to us because we’ll be part of the team.”
“Part of the team?” Dexter said.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before smiling at the idea.
“Part of the team,” he said.
“You’d be doing me a real favor if you could do this,” Quinn said. “I need people who are honest, strong and reliable. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes,” Dexter said. “I think so. But do I have to leave you to do it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Quinn said. “The communities are far apart, and we need one overlord in each.”
“I… I understand,” Dexter said, getting to his feet. “Excuse me. I need to go for a… I need to go.”
He left. To where, Quinn didn’t know. Would he ever see him again? He had no idea. He had clearly underestimated the impact something like this might have on him.
When Siren came to see him, she saw he was in a dour mood. He explained to her the reason for it.
“Are you sure he’s ready for something like this?” Siren said. “Are you sure he’s… fully trained?”
“He’s completed all the drills I gave him,” Quinn said
“There’s more to training that just drills,” Siren said. “It’s about personality too.”
“Dexter is very reliable…” Quinn said. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
Despite the age difference, Quinn could have been Dexter’s father. Or perhaps describing him as his older brother was more accurate. In either case, he felt responsible for the boy.
“I’m not sure he’s ready to lead the Undead yet,” Siren said.
“Why not?” Quinn said.
“He’s… Don’t you Sense it in him?” Siren said.
“Sense what?” Quinn said.
His eyes searched hers. Evidently, he didn’t Sense it.
“The Darkness in him,” Siren said.
“Darkness?” Quinn said. “He has his low points, but don’t we all? I don’t think he has any more than we do. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“I can see it in him,” Siren said.
“I’m the one who can Sense the Undead,” Quinn said.
“Sometimes we’re blinded by our own emotions,” Siren said.
“You think I care too much about him to see what he has inside him?” Quinn said.
“You are very close,” Siren said.
“I’m not blinded by anything,” Quinn said. “He’s going to be powerful and very happy. He’s going to make it so a community can live and work together in peace and harmony. If he still wants to do what he was trained for, he can. No one should be forced into this kind of thing.”
But Siren posed an interested question. Quinn would have to dwell on it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The community leaders began turning up one after the other. The Chinese arrived first. Quinn ensured to welcome them as they were ushered into the keep and up the stairs to his quarters. Extra chairs had been brought in and arranged in a circle, the other furniture moved to the sides. He wanted to be heard and seen by all the community leaders.
Next, the Hispanic and Black communities turned up. Then, with just a few minutes remaining, the mountain community took their seats. They were boisterous and loud. It was fascinating to Quinn that there could still be so much variety amongst survivors. He would have thought they would have a lot more in common, but perhaps it was sheer luck and a hard working mentality that really divided the survivors from the dead.
“Welcome once again,” Quinn said. “As you know, communities like ours are falling each and every day. Just because one community is strong today does not guarantee it will be strong tomorrow. We are each of us on a timeline of death and don’t know when our number will be called. It is, unfortunately, the fate of each and every one of us that we will all one day die, as will our communities, no matter how strong they appear on the surface. This is why it is of the utmost importance that we work together as a team. The stronger we are, the longer we will last. But still, it is not enough.”
“How safe can your system make us if you are still plagued by Undead attacks like the one the other day?” Balder said.
It was a fair question. That didn’t make it any easier to answer.
“It was a single attack and will not happen again,” Quinn said. “And no one was hurt. Obviously, we would prefer for no attacks to happen, but the fact there was no long-term damage is surely something we can all live with.”
There were nods around the table. Quinn knew with some certainty that they would have all experienced far worse losses than he had the previous day.
“I trust you all took the time to take a tour of our little community?” Quinn said.
“Not so little,” Balder said.
“What did you think of what you saw?” Quinn said.
Balder shrugged.
“It’s all right,” he said gruffly. “I suppose.”
Balder was a hard man to get any acknowledgement from. If he said it was “all right,” that probably meant, in actual terms, that it was very impressive.
“It’s the shit,” the Hispanic leader said. “Now, you gonna tell us how we can do the same, or not?”
“I will,” Quinn said. “But first I need to ask if you’re serious about making your communities safe, the kind of place people would actually want to live.”
“Dumb question,” the Black leader said. “Of course, we do. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have come here.”
“Fair enough,” Quinn said. “But what I suggest is something that we’re not currently doing. But when we do, it will solve all of our problems. There will be no more Undead attacks. There will be plenty of food for everyone. Every issue you have will be gone. But it means doing something you might not immediately agree with.”
“Man, if there’s a way to do all that, I’ll do it, no matter what it is,” the Black leader said.
“Will you?” Quinn said, turning on him and fixing his eyes upon him. “Or are you only saying that?”
The stare made the Black leader uncomfortable.
“Because if you’re serious about this, it will require you, as the leaders, to explain it to the others in your community what you’re proposing,” Quinn said. “Some will fight back. Some will refuse to let you do it. You must be ready to stand against them, because you know that you are right.”
“What is it?” Falcon said.
She had a confused, anxious and excited expression on her face, each emotion vying for attention.
“I won’t tell you,” Quinn said. “Instead, I will show you. Please join me on the keep’s rooftop. There, I will explain everything.”
Now was the big moment. He would reveal his plan to them all, and in the same breath, he would be revealing his own unique ability. How would they look at him after that? Would they still have the same level of respect in their eyes? Would they still listen to him? And what of the people of Arthur’s Port? What would they make of him? Would they care? Did the means of how they were made safe matter? He had no answers. People often reacted in ways that were unpredictable.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They emerged on the wide expanse of the rooftop. A ring of guards stood to attention around the edges. As the highest building in town, it afforded them the best view. On one side, they could see clear out across the sea, where ships were coming and going with great timing. They were a powerful trading community. On the other side was the town of Arthur’s Port and its satellite towns.
“This is it?” Balder said. “Another view of your community? We’ve seen it. Why can’t you just tell us whatever your secret is?”
“I am going to tell you our system,” Quinn said. “The reason we are so safe here is the same reason we can eventually produce as much
food and wealth as we require.”
“How?” Chin said.
“The secret, is me,” Quinn said.
“Yes, yes,” Falcon said. “Good leadership is important. Don’t you think we’re doing the same thing where we are?”
“No, not leadership,” Quinn said. “It’s about more than leadership. When the Incident happened and the world became the way it is, I found I had an ability. It may have been there inside me all along, but I had no way of knowing. Not until the Undead came.”
He turned to smile at Dexter, who stood at his side. Dexter’s story would have been similar.
He took a moment. This was hard for him to admit. From this moment on, once he spoke the truth, there was no going back. He turned to Falcon.
“The other day, we spoke about the Soulless, about those able to control the Undead,” he said. “In reality, these people are real. They are not monsters. And they can control the Undead. They can tell them what to do, to do their bidding. How they’re quite able to do this, we don’t know. But they can. We should make allies of them.”
Laughter from all the community leaders.
“Allies?” Balder said, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Let no one say you’re without a sense of humor. These beasts don’t know what “ally” means. I’ve seen them tearing into one another rather than share a piece of meat. There is no allying with them.”
“With them, no,” Quinn said. “But there are those who control them. We all have words for them. Nightmares, Skinchangers, Shadows. Death. Overlords. But they control the undead. Imagine what we could do if we no longer had to fight the Undead, but work alongside them, using them for our various menial tasks. They could be the robot workforce we need, to do our farming, do our scavenging, rebuild our world.”
“And how do you expect us to contact them?” Balder said. “Have you got their numbers?”
“There are ways,” Quinn said.
“Have you worked with them before?” the Hispanic leader said.
“We go talk with them,” Quinn said. “We need their ability and our own ingenuity to rebuild our world, and not just survive in it.”
“You’re saying you have a Soulless here somewhere doing your bidding?” Falcon said. “That’s how you manage to keep the Undead at bay?”
“We don’t call them Soulless,” Quinn said. “We call them overlords. And they’re not all evil. And I don’t have one I have under my thumb.”
“Then where is it?” Falcon said.
“It’s me,” Quinn said. “I am the overlord at Arthur’s Port.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
You could have heard a pin drop.
“You ask us to work with overlords?” Chin said. “You ask for the impossible. We came here to discover a way to improve our communities and defensive capabilities. We did not come here to uncover a faster way to kill ourselves. We shall hear no more about this. We will leave.”
“Wait…” Quinn said.
“It’s no good,” Siren said, sidling up to Quinn. “They’ve made up their minds. They have hard and fast rules and borders about what they’re happy accepting, and this is not good enough for them. They will never accept your plan.”
“What about the others?” Quinn said.
“Well, they haven’t left yet, at least,” Siren said. “They have more open minds than the Chinese. I suggest you keep trying to convince them.”
Quinn turned to face them.
“You’re able to control the Undead?” Falcon said.
“Yes, I can,” Quinn said.
“You told the Undead to attack your own community the other day?” Falcon said.
“No, that wasn’t me,” Quinn said. “That was another overlord. But I managed to defeat him. He’s no longer a danger to us.”
“We came all this way to listen to a bunch of lies from a fool,” Balder said. “If you can control the Undead, why don’t you just tell them to kill themselves?”
“Because no matter how many I send to their deaths, they are always going to be more of them,” Quinn said. “There are always more of them. And, more than that, they can be used for the good. You see, by killing them, yes, we can send them to their deaths and we score a point. But we can score two points if we harness them and use them to grow our crops, to do our menial jobs. To do the things we simply don’t have the population to do anymore.”
“You’re lying,” Balder said. “No one can control the Undead. No one.”
“Tell that to them,” Quinn said, gesturing in the direction of the Undead cresting the horizon.
A black crowd of festering Undead right on Arthur’s Port’s doorstep. They moved left, then right, then made circles and filtered through one another like a giant pair of hands.
“That’s impossible,” Balder said.
“Not if you’re an overlord,” Siren said.
“How else do you think we’ve been harvesting so much food?” Quinn said. “Magic fertilizer? The food you’ve been eating has been food we’ve been growing with our Undead army. The locals don’t know about it, and they never will, not until we’re ready to tell them. Then, they will work hand in hand with the Undead.”
Siren Pushed and Pulled at each of the leaders, working furiously to contain the anger in each member, to make them agree to Quinn’s plan. She focused her efforts on the leaders. There was little she could do to control all the other member of the groups—there were far too many of them for her to make much difference—and so she treated them like a single person.
It was remarkable how instinctive the human race was to fit in harmony with the rest of the group. It made it more difficult to sway them, but it was easier than trying to sway each individual member. It was a filtering system, the leader at the top who made the final decision. If enough of them had a strong enough opinion, that could change the leader’s too.
“If you have been attacked by a clearly orchestrated horde of Undead, it will be because they are orchestrated,” Quinn said. “If there have been small attacks, then they perhaps aren’t from the overlord, but of course, there is always the chance they are testing your perimeter and defenses. You need to keep an eye out. These overlords are attacking you because you are attacking them. There is a limited number of resources and the level of attacks can only increase with time. What you should be doing—what we should all be doing—is harnessing their power, and encouraging them to join us.”
“The moment they join us, the moment we let them in, is the moment they will turn against us,” the Hispanic leader said. “I know I would if I were in their shoes.”
“That’s because you’re a backstabbing piece of shit,” the Black leader said.
“It works here because you are the way you are,” Falcon said to Quinn. “Didn’t that ever feature in your thought process?”
“It did,” Quinn said. “Which is why I’ve been meeting with overlords, to see if this is something they would be interested in, if their personalities fit with the kind of plan we have in mind.”
“Where are these other overlords?” Falcon said. “Are they reliable?”
There was a pause. Quinn didn’t want to expose Dexter as an overlord. It was the kind of thing every overlord ought to do for themselves. He didn’t mind admitting he was very relieved when Dexter finally did step forward.
“I’m an overlord,” Dexter said.
The community leaders and their entourages looked him over, head to foot, taking him in. Was he telling the truth, or was he full of shit?
“You are an overlord?” Falcon said with a strange little smile on her lips.
“I am,” Dexter said. “Quinn has been teaching me.”
“So, the Controller has a name as well as a deep, dark secret,” Balder said with a grin. “I like your idea, but unfortunately, it is not the one for our community. We can never give up on fighting the Undead. We can fight forever, but there is no way we could ever work shoulder-to-shoulder with them. It is too far distant from our culture. And h
aving them at our community, letting them take control of our Undead army, it would be all too easy for them to crush us.”
“They could crush you anyway,” Quinn said. “But they don’t. Why? Because they need you. To them, we are sheep ready to be slaughtered. Their Undead need to eat, just as we all do. They can keep away our true enemies: the Raiders. No Raider will come near our communities if we have a strong Undead presence. They wouldn’t dare—or else risk becoming an Undead themselves.”
“A horde of Undead and a band of Raiders do not represent the same level of danger,” Balder said.
Quinn turned to see the Chinese break from the outer satellite towns and begin their long trek back home. They had already packed up their things, preparing to leave the instant they heard Quinn’s idea. Perhaps they had never really intended on listening to him seriously. Perhaps none of them ever had that intention.
“I’m sorry,” Falcon said, “but we cannot pursue this idea. We’ve worked too hard to place it all on the line now. Perhaps in a few years. I don’t know. But we are not ready for it.”
“I understand,” Quinn said.
Inside, he was bubbling rage, threatening to spill over.
“Us neither,” the Black leader said.
“Nor us,” the Hispanic leader said. “You’re crazy for doing this. Your community has no chance of survival.”
He turned his gaze on Dexter.
“Damn demon,” he said.
Dexter’s expression broke. His confidence, all that he had managed to gain over the past few days, had been wiped out with that single comment. Quinn didn’t know what kind of life Dexter had had in the old world, but he was willing to bet it wasn’t anything good.
Quinn massaged his temples and eyes. He had a blistering headache, one that shook him to the core and buried its sharp teeth deep inside him. And there were the memories. The memories that shook him to the core, that made the nightmare of the world come into sharp relief.
He and Siren had failed. None of the other communities were going to accept their plan.
But there was another way. He didn’t like to admit it to himself, didn’t like to do it, but what other choice he did have? These people would not listen to reason. They were going to destroy themselves, and their communities. They were giving up their one chance of giving their community members the life they deserved, the life they had promised they would give them. And the reason? The real reason?
