by T. C. Edge
The days begin to blur, too. There appears little distinction between night and day now, little formality to the passing of the hours. Even the immutable custom of dinnertime begins to loosen up, the residents of the house rarely finding time to sit down and eat together. With so much going on, everyone finds their time stretched thin, moving from one thing to the next with barely a moment to stop and rest.
During those long days, I begin to feel restless, my innate desire for action bubbling to the surface. Often, I begin to turn to the side of Link, wanting to get out there and do something. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that tens of thousands of people are out there, right now, fighting for their lives and families and homes, fighting for their country.
And here I am, sitting and waiting and hiding in this mountain. Hoping for some news to come, for some hint that the pieces are moving again.
Whenever I get a chance, I ask my father about his mission. He tells me little, keeping his cards close to his chest. All I know is that he’s planted some of his soldiers in various spots as yet untaken by the Baron, waiting to be assimilated into our enemy’s cause.
“We’ll have news soon,” he promises me, before hurrying off on another task.
News of Athena and Velia, too, is hardly forthcoming. By now they’ve been gone for well over a week, their mission to gather up forces in the West gaining traction but still incomplete. I begin to doubt whether it’s going to be worth it, adding a few hundred, or even few thousand untrained men and women to the cause.
“Everything matters,” Drake tells me after a meeting one day. “A single person can alter the course of a war. A single well placed gunshot, or a single piece of vital information…it can all turn the tide, one way or another. You never know what an individual might bring.”
I understand the theory, but can’t help but think that the only influential individuals in the West right now are Athena and Velia, the very people we sent out there. In my quieter moments, however, I realise that my thoughts on the matter are tainted by emotion. That it’s my desire to have Velia back that’s shaping my concerns. Truly, I never thought she’d be gone this long.
I never thought I’d miss her this much.
I shake the thought from my head and soldier on, though. Emotion, feeling…it all just serves to weaken you, makes decisions harder to judge from an objective standpoint. It’s the very reason why Jackson and Drake don’t want my mother to know of the existence of AK1.
Emotion and caring for others, a great virtue of my mother in life, has nevertheless been her weakness in war. And, already, the same thing is moulding my thoughts, my knowledge of who this clone really is making me consider him less and less my enemy.
And yet, he’s probably out there right now, killing our men, massacring women and children, little on the surface but an agent of evil.
But is it true evil that defines him? How can I judge a boy like that, grown in a lab, taught nothing but hate and death, bred to spread chaos across the land. Who knows what lies he’s been fed, what reality he really lives in. A reality formed by the Baron, by the doctrine of Augustus Knight, by the terrible things he’s been forced to see and do.
What if I were born into such a place, bred for such a purpose? How would I see the world, see my place within it? Would I question it, or merely act upon it, following through on the orders I’m given?
In the end, I wonder whether people are born to be evil, or merely bred to do evil things. And most of all, how far do you have to go before it’s too late to turn back? How deep into the pit can you fall, before climbing back out again?
Such thoughts come to me more regularly now, the nature of good and evil something that grows more opaque in my mind, the grey between the black and white beginning to grow. One night, I find myself musing on it all in the kitchen, sitting alone at dinner as the rest continue to press on with their own lives.
I munch on some leftover stew from days past, one of Leeta’s favourites and one of the few meals she can spare the time to make these days. As I do, the door opens and the face of my mother appears, looking weary and drained.
“Mind if I join?” she asks with a little smile.
I quickly set about preparing her a bowl and pouring her a glass of fresh mountain water. She sits ahead of me on the long wooden table, the light dim and world quiet, and for a few minutes we sit and eat in silence. It’s something we’ve done thousands of times before, sitting in a lonely kitchen, eating our dinner. And yet here, and now, the world is so very different.
I’m so very different.
I look at my mother, who’s gone through all this before, and a question dribbles off my tongue in a whisper.
“How did you do it?” I ask.
She looks up from her bowl, and into my eyes, now filled with so much more memory, more wisdom, than ever before.
“What do you mean, darling?”
“This,” I say, looking around. “War…everything. How did you get through it all?”
She reaches her hand across the table, and takes a grip of mine.
“With help, and support,” she says. “It’s caring for your loved ones that pulls your through.”
“But…doesn’t that make it harder?” I ask. “Doesn’t worrying about people make you weaker?”
“Weaker?” she says, frowning. “Oh no, Theo…it makes you stronger. What else are we fighting for if not each other? Without that, why would we fight at all?”
I nod and drop my eyes, thoughts of all those I care for drifting through my head. Before I know it, my mother’s standing by my side, moving from the other end of the table, and pulling me into a hug. I didn’t realise, but it’s what I needed. And in that moment, I feel a wave of emotion pulse through me, tears threatening to build and drop from my eyes.
“You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, my darling,” whispers my mother. “What’s really troubling you?”
I can’t answer. I fear if I speak, my words will crack. I just shake my head, and steady my emotions, and feel like a son again, just a son to a mother.
“It’s just harder than I thought it would be,” I whisper eventually. “Everything’s so big now…I feel lost sometimes.”
She pulls away and sits beside me, looking into my eyes. Her own, big and blue, carry so much weight of their own. And yet, I see her as others do, when they see the great Cyra Drayton beside them, her presence giving them hope, making them believe.
For the first time, I see her like that too. She warms her face with a smile, vanquishing all the worries her countenance carries, and bringing some light to the room.
“You’ve been through a lot, just like I did. It’s not easy being at the heart of something so grand, so important. It’s not easy having the fate of so many resting on your shoulders.”
“But how did you cope?”
“By standing together,” she says. “By fighting for what I believed, and for those I cared about. It doesn’t make you weak, Theo, it makes you strong. You’ll realise that eventually.”
In that moment, I want to tell her once more about everything that’s being kept from her, want to reveal the truth of what’s really on my mind. Maybe it’s just selfishness, a desire to pass the burden to her shoulders, ease the weight that bears down on mine.
Or maybe it’s something else; the ever present feeling that she deserves to know, that she, above all, should be part of all of this.
A battle rages inside me. I stare at her and then look away, and find her eyes boring into me, trying to seek out the truth. My mouth opens, and then closes, words forming in my mind but not being delivered by my lips. For what seems like an age, I fight the urge to reveal the truth, to betray the wishes of my father and grandfather.
And then, her soft voice drifts to my ears once again.
“It’s OK,” she whispers. “I know how hard it is being a soldier, following orders…keeping secrets.”
My eyes flash up, widening a little. There’s something in
hers. Something that tells me she knows.
She smiles, and strokes her hand over my forehead, brushing away the blond hair.
“It’s not your fault, Theo. It’s no one’s fault. This is just war, a cauldron of secrets and lies. I don’t blame anyone.”
“You…you know?” I whisper, searching her eyes.
She nods slowly, silently, her gaze never leaving mine.
“I saw you in my dreams, Theo. I saw you with the Seeker. I heard…I heard what you said.”
“I…” I start, my voice preparing to rush.
She calms me with a hand to my cheek, and a shake of the head.
“It’s OK,” she whispers. “Really, it’s OK. I know why Jack and my father wanted to keep this from me. I understand the way their minds work. And I understand yours too. I’ve seen enough to know what Augustus was capable of, Theo. He always had a special interest in me. Perhaps this was his goal all along…”
She turns introspective for a moment, memories of those past days washing likes gentle waves over her eyes. I look on in wonder, her control and understanding amazing me. She truly is something more than I ever knew, more than even the stories I heard and told suggested. There’s a calm authority to her that these past weeks and months have revealed, something I never knew resided inside her.
“I wanted to tell you,” I manage to say, before she can shut me down again.
She smiles and nods and strokes my cheek once more.
“I know you did, darling. But it’s OK now. You’ve carried this for too long, you most of all. Now, you can share it with me. You’re my son, Theo, and this boy…this boy is important to us both.”
“AK1,” I say. “He’s known as AK1.”
“I know,” she says, nodding. “I’ve been seeing him from afar.”
“You have? In your visions?”
“In my visions…and my dreams. He’s out there now, searching…” she says, looking away into the middle distance.
“Searching for what?” I question, the thud of my heart growing stronger.
“For the truth, Theo,” she answers. “He’s searching for the truth.”
16
Allies Divided
My father’s head is low, drooping, his chin close to his chest. Drake, too, has a sheepish look splashed across his face. Both are finding it tricky to look my mother in the eye right now.
“I’m sorry, Cy,” says Jackson quietly. “I thought it was for the best…”
“We both did,” adds Drake. “We weren’t sure how you’d take it.”
Cyra steps closer towards them, and shakes her head.
“I understand, Jack…dad. I don’t blame you for keeping the truth from me. I know you were just trying to protect me. But…there’s no protecting me from myself, I guess. My visions have grown stronger. I couldn’t help but see the truth.”
We’re in my grandfather’s quarters, just off from the war room, once more engaging in a secret meeting beyond the knowledge of the rest of the council. I stand beside Ajax, watching on having introduced my mother to the room.
“She already knew?” asks Ajax with a whisper. “You didn’t tell her yourself?”
I shake my head. “She saw it all,” I say. “She’s known for a while.”
And for that, I’m truly happy. I don’t have to feel guilty any more for keeping the secret from her, and I don’t have to feel guilty for having revealed it. On both counts, I’ve been let off the hook.
And the relief is palpable.
“And…how do you feel about it all?” asks Drake carefully, peering now closely into his daughter’s eyes.
“I feel like there’s more to this boy than any of us know,” she answers. “I’ve been watching him in my visions. What Theo told him has created a crack in his mind, and the light is beginning to shine in. He’s hunting the truth, his mind is bent on it.”
Jackson and Drake look at each other, then back at Cyra.
“You’ve seen all that way?” asks Drake. “Are you sure about this?”
“I have a connection with him,” she answers calmly. “Theo has is too, that’s why that vision of their meeting came so regularly. It’s hard to describe, really. This is stronger than anything I’ve felt before, like I’ve got a special line into his mind. I can feel his confusion and anger…and fear.”
“Fear?” says Jackson. “You can sense that?”
She nods. “The world he knows has been shaken. There are doubts in him now.”
“And do you know where he is?” asks Drake.
“No,” she answers. “But from what I can gather, he doesn’t seem to be out there with the others. I’m seeing no pain or death around him. Only pain in himself.”
Listening to my mother, I feel almost foolish for thinking my connection with him meant anything. Truly, their link is something else entirely, something more profound.
Jackson and Drake, too, carry the look of guilt with them. A regret, perhaps, that they didn’t include my mother earlier, that they didn’t trust her to handle it.
Yet now isn’t the time for looking back. It’s time we look forward.
In that room, over the next hour, we talk in quiet whispers, sharing the information that we were once keeping from each other. Cyra, for her part, does what she can to describe AK1’s frame of mind in further detail. Jackson and Drake, meanwhile, catch my mother up on the secret initiative to infiltrate the Baron’s camp with spies, ready to report back on the whereabouts of any of the top members of the Cabal.
To that end, there are updates that I’m keen to hear.
“I’ve got several soldiers who have gone dark,” announces Jackson. “That can mean one of two things: either they’ve been caught and killed, or have put any transmissions on hold until they’re in a position to call in.”
“And how do they do that?” asks Cyra.
“They all have inbuilt communicators, grafted to their inner right wrist,” says Jackson. “They’re beneath the skin and activate on voice command, calibrated specifically to the user’s voice.”
“Can they be traced, discovered?” I ask.
“They can, but the technology is very new and it’s doubtful whether the Baron’s men will be aware of it. The communicator is about the size of a thumbprint, and invisible to the naked eye. They’d need a scanner of some kind to find it, and most won’t pick up signatures that small.”
“So…we’re hoping that they’re waiting for the right time to call in and update us?” asks Ajax.
“Precisely. Again, we’ll just have to wait.”
More waiting, more hoping. But now, we have Cyra’s mind too, her direct line into AK1’s mental state an essential thread that might help us to unravel this mess.
“Ajax, update us on your father.”
The command from Drake brings Ajax’s concerns to the fore, invited without having to be pushed onto anyone. Holding the floor, he passes on his doubts, those that we all share.
“He’s struggling, sir,” says Ajax. “More and more each day. Maybe…maybe it’s best to include him? If he knew the bigger picture, perhaps he’d ease up?”
“Do you really believe that?” asks Drake. “Whether he knows or not, Link can’t contribute from here. I’m not sure it will do him any good.”
“I’m not so sure,” says Cyra. “Perhaps the entire council should be aware of this? What exactly is the reasoning for keeping things so tight?”
“Security,” says Jackson, “and simplicity. We see no need to include anyone who cannot directly contribute to this. If we explain what we’re doing, then we’ll need to explain the very nature of this AK1. That will open up more questions that we don’t have time to field right now. We don’t need that attention on us.”
“But why not Link, and Ellie? And maybe Markus?” asks Cyra. “We were all in this together once. We should stand together again.”
“Cy, as far as I’m concerned, we have enough people involved. We have our core team now, and that’s enough.”
&
nbsp; “Jackon’s right,” says Drake. “All will be revealed soon, I can assure you. But as it stands, until we hear any confirmation from Jackson’s men, there’s nothing to report. Is that clear?”
Drake, as always, issues the final command. And whether to the liking of those in the room or not, it’s important that we obey.
Later that night, however, Ajax moans a little more about it, and I sit back and allow him to vent. His concern, really, isn’t that his parents don’t know; it’s simply that he’s afraid of what his father might do.
Whether it’s connected or not is debatable. Personally, I’m more or less of the same thinking as my grandfather: whether Link knows or not, his desire to go and fight out there isn’t going to change.
I just have to hope that we give him some good news soon. Something to chew on, to keep his mind on task.
The following day does bring news.
But it’s not good.
By now, I’ve grown used to the general flow of the daily meetings, where we get updates on what’s happening, and the Watchers pass on anything they’ve seen. Usually, such things occur in the afternoon at some point. That day, however, we’re summoned early, the night bringing with it some awful reports.
Gathering in the war room of the Master’s chambers, I look to see the usual maps set up over the table. Circles and ticks and crosses and other markings appear all over them, indicating the general state of play across the regions. That morning, those maps appear to be more tattooed than ever.
Heavy shoulders are slung, bodies weary and expressions sour as the reports are delivered. It’s Markus who leads the charge, covering several places where our troops have been pushed back.
“It seems like the Baron ordered a sudden surge last night,” he says with a heavy heart. “Many of the targets will be close to home for the people in this room.”
I see his eyes flash around the chamber, stopping on certain people. Link is among them, smouldering as he awaits the news.
