The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  He was shaking like a fever, his eyes half-open and glazed. I could barely see the flicker of his chest as he breathed. Jig dropped to a crouch beside me and shook him roughly, while Anuk leaned over him and barked,

  “Shade!”

  Nothing.

  “Oh God, help him,” I whispered, paralyzed. “What’d they do to him?”

  Jig pried up one of Shade’s eyelids and flashed his torch over his glazed eye. I stared in horror at the wide, black pupil that swallowed the grey of his iris.

  “We got to get him out of here,” Jig said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They gave him bits,” Coins said.

  “Bits of what?”

  Jig just stared at me, like he wanted to roll his eyes but knew it wasn’t the time. “It’s a kind of drug,” he said. “Real dodgy business. Sometimes the local bosses use it to try to get the birds to sing. What’d they use it on Shade for? What’s he know?”

  Shade flinched suddenly, throwing up an arm and nearly clocking Anuk in the jaw. Anuk flinched back and Jig grabbed his arms, but he scrambled back, wild and blind as a fury, beating the wind. Then he slumped and collapsed, pale and still tremoring.

  “Get him up,” I said. “C’mon, hurry.”

  Coins and Anuk hauled him up, gentle as they could to keep him from flailing at them again. Sweat gleamed all over his forehead, and the side of his face was a bloody mess, like they’d thrown him face-first into the pavement. My blood boiled. Next time I saw Branigan, he’d get what was coming. I promised Shade that. I had half a mind to try to track down Branigan right then and there, but my feet just kept following behind the lads. Nothing could make them turn away.

  We got him back to the Hole and settled in his cot, while a little crowd of skitters clustered abound, staring at Shade all fitsy and wide-eyed. Bugs stood paralyzed behind me. He had his fists up over his mouth, his thin shoulders shaking. I wrapped an arm around him, because I’d never seen the kid so terrified in all the years I’d known him. He started to pull back, but a minute and he buried his face against my side.

  “What’s wrong, Hayli? What happened?”

  “Come on,” I said, shaking him and a couple of the other skitters. “Let’s give him some room.”

  “But Shade’s…Shade’s…is he dead?”

  “He’ll be jake. But gawping at him won’t help him any.”

  He let out a shuddering sigh and nodded, backing up one step at a time before he finally spun and bolted from the barracks. The other skitters chased after him, barely avoiding a collision with Derrin as he stormed into the room.

  “What happened?” Derrin asked, coming up beside me. “Is he glassed out?”

  Shade had taken to thrashing again, and Jig and Coins kept trying to keep him from toppling onto the floor.

  “Branigan,” I whispered.

  Derrin cussed, loudly. “He let Branigan trick him into a one-on-one? Seriously?”

  “It was the only way Branigan would talk,” Anuk said, standing up from Shade’s bedside. “I didn’t want to leave him. Had no idea that he would dose him up like that, or I’d have never let him go.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped him,” I said, quiet. “Y’know you couldn’t.”

  Derrin dragged a hand over his mouth. “This makes no sort of sense at all.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Jig said. “You only give bits to folks you want information from. But Branigan was supposed to be the one with the juice.”

  Derrin and I both stared down at Shade. He’d finally stopped flailing about, but I almost wished he hadn’t, because now he looked so dead pale and still that I was afraid he’d stopped breathing entirely.

  “Should we get Doc?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t make a difference,” Derrin said. “He seems to be through most of it now. He just needs some time.”

  “You seen this before, Derrin?”

  He shrugged. “Once or twice. Some of the lads muck around with the wrong sorts sometimes, get drawn into that dodgy business. Believe me, this isn’t the worst part of it.” He flicked a glance at me. “That comes after,” he said, and swung away.

  * * * *

  Three days later I slipped into Chancy’s, hoping against hope that I’d find Shade standing there at the bar. The day after the business with Branigan, he’d off and flat disappeared, in the middle of the morning when we all thought he was still sleeping off the drug. When he didn’t come back all that day, the kids had got in a riot again, wondering what had happened to him. They’d even sent out folks hunting for him, but with no luck.

  So I swallowed my fear—and disappointment—when I realized he wasn’t there. The older lads were gathered in their usual corner, muttering at each other over a dreary candle and mugs of beer, shuffling papers that probably contained Red’s latest philosophical musings about the evils of the State. For a few minutes I hung back by the bar, because they’d never let me into their secret meetings before. But I was too curious to know if they’d heard from Shade, so finally I knotted up my courage and went to join them.

  “Shove over, Jig,” I said.

  Red glared up at me. “I dan’ recall inviting you.”

  “Shut it, Red,” Jig snapped, touching my arm to beckon me. “Hayli’s jake.”

  He moved aside, and I, blushing a bit, and sat down on the end of the bench. I’d expected him to put up a fight too, but there it was.

  “Need something, Hayli?” Anuk asked, more gently than Red.

  “She dan’ need to need something to come join us, like,” Jig said.

  “Actually, I wondered if you’d seen Shade lately,” I said, wincing a little, because Jig couldn’t hide how his shoulders slumped a bit at my words.

  “You have,” a voice said behind us, and we all jumped and turned to see Shade standing by the table, head bent and hands in his pockets.

  He didn’t ask to sit, but Coins pushed Red over and gave Shade the spot across from me.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Anuk asked. “Folks’ve been worried sick about you, so.”

  I held my breath as Shade met his gaze, his eyes narrowed up a bit, but all he said was, “Out.”

  “Now that we’ve got that cleared up, can we get back to business?” Red asked, folding himself into the corner and shooting a peeved look at the pair of us. “We were actually, you know, here for a reason.”

  The others didn’t speak for a tick, just kept goggling at Shade like they thought he’d change his mind and tell them everything.

  “I say one little demonstration isn’t going to be enough, and Kantian knows it,” Coins said at last, winking at me. “We’ve got to get more folks riled up in the city, right?”

  “Riled up about what?” Shade asked. He leaned his forearms on the table, the candlelight flickering off his tattoo.

  “Aught and everything!” Red snapped. “They dan’ let folks hold onto aught anymore. Everything we used to have, they’re taking it all away.”

  “What everything?”

  Red glowered at him, face as cherry bright as his tag suggested. “The old ways. The old traditions. Everything that made us Cavnish.” His lip curled in a vicious kind of grin. “But I forgot, you’re Istian. What do you care about Cavnal?”

  “Istia ain’t aught like Cavnal,” Jig said. “Right? Istia’s proof that we dan’ have to run away from our past to be a great nation in the future.”

  “You call Istia a great nation?” Red scoffed.

  I expected Shade to flare up at that, maybe lean across the table and plant a fist on Red’s jaw, but instead…he smiled. At me. My heart gave a strange little jump. Everyone kept chunnering on, but Shade just held my gaze trapped by his dark eyes, that hidden smile playing around his lips. Like we were the only two people there. Like we knew something no one else did. And before I knew it, I smiled back, everything fluttering about inside me.

  I pulled my gaze away, and tried to pay attention to what the other lads were talking about. F
rom the corner of my eye I saw Shade watching them a bit too, then his gaze drifted back to me, drawing mine like a magnet. He didn’t smile this time, at least not with his lips, but it was there in his eyes, hiding somewhere so deep inside I lost myself trying to find it again.

  I held my breath and thought I might stare at the table a bit, but instead I found myself staring at his hands, at his long fingers twined between us. As hot as my cheeks burned, I was surprised no one made any smart comments.

  And all this, just when I’d got so convinced that he didn’t see me at all.

  “We could use Hayli,” Jig said, touching my elbow and bringing me out of my thoughts with a painful snap. “She could do it.”

  Red was scowling at me, and I scowled straight back, trying to figure out if I knew what they were talking about. These rebel meetings always went the same, from what I could tell from my bouts of eavesdropping. All anger and indignation and vague plans to change the world, and never a sound notion of what any of their daft ideas would need in order to work.

  “What’re you volunteering me for?” I asked.

  Coins laughed and even Jig grinned a bit, laying his hand on my back. At one time I might’ve been thrilled, because none of the lads had ever looked twice at me, not even as a chum, but now every time Jig touched me, all I could think was how I wished it was Shade. But for all Shade might touch the most secret corners of my heart, it was always a distant thing. Stars, how I wished it wasn’t so.

  “You remember how you were trying to get onto the palace grounds back a month back?” Anuk asked.

  Shade’s gaze flickered at me, but now there was curiosity there instead of warmth, and that got me feeling a bit off, like I’d done something I shouldn’t.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “You’re so much better at Shifting now, Hayli. You could make it all the way in and go find out what’s going on, so.”

  “Gannin' on, where?” I asked. “You ever seen that place? It gans on forever. There are buildings and buildings. What would I even be looking for?”

  “Evidence,” Red said, as if that explained everything. “Evidence that they’re planning to attack us.”

  “Why would they attack you?” Shade asked, the words biting.

  “For harboring the likes of you,” Red shot back.

  Shade snorted.

  “You’re not the only ones the government hates,” Jig said, quieter than I’d expected. “Far as they bother, we’re all a nuisance.”

  “Because you still care about Cavnal?” Shade asked. They looked at him a bit puzzled, so he held up a hand to gesture toward the window. “I don’t mean the State, or even this city. I mean Cavnal. This country, this plot of earth. This place of memories and myths and fables, and so much history.”

  “No one talks like that, Shade,” I murmured,.

  “In Istia we do.”

  “Well, this ain’t bloody Istia,” Red said, “and here words like that might get a man shipped off to the belly of a ship or the belly of a mine.”

  “I know the king’s got some innovative plans, but I doubt he’d go that far,” Shade said.

  “Then you dan’ na him like we do,” Red said. “Just ask Rivano.”

  Shade gave a sudden wolfish kind of grin. “I would if I ever got a chance to talk to him.”

  Jig cleared his throat. “Right, well.”

  He looked about to keep talking, but behind us the door slammed open and Vim and Link gusted into the bar, red-faced and windblown. For a minute they stood stomping their feet and blowing their fingers, but soon as they caught sight of us, they tromped over.

  “What’re you blokes doing in here?” Link asked, then he saw me and said, “Hullo, Hayli. Div’n expect you here.”

  “We’re having a meeting,” Red snapped. “What does it look like?”

  Shade’s mouth twitched, caught somewhere between scorn and amusement.

  “Looks to me like you’re not where you’re supposed to be,” Vim said, planting his heavy fists on the table. “Kantian’s looking for you.”

  “All of us?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Well, he div’n mention you, Shade. Suppose you’re free on the wing. The rest of you need to come back with us.”

  Chapter 10 — Tarik

  Some hours later I made my way back to the Hole. I walked aimlessly up and down its entire length not once but twice, but I didn’t realize until I saw her that I’d been searching for Hayli. After waking up sick and broken from the meet with Branigan, I’d escaped back to the palace and spent three days pretending everything was fine, surrounded by all the society butterflies in their glaring costumes and plastered smiles. Stars, the memory pained me just as much as the experience had.

  But somehow in the middle of it all, I’d had a revelation. None of those girls could have outshone little Hayli. Hayli in her grey trousers and battered waistcoat, Hayli who could turn rain to sun with the light in her eyes. Every time I let my mind drift, I remembered the way I’d smiled at her at Chancy’s, and the way she’d smiled back.

  It scared me even more than the memory of Branigan’s drug.

  I found her straddling the old west wall, leaning back on her hands and staring up at the rarest cloudless sky I’d ever seen. The breeze blew in from the northeast, cold and crisp, with a scent like fuel oil and wet pavement. At least it drove off the sulphur stench of the fenced-off pipes beyond the wall.

  I hesitated a moment in the doorway, watching Hayli watch the sky.

  “Do you miss being able to fly?” I asked suddenly. The words bubbled up from somewhere I didn’t know, and escaped before I could cage them in.

  She jumped, wary as a bird, and twisted to face me. The corner of her mouth quirked up.

  “It’s the best part about Shifting,” she said. “The first time I really remember Shifting, I was with a friend. I must’ve only been about four. Anyway, all I remember is we were chasing about, and I div’n want him to catch me. Next thing I knew he was hollering at me that I’d turned into a bird and flown away, and they’d been trying to find me for days and days. He was so jealous.” She laughed faintly. “I always hoped I’d turned into something fine, like a hawk or a dove or maybe even something sweet like a sparrow. But no. Derrin’s the one who saw me Shift and told me I was just a crow.”

  “I like crows,” I said, trying to be funny, but it only came out sounding awkward.

  She turned her head, cheeks rosy, laughing. For once she wasn’t wearing her hat, and her hair, ragged and short, ruffled in the breeze with the soft wildness of feathers. I wanted to tell her how lovely she was, but I knew she’d want to slap me for it, and I couldn’t risk that.

  The five-oh train whistle cut the silence, the sound swelling and fading on each wave of wind. I could feel Hayli studying me as I strolled out onto the patio toward her, wondering what I’d do. I wanted to sit up on the wall with her, but Shade wouldn’t sit on the wall. Shade would lean against the mossy stones, cool and indifferent, so that’s what I did.

  “You been away a bit,” she remarked, kicking her feet playfully at me.

  I was glad I stood far enough from her to evade the contact—or, I should have been glad. Somehow, strangely, I wasn’t.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Dan’ think Kantian was too happy about it.”

  “It’s not really his business,” I said, staring straight out over the park.

  “He’d prob’ly say it is.” I didn’t answer, and after a minute she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the wall. “You won’t tell me where you’d got?”

  I glanced at her and couldn’t resist a smile, not the way she grinned at me through those dark, dazzling eyes. I shifted around so I could see her better, not even caring how close it brought me to her. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, maybe I would feel the slightest hint of that static bond hovering in the air between us. But I couldn’t close my eyes and I couldn’t concentrate, not the way my heart kept stuttering in confusion.

&nb
sp; “Shade?” she asked, ducking her head as if she could see me better that way. “You a’right?”

  I realized a second too late that I was staring at her mouth, the way her lips curved in that sweet smile… I cleared my throat and nodded, and tossed my head back to stare at the sky. Cloudless, endless blue. One day in a million. Maybe it was an omen. Maybe a promise. Maybe today I should take the chance.

  Hayli sat up, resting her hands on her thighs. The cold sunlight glanced on the little white scar across her left knuckles. My fingers twitched. At the last minute I raised my hand to run through my hair, only to remember that I had no hair to mess up, no unkempt hair for Liman to fret over, no overgrown hair to make me a rebel in society’s slicked-up and over-combed company. I ran my hand over the sharp bristles of my shaved head. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be Prince Tarik, and now the confusion wore down on me again.

  “Say, Shade,” Hayli said, serious suddenly. “You doing a’right? After that business with Branigan…”

  I flinched. My memories of that evening were so scattered, so vague, so…disturbed…I’d been trying to block them away ever since. The worst thing of all was knowing that, for those few brief minutes, I’d forgotten. Forgotten all this. Forgotten all the pain and confusion and the lies and the deception. I shuddered, hoping Hayli didn’t notice it.

  The forgetting was almost enough to make me regret the waking.

  “Rivano wants to see if we can get into the Science Ministry some time,” Hayli went on, startling me out of my thoughts.

  I turned to study her. “Really? Us, as in, you and me?”

  “Well, I could try to gan with Jig again, but it’s grobbing hard using non-mages. They just have so much trouble moving about. Get the right kind of mage on a job, and it’s easy as pie. I mean, I got close as the crow already. She heard the…a scientist say some kind of passcode to get in. Shondenhaim. So, what do you say? You can walk in disguised as some kind of fancy-pants boffin, and I can fly on in as the crow. Wouldn’t that be swell?”

  I clenched my jaw, still stuck on the first thing she’d said and wishing that she hadn’t brought it up. I’d just managed to forget how she’d had a part in Griff’s aeroplane crash, and now the thought of it chilled the warmth in my blood.