Ascendant: The Complete Edition

by Richard Denoncourt

  Someone was growling like an animal, and Michael realized it was his own throat making that sound. He, Michael Lanza—no, Michael Cairne—was grinding his teeth and breathing through his mouth like a beast. His hands and fingers felt like claws. He wanted to scratch out Dominic’s eyes and bite into his throat.

  He almost planted his claws into Dominic’s mind—the invisible ones he had used to sever all those strings—and he was enjoying the fearful look on Dominic’s face, when the drug kicked in, plunging him into a world of darkness and regret, the words what have I done? echoing in the innermost chambers of his mind.

  Then, finally, silence came.

  Chapter 10

  “He killed them all, Blake. They’re all dead.”

  Michael wanted to ask: Who? Who’s dead?

  He was in a moving car, sprawled out in the back seat, fully clothed. Yellow lights swished by as Dominic drove with a cell phone pressed to his ear. With a groan, Michael raised himself up a few inches to inspect his clothes. Someone—Dominic, most likely—had dressed him in a pair of black sweatpants, sneakers without socks, and a hooded sweater with no shirt underneath.

  Dominic looked back at him and said into the phone, “He’s awake.”

  Michael tried to sit up, but a dizzy spell forced him back down. Dominic said, “Uh-huh, fine,” then snapped the phone shut and tossed it into the front seat. “That was way too close.”

  “Who’s dead?” Michael said in a voice barely more than a croak. He was parched.

  “What?”

  “Killed them all, you said. Who—who died?”

  Dominic kept silent. Michael remembered his mother being pulled out of the refrigerator, then being dragged back in, and Benny having a bottle smashed across his face and lying there, bleeding all over the floor. And where had his father been through all of this?

  He sat up suddenly. Pain flashed in his skull, making him wince.

  “My brother,” he said. “My parents are in the refrigerator.”

  “Your parents are dead, and so is your brother.”

  “But they’re still back there.”

  “They’re dead, kid. Trust me. I took their pulse.”

  Michael closed his eyes. “Did I kill them?”

  Dominic kept silent. Police sirens wailed from the next avenue westward, and Dominic flinched at the sound.

  “Tell me,” Michael said, on the verge of tears now. “Did I kill them?”

  “Your brother would have died from his wound. But your mother and father—they were killed by the attack.”

  “Attack?”

  “The one in your brain. You had an episode, Michael. That’s what it’s called.” He braked suddenly and Michael almost flew out of his seat. A shiny, luxury vehicle—the sort driven by bureaucrats to show off their status—rounded the corner and started heading in their direction.

  Dominic gripped the steering wheel with an audible creak. He drove slowly, watching the car until it disappeared farther up the street.

  “Spiteful bastards,” he said.

  Michael realized then that they were driving away from the restaurant and his family. He would never see Benny again, or his mother and father. He had killed them. Those strings had been the life threads of his family, and he had cut them. Just like that.

  “Who else is dead?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Dominic said. He glanced at Michael in the rearview mirror. “We’re crossing the border. I don’t care if I have to kidnap you. You’re coming.”

  “More people died,” Michael said. “I could feel it.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Hey, look at me.” Michael looked up at those eyes in the mirror, one of which was still almost swollen shut. “You didn’t ask for this, but now you have to deal with it.”

  They turned onto a shady side street.

  A car waited for them in a lot at the very end. Shiny enough to reflect the dull orange glow in the sky, the car had surely come from the burning core of the city where the Fatherland Security Department had its headquarters. Sleek, black, and solid, it had a rectangular face and a chrome grill. A ministry car.

  “You son of a bitch,” Michael said, and began to kick the seat in front of him. “This was a trap!”

  Dominic reached back and grabbed hold of Michael’s ankle. “Settle down, kid, or I’ll break it.”

  His grip was like a metal clamp. Michael settled down, more from a feeling of hopelessness than from any fear of bodily harm. He suddenly didn’t care if the man snapped his ankle; maybe then he would feel something besides despair.

  Dominic let go of him.

  “It was only a matter of time, anyway,” Michael said, looking out the window at the brick walls. “They’ll throw me in the Tank where I belong.”

  Dominic sighed. “I’ll throw you in the Tank if you don’t shut up.”

  He parked the car against one wall of the small lot. The ministry car had its lights off and was parked at the opposite end, appearing low and dark, like a predator waiting to strike from the shadows.

  Dominic opened his door to get out and a cool gust of wind brushed Michael’s his face. He drew his soiled sweatshirt—Dominic must have pulled it from his dirty laundry—tight around his torso.

  “Get out.”

  Michael hesitated. Dominic reached in to grab him.

  “All right, fine!”

  Michael stepped out of the car, reeling with dizziness, his legs bending like straws. The pain was coming now in flashes, worse than before.

  A car door opened and clicked shut across the lot.

  Michael peered into the darkness. The man who emerged from the ministry car was old. He was followed by another, younger man. The older man possessed a thinning layer of gray hair, long and brushed back, with a face as familiar to Michael as it certainly was to everyone in the People’s Republic. It was the face of the terrorist behind the Honor Street Subway Bombing and the Targin Memorial Gas Attack, among others.

  “I can tell by your expression you know who I am,” Louis Blake said.

  “You’re—you bombed—you’re the terrorist—”

  “Nonsense.” Blake waved in dismissal. “Government propaganda. This country is no different from any other communist dictatorship in history. It needs an enemy to keep the wheels turning, and if it doesn’t have one, it simply makes one up. You know this. You’re a smart kid.”

  Michael nodded. He knew all this perfectly well, and yet the man’s face was like something out of a childhood nightmare. He associated it with smoke and screams and guns firing.

  Dominic broke the silence. “Sam Weisman,” he said, smirking. “Didn’t think you’d last much longer in this place. You must be real good at kissing ass.”

  Sam Weisman grinned. He was skinnier than Louis Blake, with narrower shoulders and a beak nose that gave his face a distinctly hawkish look. He had the bone structure of a rooster and wore a baseball cap with no logo or marking which he kept lifting by the brim and adjusting over his scalp.

  “We don’t have much time,” Weisman said. “There’s only so much I can lie about to those spiteful assholes I call my bosses.”

  “Like this car?” Dominic said, indicating the ministry vehicle. “It’s nice.”

  “Reported stolen this afternoon.” Weisman reached over and patted Dominic’s shoulder. “You look like shit, Dom. Not the pretty boy I remember at all.”

  Dominic clamped a hand on the man’s arm and shook it. When they were done smiling at each other, Sam Weisman looked over at Michael.

  “So you’re the one we’ve been looking for all these years.”

  “No time for that,” Blake said. He stepped between Michael and the others, cutting them off. “I know what happened to your mother,” he said. “Your real mother. I tried to save her, but I failed. I made a promise to her before she died that I would look after you and keep you safe, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. If you’ll let me.”

  Michael sensed a blossoming of warmth in the old man’s
face and chest. He could almost see it, like the ghost of a solemn red rose unfurling its petals beneath his skin. Telepathy was new to him, and he still didn’t understand much about its nature, but he understood what had just happened.

  “You loved her.”

  Blake frowned at him. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Michael followed Blake and Dominic as they walked toward the FSD vehicle. He looked back only once to see Sam Weisman getting into the old beater Dominic had driven here. Obviously this wasn’t their first time making a switch like this.

  “Where are we going?” Michael asked when he, Dominic, and Blake had taken their seats.

  Louis Blake started the engine, then met Michael’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

  “We’re going to a place where you can leave all of your bad memories behind. A place for people like us. Telepaths. You’ll be safe there, I promise.”

  Feeling somewhat relieved, Michael nodded once and then looked out the window at the darkened brick wall of the parking lot. Benny’s voice played in his mind, a memory of the words his brother had spoken the night they had stayed up drinking and gazing out at the spotlights and razor wire at the end of the street.

  Someday you’ll make us all proud.

  Then he remembered Dominic’s words. They made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  He killed them all...

  ~

  Episode II

  CHILDREN OF MENT

  Chapter 1

  Michael drifted in and out of sleep throughout the ride, struggling to drink the water and eat the sugary granola bars Blake kept handing back to him. While awake, he mostly kept his head against the windowpane and gazed out at the dark, mountainous land.

  They were past the Line, something he’d wanted all his life; and yet he didn’t care anymore about that. All he wanted now was to be safe at home with his family.

  At some point, they came to a lonely old barn in the middle of a field. Dominic helped Michael out of the car, advising him to stretch his limbs while he had the opportunity. He followed these instructions, grunting as a bunch of his joints popped.

  Louis Blake fiddled with the lock holding the barn doors closed, then pushed them open one after the other and motioned for Michael and Dominic to follow him into the musty darkness. He clicked on a flashlight and passed the beam over the walls, revealing a squat, rusted truck in the center that had an ample back seat.

  “Here we go,” Dominic said, rapping his knuckles against the hood. “Good old Eastland transportation.”

  Dominic took the front seat again while Michael slid into the back seat. The engine shook as it started and immediately filled the barn with diesel fumes as thick as silk.

  “What is this?” Michael managed to say, coughing from the smell.

  “Camouflage,” Blake said, shifting the truck into drive using an angled stick jutting out of the steering wheel’s column. “Hold on.”

  The truck lurched backward out of the barn.

  “What about the ministry car?” Michael said. “We just left it out there.”

  Blake and Dominic looked at each other.

  “Spare parts, I guess,” Dominic said with a shrug. “Or maybe it’ll scare the crows.”

  They drove through the night. Michael fell asleep gazing up at a radiant universe of stars. He had never seen them like this before. So vast and mysterious. If only he didn’t have such a pounding headache.

  It was mid-morning when he awoke with a sour taste in his mouth, his skin greasy with sweat that had gone stale in the sun’s heat. His legs had gone numb from the way he’d been sitting. He repositioned himself, clenching his teeth as the prickly feeling ran its course. The air smelled like stale cigarettes.

  Louis Blake drove bent over the wheel, his eyes wide and sober as he stared at the road before him. Dominic had planted one of his black boots on the dashboard and was looking out the window. Michael caught a glimpse of the man’s brooding expression in the side-view mirror.

  They drove along a road built into the side of a mountain. To their left was a jagged rock wall and opposite that, a landscape of rolling hills and trees, all of it drowned in vibrant morning light that made the colors seem to pulse and breathe.

  Soon they came to a deep valley between two mountains. It was closed at the other end. Blake was driving them into a box canyon, a place from which there appeared to be no exit except the road by which they had come.

  “What is this place?” Michael said.

  “Oh, good.” Dominic sighed. “He’s awake.”

  Blake gave Dominic an annoyed look, then glanced at Michael in the rearview mirror. “This is Gulch. Your new home.”

  The truck rolled into a small town nestled amid trees and overgrowth. It was tiny even compared to the smallest of New Sancta’s forty-eight sectors. Most of the houses they passed were boarded up and shabby, obviously abandoned. The blacktop had cracks and potholes in it that made the truck rumble as it rode along. The road signs had all been removed or had simply worn away.

  The scenery changed dramatically. As the truck rolled along the main road toward the center of town, the buildings became clean, painted, well kept. Fresh laundry flapped on clotheslines over yards where the grass had been cut, the weeds removed.

  The truck slowed to a crawl. Blake obviously wanted Michael to take in every detail.

  “This place was a silver and gold mining town back when the country had still been called the United States of America. After the bombs fell, the place became a ghost town. Not even the raiders knew it existed. It was completely intact when we found it, with a power plant serviced by a waterfall and everything. It was like stumbling across a slice of heaven.” He pointed at a distant cliff. “You can see the plant right up there.”

  Michael peered at it through the pitted glass. It looked very much like a country-style house. It sat on the edge of a craggy cliff with two waterfalls dropping on either side of it like the long white mustache of a sage.

  As they drove further into town, Michael became more and more unsettled. He hadn’t seen any people yet.

  “Everyone’s at the town meeting,” Blake said as if he had read Michael’s mind—and maybe he had. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. “Every Wednesday at eleven o’clock, right before lunch.”

  “The entire town gets together? How many people live here?”

  “There were 247. Now that you’re here, it’s 248.”

  Blake stopped the truck at an intersection, lit his cigarette, and then hit the gas again. Michael looked out and saw a town hall, a church, and stores with freshly painted signs hanging outside.

  They drove along a road that followed a swift-moving stream. This part of the town lay in the shade of a mountainside. Across the stream, in the darkened tree boughs, colorful birds flitted from branch to branch, and some kind of ashy pink flower petal blew in the wind. Despite Blake’s cigarette, Michael caught the smell of the water and the subtle fragrance of the flowers. The breeze washing against his face refreshed him in a way that made it seem possible to forget the horrors he’d faced back at the restaurant.

  If only Benny could be here to see this. He ached for his older brother.

  Mikey…Someday you’ll make us all proud.

  He felt the skin around his eyes tighten with emotion. Dominic watched him in the side-view mirror.

  “What?” Michael said. He held the gaze until Dominic looked away, back through his own window.

  “We’re almost there,” Blake said. “You’ll be able to use the bathroom, take a shower, eat something. Arielle makes the best veggie stew in the Eastlands, I swear it.”

  The truck turned onto a covered bridge that arched across the stream. A sign hung on a post at the end of the bridge that read “Silo Street” and the wheels made rubbery thumping sounds as they drove over the wooden flooring toward a quaint neighborhood of homes.

  Sunlight slanted into this part of town, illuminating the rooftops of beautiful houses like so
mething out of a pre-war children’s book. The truck stopped in front of a large bungalow, complete with sloping rooftops and dormer windows, that sat nestled against the mountain slope. It stood one-and-a-half stories tall, the outer walls of the first story composed of beige and brown stones similar to the ones that made up the pathway leading up to a small verandah along one side of the house.

  Michael gazed at it, fascinated. Along with wanting to become an engineer, he’d always liked the idea of being an architect. He knew enough about buildings to know that this particular one was truly unique nowadays; a reminder of the way life had once been, before the war, when the construction of buildings was something people did with an eye toward the artistic and not simply to contain as many bodies as humanly possible to meet Party quotas.

  “This is where you’ll be living,” Blake said matter-of-factly, as if he were merely indicating a one-room log cabin with no windows.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nice, isn’t it? This is where the boys live. If you want to see a real treat, wait ’til you see the girls’ house down the street.” He let out an admiring whistle.

  They parked in front of a two-car attached garage. Michael stepped out and stretched, his lungs sucking down cool mountain air.

  “This is where I leave you,” Blake said. “I’ve got some things I need to take care of now that you’ve arrived. Dominic will show you to your room. Sound good?”

  Michael nodded once and stepped out of the car.

  Chapter 2

  The interior of the house left Michael in a state of breathless wonder; every piece of furniture was in its proper place to balance out the room, the carpets were free of dust and dirt, and the interior spaces seemed large to the point of extravagance. Michael walked through the rooms with his mouth hanging open in amazement.

  Dominic explained that the boys who lived here pooled their resources to employ a maid. There was money in Gulch, but people mostly bartered for goods and services. The boys earned their keep by bringing in wood from the surrounding forests and repairing whatever broken radios, appliances, and weapons the caravans brought it.