by Quil Carter
Including Alegria.
What do I do?
The moment I asked this question something seemed to… click inside of my brain. Instead of fretting and dwelling on the question, miraculously… I began trying to think of a solution to this problem in front of me.
I had a handful of solutions, but each one of them presented their own set of problems. The answer screaming the loudest was to put that bullet into Julian’s brain and fake slavery with Silas until I could find a permanent solution. It was the most reckless, but just the thought of doing it flooded me with endorphins.
But then there was the logical solution, a small voice that I didn’t want to listen to, but one that told me I was old enough, and intelligent enough, to finally accept it as the right one.
That I couldn’t kill Julian, and I couldn’t return to Skyfall until Silas promised me, and I believed him, that he wouldn’t put those implants back in my head.
I had to remain here, because rushing into things and barging back into Skyfall, fully intact and bursting of rage, would only spell my mental execution. And being a prisoner whose parched throat had just absorbed the first drop of freedom… I knew I couldn’t go back to that. It would be like chaining a tiger to a dog kennel. There was no obedient servant in my blood; I was no whore curled up at his master’s feet. I was a chimera, and Silas would not take that away from me a second time.
Which meant that my pride must be swallowed. I had to take this slow, give my mind and my brain time to adjust to being back to my full strength. I couldn’t be hasty with this. I had to do this correctly and safely.
When I was younger I wished to be older and smarter than Silas. I was a twenty-six-year-old intelligence chimera, now was the time for me to make my younger self proud. And the way I was going to do this, was to not give in to my rage for Silas and Julian.
One step at a time, Elish. Have a moment to just… be back.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, filling my lungs with greywaste air. Even though it was musty, not at all pleasant, it was the most refreshing inhale I’d taken since that legionary carried me out of the Woodgrove Center when I’d been kidnapped.
“Julian?” I said finally, my eyes opening to the distant cityscape, now featuring a backdrop of rosy pink as the sun began to set.
“Y-yes?”
“I would like you to make me some tea,” I said, my eyes never leaving Alegria. It was taller than the other buildings, and I realized the skyscraper Julian had stayed in all those years ago, was the second tallest in the cityscape. “And any liquor that you have.”
Julian didn’t say a word. Moments later, I heard him banging around in the kitchen. He presented me with… what else… a water bottle full of vodka, and once I’d gotten settled on a blanket-covered swivel chair, a chipped porcelain mug with a mint-smelling teabag floating in still simmering water.
Julian then sat down on the couch, the nearest corner to me, holding his own mug of tea. He took in a deep breath, and breathed it out slowly. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“It’s nothing personal, merely a strategy move,” I said to him, my voice cold. “I can’t make decisions at this moment, especially not ones that will shape my future.”
Julian nodded. His hands tensed around the mug. They were such rough hands, scarred and tanned with large knuckles caked with dirt. There was no question in my mind that he was telling me the truth about his time in the greywastes. This wasn’t another ruse and he’d been living in a factory town or a greywaster block near Skyfall… Julian had somehow survived in the greywastes.
Charismatic Julian, who had a knack for spinning words together in a way that made you hang on every one of them. Unfortunately for me, every one that had fallen from those lips, had been a lie meant to manipulate me.
My heart hardened. I unscrewed the water bottle of vodka and took a generous gulp.
“Who did the surgery on me and where is he now?” I asked. I removed the teabag, but before I could ask where to place it, Julian had jumped to his feet and was taking it from me.
“I met a Skyfall scientist in Blackbay,” Julian said when he came back. “I was his mercenary while he did marine research for Skytech.” He sat back down, his fingertips tapping the ones on the opposite hand. “I… well, I asked him if he’d seen you… and how you were doing. He’d had several beers at the time and… he told me what I’d feared the most.”
A scientist for Skytech? I wanted to ask who it was, but I wouldn’t. If all else fails and Silas does his surgery on me again, once I was back to being his slave I would sell that man out. I didn’t know who he was, but I owed him my mental freedom, and the only way I may be able to say thank you, was to keep his secret. If he knew how to do this digital surgery, he was high-ranking scientist, one I’d most likely worked with.
Deep down, I had my suspicions. I knew that it could very well be Perish, but the thought of it being him, that Uncle Perish might indeed be returning. I had too much on my plate in that moment, I couldn’t allow my thoughts to go there.
For now, I’d leave it be. If Perish wanted to come forward, he was welcome. And if it wasn’t him, the scientist’s anonymity from me may be his safest move.
“He told you that I was Silas’s trained dog?” I said bitterly. “Nothing but his fuck toy and his outlet?”
“He… said it nicer than that,” Julian said, staring down at his tea. “But yeah, he told me… you weren’t the same man as you were before the surgery. But that you were so altered… you were okay with it.” He took a slow drink, I myself was worried my mug was going to shatter with how much I was clenching it. “Over the weeks I spent with him, we talked about you a lot. I trusted him enough one night to tell him who I was, turns out he’d already guessed it. One thing led to another and… here you are.”
“Here I am,” I said quietly. I took another shot of the vodka. “With a game being presented to me that I now have to play perfectly… if I want to keep my mind intact.”
“Well… I’ll help you come up with something,” Julian said.
“You do not have the mental intelligence to help me work through this problem,” I said coolly. “I need to do this carefully or Silas is going to have me back to being a mindless slave and his sex toy.” My fingers gripped the vodka bottle, the sound of crinkling plastic background music to my bitter words. “And when he does… I’ll willingly accept it as the best thing for me.” The fact that the surgery could do that, not only take away my pride, my free will, my damn personality, but have me believing it was for the best… it was a thought that… honestly scared me.
Julian’s eyes flickered up to me, and I saw a smirk come to his face. Not a wry one, there was sadness in it. “I’m smarter than you give me credit for, my lion,” he said softly. “Manipulating people into doing what I want has been keeping me alive since I convinced Silas to bring me to Autumnhome when I was six.”
My teeth locked together. “I’m well-versed in your manipulative ways, Jules,” I growled. “My sengil was raped because of your ways. My fucking life was taken from me because of your damn ways!” I threw the vodka bottle down onto the ground and stood up.
But as I stood, Julian shot to his feet. As I stalked towards the door, needing a minute to get some air, Julian trailed behind me. “I know, Elish,” he said as I walked outside. “I know what I did. I know what I did to Finn and I will get down on my knees and beg his forgiveness when I see him.”
“You will not go near my sengil,” I whirled around and snarled. “The moment I figure this out we will see no more of each other, Julian.”
“Elish, you–”
“Do not follow me,” I snapped. I walked down the driveway towards a broken street surrounded by dunes of ash that had been blown in. “I need to clear my head.”
“There’s… Elish, there’s deacons out there. Carracats and urson… there could even be greywasters hiding out, this place is huge. You really shouldn’t be walking alone in this city,” Julian
said hastily.
I kept on my way. I knew it was a stupid thing to do, but I needed time to think, and Julian’s presence was preventing that from happening.
I continued walking, and with a soured glance behind my back, I saw Julian trailing a safe distance behind me with the assault rifle he must’ve retrieved from inside of his house. I allowed him to follow, the intelligence side of me telling me that was the safest option, and began walking around the block.
There I was letting my emotions cloud my reasoning again. I couldn’t problem solve this when my buried feelings for Julian had been exhumed and were now on display. This entire situation would be easier if he’d just remained dead.
Unfortunately, if that was the case, I would still be the slave-whore of Skyfall.
I sighed and glanced up at the stars twinkling through the darkening night sky, only the most powerful stars had light resilient enough to still be seen over the grey haze that covered the world, the rest were now lost in time, their whereabouts only known to dead astronomers and those who wished to dig up enough pre-Fallocaust astronomy to find them.
But they would never be seen by any man or women who walked this earth. The only two men guaranteed to see the sky as it had been for millions of years before the Fallocaust, were Silas and Perish.
Unless I cracked the code of immortality. Something that people had been trying to do since man first discovered self-awareness.
I turned a corner and began walking down a lonely side street. There was a white camper van in front of a fallen chain-link fence, dunes of ash almost completely covering its rust-eaten hood and shattered front windshield, but besides that, this road was clear of debris. It was a back road at one time, with the rear yards of many suburban homes edging both sides.
What could I do? What do I do…? Silas controlled my life, he controlled me. Even at twenty-six I was still as much of a slave as I’d been at five. I was powerless to the point where it made my eyes sting. So dearly did I want to live my life, but my life was one that revolved around an immortal king, and the ruler of the world.
In some respects, Julian repairing my mind had been nothing but a cruel joke. Eventually I would make Silas angry and he would alter me again, and all this would amount to, was the world giving me a taste of mental freedom, a taste of my potential, before ruthlessly taking it away from me.
I can’t let that happen. I just can’t.
And yet… I had nothing to guarantee me that Silas wouldn’t do it again. He loved the slave he’d created. Why would he allow me to go back to being the defiant prince I was at fifteen?
The prince that was defiant because… Julian had made me feel worthy of respect. He’d helped me hold my head up high.
But it had all been a lie.
Does that take away from what he did though?
I stopped walking, and my eyes turned back up to the sky.
I’d never thought of it that way.
Julian’s presence… had done extraordinary things to me. He’d breathed life into me. Yes, it had all been a lie, but if you removed that caustic factor…
No. I could never trust him again. He was the sole cause of everything that Silas had done…
Silas wouldn’t have done it without Julian’s influence. Because you would’ve remained the reclusive loser in your room, who never challenged Silas because he was weak and obedient.
Julian may have been the reason that Silas did that surgery on me, but the fact of the matter was… it had happened because he’d made me strong.
Julian had made me reach that higher level. Without him, I would’ve been… that shell of a creature hidden deeply in my bedroom. Even with Finn added…
Without Julian, I would’ve never had the strength to defend Finn from him. I would’ve let Silas do what he will to my sengil, because I’d have been too weak and depressed to stop him.
Like it or not…
Julian had been my catalyst, my catalyst that forced my chin up, my catalyst that had breathed life into stagnant lungs.
Yes, he lied. He’d done terrible things to me and my sengil. His actions had caused my own mind to snap, leading me to rape and mutilate Silas. But without him, I would’ve never have reached that extreme. I would’ve never become… strong.
It was bewildering having my mind throw these thoughts at me. I didn’t understand my own thought process; this was foreign to me. I was expecting my mind to switch into some primal mode that had me screaming at him, breaking his jaw with my fist and raping him until he shrieked for mercy.
These thoughts were not my own…
No, of course they weren’t my own. Because my own thoughts, my being, had been taken from me for eleven years. I didn’t even know who Elish really was, did I?
Whoever Elish was… he was going about this in a way that I personally found shocking.
Thinking about my situation without emotional attachment… was making me see my past in a different light. And it was making me realize that anger was a dangerous cloak, one that could easily blind you from the correct path that you should be taking. Anger was just as dangerous as emotional attachments and too much pride.
And I was going to eliminate those three things from my thought process before I make my decision about what I want to do. No anger holding me back, no emotions demanding I beat Julian half to death for what he’d done to me, no pride screaming at me to turn down his offers for help.
Because even though it filled my gut with venom, I realized…
Julian controlled me like a fucking puppet. He manipulated me, put me through emotional hell. This Morosian orphan come rejected sengil, single-handedly played me in front of a well-stocked board of enemies, and with him and I alone, he managed to kill every enemy he had. All while I was blissfully in love and unaware.
He did this to an intelligence chimera.
… I realized I needed this mastermind as an ally.
“Julian?” I called.
The faint footsteps behind me picked up, and closer they came until I heard gravel scrape underneath his boots has he stopped.
“Yes?” he said quietly beside me.
I closed my eyes, and I, a man who’d just been freed from an eleven-year prison, inhaled a deep breath of the chilly greywastes air.
It had never tasted sweeter.
“I want you to teach me everything you know,” I said as I gazed up at the small silver orbs of light. “You were able to manipulate me, play me, and control me. With ease, you made me your puppet, your assassin, and your slave… and I want you to teach me how you did it.”
There was a scrape of gravel. I turned and saw Julian back down onto his knees, his head was bowed. “All I know is yours,” he whispered. “As I am, my prince.” He looked up at me with love and devotion in his eyes, but in my own heart there was no reciprocation. This was not said out of love, it was not said because there was some tie still holding us together.
It was said because without the emotions shrouding my reasoning, I realized that there was a lot I could learn from this man. And I needed all the help I could get. I was no longer fighting for Finn; I was no longer fighting to be left alone.
I was fighting for my right to exist.
And I knew this was going to be the fight of my life.
“Then you now belong to me,” I said to him. “Until the day I decide it is time you die.”
CHAPTER 49
“It’s beautiful here… isn’t it?” Julian said beside me. The winds of autumn were blowing in from the coast of Skyfall, enough for me to have heard sheets of metal and displaced chunks of roof tumble around the road the entire night. Julian had gone out to see if we’d have to move to the basement, but the house was holding firm.
If it’s remained standing for almost two hundred years… it’ll remain standing now, I’d said to him when he’d walked out of his bedroom with a jacket on over his night clothes. But he’d insisted on checking and I didn’t care enough to caution him on running out in the middle of a wind st
orm.
“I was raised in the clouds,” I said to him as I watched the cityscape of Skyfall in the distance. “I always felt more comfortable being up high.” The cityscape was clearer today than it had been yesterday, perhaps from the wind blowing away the haze, or maybe I was just looking more intently at it today. There was still a blurry haze surrounding the city, as if one was looking through a pair of smudged glasses, but it was visible nonetheless, reaching tall to the grey sky but forever standing in the stagnant brown water that had once been our world’s oceans.
“It seemed surreal the first time I saw Skyfall again,” Julian admitted quietly. I looked through the sniper scope, the C14 sniper rifle set up, complete with tripod, on a plastic patio table on the concrete balcony of what would’ve been elite apartments. This was where he’d be catching our food, and he’d requested I come up here with him for company. “I looked at Alegria and I just couldn’t believe that you were there. For so many years my goal was to return to Skyfall to find you, and the moment I realized I’d accomplished that goal…” He laughed, a nervous laugh that showed hesitancy in his eyes, as if he was laughing at himself for his trepidation. “You… it had been so long, you’d kind of turned into a mystic legend to be honest. Sometimes I wondered if my life in Skyfall had actually happened.”
I scanned the roads through the sniper scope, observing that Julian had dragged the dead deacons to places unknown. There wouldn’t be much he could do with their bodies besides eating them if he was desperate. Dog was quite delicious, but I’d imagine a greywaster wolf may be a bit stringy. “The more time that passed, the less I thought about you,” I said. I saw movement in the scope but it was only the wind blowing a tumbleweed around. “How did you manage to survive in the greywastes?”
There was no game here yet and my eyes were better than Julian’s so he didn’t attempt to double-check. I sat down on one of the patio chairs, stained a grimy grey and rough to the touch, and brought out a thermos Julian had brought up with him. It was tea, somehow, without even saying it, he’d known of the compulsive tea drinking habit I’d adopted over the years. I’d originally started drinking tea because Silas was just as bad as I was, although he wanted bloodwine just as much as tea, but now it had become a habit of my very own and not a day went by that I didn’t consume at least five cups of it, ten if I was working late and stressed out. I was just as bad with opiate cigarettes.
