by Quil Carter
Julian sat down too and brought out the cups. “They left me in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Near the plagueland signs… the Radiation! Inhabitable Zone Ahead. Keep Out by Order of Skytech. It took me five days of walking and sneaking past a ravers’ den until I hit a small settlement named Crowsnest. I managed to find work, suicide work I’d later find out.”
I raised an eyebrow and Julian laughed dryly. “They were raticaters. Men who go out and find ravers. They catch them alive and use this thing called a bolt gun to punch a certain area in the back of the raver’s head. If they hit them in the right spot, they basically disable them and make them into docile idiots… so, all in all, they turn them into rats. They sell the rats after for food and everyone brings home a cut of the deal. I made my first twenty bucks going out on a mission with them. I almost died, and I’m sure they were expecting me to die. But apparently, I did a good enough job for them to keep me onboard. For the next three years, I toured the southeastern greywastes radicating… until I found a much more lucrative venture.”
“Slaving?” I asked. Technically it was illegal to keep arian slaves in the greywastes, but it was impossible from just the sheer size of the greywastes to have a legionary presence enough to enforce the rule. The further away from Skyfall you got, the less legion presence you had, until, like the northern greywastes, there was close to no legion at all. So without legionary to keep the greywasters in line, they did what they wanted and that included taking slaves. The only areas in the greywastes where the rules were fully enforced, were blocks.
A block was a town that was owned by Skyfall. They paid taxes and followed Skyfall law, in exchange for their taxes and obedience, they had the opportunity to buy Skyfall-exclusive items, ones only available to be purchased by blocks. Ratmeal was one of those items. A subhuman rat, not to be confused by the rodent with the same name, was a mutated human that had evolved to be slow and dimwitted. There were some wild ones, but for the most part, rats were raised in factories or warehouses by these blocks and fed Ratmeal.
Ratmeal came in a condensed white brick, bits could be chipped off and once water was added, the Ratmeal expanded into a thick nutritious foam that was consumed. The foam contained all the vitamins and minerals, protein and carbohydrates that one needs to survive, with a growth hormone added as well. With the aid of Ratmeal, a male rat could reach maturity in three or four years. Though that being said, by the time they reached their ideal weight they could no longer stand due to their bones being unable to handle the amount of meat on them. The Ratmeal was invaluable to the process, since without it it would take a lot longer for the rat to have enough meat on it to justify butchering, and the cost of feeding it would be too expensive to make it worth your while.
Besides the Ratmeal, the blocks also received legion protection. If a rival town decided they wanted to attack yours, rape your residents, steal your food and valuables, you could call in an emergency distress call and the Legion would be there to defend your home and butcher the rival town. There were other perks, such as getting a stipend of money if you agreed to let a bunch of feral cats live amongst the rubble, access to medicine, drugs, and the ability to purchase gasoline and oil from a Skytech refinery. It was a good trade-off, however some greywasters refused to live in blocks due to them not liking any semblance of Skyfall control. They were idiots, but most greywasters were.
“Yeah… Julian became a slaver,” Julian chuckled. He lowered his tea mug and looked through the sniper scope again. “It was difficult to do in the beginning… but I found the more time that passed by… the less I began to care about anyone that wasn’t me or you.”
“I suppose that’s unavoidable in the greywastes,” I responded. I glanced back to the shadowed outlines of Skyfall. “We’re civilized here. They’re barely above a raver.”
Julian’s smile faded. “You’d think so… but I met more animals in Skyfall than I did the greywastes. Yeah, the greywastes are horrible… but at least you know the men who want to kill you, want to kill you for your meat, or your gear, or because they’re just so fucking damaged by their horrible life that they start turning… into something their mom’s wouldn’t recognize. But Skyfall?” He shook his head, his face troubled. “In Skyfall, they fuck with you because they’re depraved, sick individuals. Because they don’t have to worry about food and shelter, so they start to entertain themselves other ways… by torturing and controlling people.”
“Like y-”
“I wasn’t entertaining myself, Elish,” Julian said sharply, cutting me off. He glanced over at me, then looked away as if… ashamed. “Since I was six, six years old, Elish. At six I was given to Headmaster Harris and my life after that… was learning how to make you the happiest prince I could. I spent over ten years of my life in Autumnhome consumed with you, everything about you. I had never met you and yet… the more I learned about you… at first when I was little, I just wanted to be your best friend. Then when I reached maturity, I realized I was falling in love with a master I’d never met.
“When I turned fifteen… Silas came and met with me and Finn, Finn with still six months remaining until he was fifteen. He spent a week with us, every afternoon until five he was with us… learning about us.” Julian’s lower lip tightened. There was anguish on his face, his eyes filling once again.
I’d told myself I would never believe any of his emotions, because so many of them had been faked to control me, but I knew that there was nothing false about what I was seeing.
“I thought… the last day I saw Silas I thought he was going to take me with him,” Julian continued, his voice breaking. “But instead… he told me that I’d been removed from the program… that he was going to chose Finn instead of me.” A tear slipped down his cheek and his head lowered. “I was given to some low-class Skylander and his wife who only wanted me because of the monthly allowance they got to keep me… and I never saw Silas again. And I never even got the chance to meet you.”
“I… suppose I could understand how that would be difficult for you,” I said. I did understand, but the mistakes he made after his fate had been sealed by Silas were inexcusable. There was no way to tell how my life would’ve been if he’d been chosen over Finn. Finn was not only my sengil, but my friend, the man I shared my bed with, whose loyalty was insurmountable. I would’ve chosen Finn over Julian in a second, and I still would today a thousand times over. “You stalked me after that, didn’t you?”
Julian wiped his eyes and nodded. “The first time I saw you… it was like spotting an angel. You… you just glowed. But then I saw that you were hurt and upset… and the more I watched you, the more I put the pieces together. That life as a prince, was vastly different than what we’d all been led to believe.”
Something that I will never go back to, I said to myself. No matter what happens, even if I have to run to the greywastes with Finn trailing behind… I will never let Silas treat me that badly ever again. Nor will I let him mutilate my mind until I’m on my hands and knees with my ass in the air.
“That night I met you, truly met you…” At the mention of the memory, flickers of brightness highlighted the misery etched into his face. “It was the best day of my life to date. And when I realized you did have use for me… when I realized you liked me… it was as if my biggest dream had come true.”
“One little lie turns into…”
“… thousands,” Julian whispered. “And when you began to like me back… it was a drug. I kept having to up the dose, and I did everything I could to get my fix.”
“You never loved me, Julian,” I said flatly. “You loved how I made you feel, which is why you had absolutely no regard for what you put me through. Or my sengil.”
Julian looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Don’t psychoanalyze me. I know who I love and I walked over a thousand miles to save you. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s an addict journeying far and wide to get his fix,” I said. Julian continued
to give me a look of frustration but I cared not. “And here you are, with me right where you want me… again.”
“That’s not true!” Julian exclaimed throwing his hands up into the air. “I did it because that was the only fucking way I could prove to you I’m sorry. I know as soon as you figure out how to talk Silas into letting you remain mentally intact, and as soon as I teach you everything I know, you’re going to toss me aside like a dirty rag.” He turned from me, made a motion to go back inside the apartment, but hesitated. “You can hate me all you want… just don’t question my love for you, okay? I had eleven years to change, eleven years to decide to stay in the greywastes and forget about you… and here I am.”
“Yet I forgot about you,” I said coldly. I walked past him and into the stagnant apartment, the ceiling debris crunching underneath my shoes. “I’m through digging up the bones of the past. If you wish to reminisce, do it when you’re by yourself.”
“Elish, wait…”
I ground my teeth as I stalked towards the door. “I suggest–”
“Elish, shut up and listen. There’s a plane coming.”
I paused and turned around. Julian was outside grabbing the sniper rifle, then quickly he ran inside and to the partially-intact living room window. He looked outside, his eye narrowed and his head craned. I listened as well, and immediately heard the low rumbling of a helicopter.
“It won’t fly low enough to spot us,” I said as I walked to the living room window. I couldn’t see the helicopter but the noise told me it was near enough to be worrisome. “They’ll snoop around for a bit and then leave.” If it was Perish who did the surgery on me, would be still have told Silas about what had happened in Irontowers? I suppose it depended on who had the reins of Perish’s mind.
I didn’t know, but what I did know, was that I couldn’t return home yet. I didn’t want my brothers and Finn worrying about me, Finn must be inconsolable right now, but I couldn’t return to Skyfall without a plan.
I refused to pretend I was still subservient to Silas.
Well, it was time to prove that I was intelligent enough to let my emotions towards Julian slide. He said he would teach me and help me… now was his time. “What do you think I should do?” I asked him. Even speaking the words left a bitter aftertaste.
“About Silas?” Julian said. He glanced outside, then quickly stepped out and grabbed our lawn chairs. I grabbed my tea mug on the living room’s window sill and sat down.
“I need to return home.” I said. The helicopter’s motor became stronger, but it seemed to be behind this building. There were two burnt-out structures behind this one, so there would be enough room for them to fly lower. “But I need to somehow convince Silas that I’m better off how I am, then his servant slave.”
Julian looked at me in a way that suggested he’d been waiting a long time for me to ask his assistance on this. But he also appeared to be trying to play it cool. I could read his heartbeat however, and he was in a state of guarded excitement.
“Honestly?” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the purple tin that had been our odd tie for over eleven years. But instead of medical aid or tissues, it was now stuffed full of cigarettes. “I think you’re overcomplicating things.”
“Over complicating things?” I said coldly. What sort of answer was that? Not what I expected at all and it made me question asking this idiot for help. “This is fucking Silas, Julian. He is complicated, the most complicated man that I know.”
Julian appeared unfazed. He began patting his ratty faded pilot’s jacket until he found his lighter. “Yes, he most certainly is. But you’re forgetting something, Elish. Something your low self-esteem has never clued you in on.” He took a moment and lit the cigarette, a red ember burst from the flames then brightened as he inhaled.
Then he removed the cigarette, blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth and pointed it at me. “You’re his most valuable asset,” Julian said. “And what you need to do… is remind him just how valuable you are.”
I took this information and debated it. There was a problem with his words however. “You’re forgetting something,” I said lowly. I took a cigarette from the tin when he offered and the lighter from him too. “I can be just as valuable to Silas with my brain altered. So that doesn’t really help.”
My eyes rose when I heard Julian chuckle. He was laughing at my words like I was a comedian on stage who’d just delivered the punchline of the night. “You… you, my lion. There’s no way for you to see it, you haven’t had a chance to… but the scientist I worked for saw it, and I saw it too. That surgery didn’t just make you an obedient slave… that surgery wiped out a quite important enhancement as well.”
I stared at him, ignoring the sparks of intrigue currently making small explosions around my body.
“You were a shadow of yourself. The scientist saw it, and I saw it as well. Good for babysitting and fucking, with a little remedial science thrown in.”
“Remedial?” I said aghast. The audacity of him! “I created every one of my brothers and they are not remedial. I’ve been spearheading genetic engineering; I can create chimeras with my damn eyes closed and I’m close to finding the solution to immortality as well.”
“Just wait…” Julian said in a singing voice. That damn jovial tone was grating my ears like the words themselves were covered in sandpaper. “Just wait until you’re back in that laboratory, you’ll see it. I can see it night and day in front of me… you’re ten times smarter than your altered self… and that is how you’re going to get Silas to keep your mind intact. You’re going to work with him, not against him, Elish. If there’s one thing I need you to take from this…” He leaned forward, the cigarette pursed between his lips, and his eyes fixed on mine. “Work with the current, not against it. I got you to do what I wanted by making you believe you wanted to do it. You need to make Silas believe he wants you as the intelligence chimera you were born to be, not the mindless slave.” Julian motioned behind him, towards the window. “Silas can have any mindless slave sex toy he wants, but he can only have one Elish, one Elias. Make him want you.”
Every part of my brain wanted to challenge what he said, find fault with it until I’d poked so many holes in his theory that he’d break down crying, declaring himself an imbecile.
But my brain wouldn’t let me disregard what he said. I found myself once again pushing aside the emotional whirlpool that his words had conjured, and reading the information left behind.
Did my intelligence suffer when he’d done this surgery on me? I’d only just began to work with Perish in the laboratory; I’d barely had a chance to test out my brain. My world back then had been vastly different to the one I led now. Unfortunately, my intelligence had been wasted running around like Julian’s personal assassin and dealing with the emotional distress he’d willingly forced upon me. I had been on the fringes of testing out this brain power, before it was taken away from me.
Was he correct then? Did this mysterious scientist see me not reaching my potential and that was the trigger for him to aid Julian?
The more I thought of it, the larger the pit in my stomach grew. Yes, I was smart, no one could deny that. But with all the schooling that I’d done, and the hands-on training that I’d received, anyone with some intelligence could become a Skytech scientist.
“You have no idea what you’re capable of, my lion,” Julian whispered. “And neither does your master.”
“It goes beyond just convincing Silas that I’m too intelligent to damage,” I said. My voice had descended to a hushed whisper, the low rumbling of the helicopter still deep in the backgrounds of the city, but my mind was now far from its concerning presence. “Silas is… hyper intelligent. Silas is a monster. Silas… Silas… is…”
I feared him, and I feared what he could do, not only to me, but my siblings, my sengil, my friends. He was this omnipotent being, this demigod glowing with both light and darkness. Every time I’d attempt to read him, he�
�d change his language to one I hadn’t yet learned. Always this enigma, with every man, woman, and child on the face of this dead world gazing fearfully up at him.
He was the closest thing to a god this world will ever know.
I sighed and dashed my cigarette, not realizing there was a quarter inch of ash on the tip. I took in a slow inhale, slow enough to give myself a few seconds to think.
When I’d first realized that I would have to somehow convince Silas to allow me to keep my own mind… I’d seen it as me going in to battle. Him against me. We would have to go toe-to-toe, with a winner and a loser. I would need to fight claw and fang for the right to keep my own mind. This is how I saw it, for this is how I’d always seen us.
Elish versus Silas. Since the day he’d murdered Cristo in front of me, that’s what it had been. It was me defiant against Silas, and receiving the mind-breaking punishment that followed my disobedience.
So you need to stop going against the current.
Just like Julian said. This doesn’t just apply to convincing him you’re too smart to damage. Think of how much better your life would be… if you just stopped outwardly going against him.
So I’m still going to act like my brain has been destroyed? I’m still going to act like his fucking dog?
Stop outwardly going against him, Elish.
Outwardly.
͠
And there was the click.
It was that moment, in front of a man who would end up being one of the most influential people in my life, that the turning point happened. It was as if my mind had shifted gears, or gone completely off its normal path. My brain was opening up, and inside it was filling me with all sorts of new and intriguing ideas. Ideas that, as I thought of them, made so much sense I felt like an idiot for not thinking of them sooner.
