by T. C. Edge
He shakes his head and turns away.
“You were always hard to control. When you left, I wasn't surprised at all. But you just had to drag the others along with you, didn't you? And now look at you all...”
“You know why I left!” I say, my voice rising. “I left because Knight made me believe Jackson was dead...just to use me as another tool. I knew he was alive, I saw him. What did you expect!”
“I expected you to do your duty, Cyra!” he shouts. “You have an important gift, and an important role in this world. To save people, that is your duty, your life. But no, you're here to kill, to disrupt everything, to destroy everything that's been built.”
“Built by Knight! This is nothing but his version of the world. It's not fair, Ajax. How can you not see that! How can you be so blinded!”
I take several deep breaths. Ajax still doesn't look at me. I can sense some conflict in him. Beneath it all, I know he's not a bad man. Just a man who's been shown the wrong path. A man who's learned an ideology that isn't right.
And I know, that whatever I say, he'll never be convinced. That he will never change.
So when I next talk, I do so with a calm voice of resignation. It's a voice of defeat.
“Why are you here, Ajax?” I ask.
Now he turns to me with his eyes. They show some pity, some compassion. Nothing like the eyes of Knight, filled with evil and manipulation and a hunger for endless power.
“I came to offer you a deal,” he says, more softly now. “The High Chancellor will give you a chance to live. But, he says, you have to face your fears first...”
He looks at me, almost guilty to have to deliver the offer himself.
“In the Grid, your fear was losing Jackson, losing those you love, losing yourself. You never conquered those fears, Cyra. You still fear losing those you love. That's why you're here. You knew you were never going to help your friends escape. But you tried anyway. You'd do anything to see them safe...”
“What's your point,” I snap.
He takes a deep breath.
“The Chancellor will let you live, but you have to choose. One of your friends must die. And you...,” he says, slowly, “...you have to be the one to kill them.”
His words hit me like a truck. My heart begins gasping in my chest. I recoil from the thought, grimace as it enters my head.
“I could never do that,” I say.
He shakes his head.
“I knew you'd say that. But I implore you to change your mind. Because if you don't, Cyra, then all of you will die up on that stage tomorrow. It's one of you, or all of you. The choice is yours.”
With those words, he begins moving once again towards the door. Before he turns the handle and leaves, he offers some parting words.
“Think about it, Cyra. You don't have much time. There is no reason for you all to die today. Please...think about it.”
Then he slides from the room, the light goes off, and I'm plunged back into a suffocating darkness.
It's just me and my thoughts again now. Knight has delivered the killer blow, just a cat toying with a mouse.
Kill one of my friends to save the others...and save myself?
Force me to murder someone I love. Face my greatest fear, in front of thousands, for nothing but his pleasure alone.
As I sit there and think, I feel sick to my core. My stomach convulses, heaving up nothing. There's nothing to give, dry wretches boiling up through my throat.
I shake and shudder in my chair, my hands tied fast behind my back, and wrestle furiously to free myself. It's no use. But I still try, for several minutes I struggle against the impossible, tears running down my cheeks as I begin to scream and shout and roar with fury and fear and desperation.
I can't do it...I can't. I'd sooner shoot myself than anyone else. Take away his power over me. End all of this on my own terms.
What life would it be anyway? If any of us survive in this world, his world, it would be hardly worth living at all. Ellie and Theo and I would be forced to seek visions constantly, living the nightmare that we all want to escape.
And Jackson...what of Jackson? Sent to Tartarus maybe, into the very pit we pulled Stein from. Forced to battle for food each day against murderers and rapists, fighting for his very survival in a world where there's no reason to live at all.
It would be no life for any of us.
Sitting in the darkness with nothing but my thoughts, I lose any sense of time. How long is it until the execution? Is it daytime now? Are we only hours away?
At any moment, the doors could open and I could be dragged up through the city and towards the stage. It's the not knowing that's worst of all, having no countdown to your fate.
I don't know what would be worse; dragged suddenly from here right now, or left to wait, and think, for hours on end, hoping beyond hope that something will happen, something will change.
It won't. I know it won't.
My father, Stein, Markus, Leeta...they've probably been captured by now as well. Perhaps Knight knew I was there all along. He knew I'd attempt to break them out, and that's when he could strike, one on one, without a firefight. Just the two of us, alone in the darkness. Was it ever going to be another way?
All will be executed in time. This pathetic resistance of ours will be dismantled. And over in Petram, every man, women, and child there will slowly starve to death, locked in the mountain that will become their tomb.
I have failed them.
And as my mind tumbles into the darkness, a sliver of light appears in front of me. Dry throated and dehydrated, eyes stinging with tears and a voice coarse from screaming, I look up as the door opens wide, showering me with a yellow glare.
And in the doorway, the shadows of men coming forward.
And the voice of an unknown guard.
“It's time,” he says.
31 - A Short Walk to Death
I'm led out into the bright light, my hands shackled behind my back. My legs feel weak, my eyes stinging from the sudden sensory overload. Two strong men walk either side of me, leading me on by my arms, gripping tight as if I'm about to spring an escape.
As I grow accustomed to the harsh glare, I see a corridor ahead, long and white. Either side are doors, beyond which are more cells. I search eagerly for my friends, but don't see anyone.
I'm marched down the passage, half walking, half dragged. My underwater suit has been removed, a simple white bodysuit now covering me from neck to toe, my feet bare. The floor feels cold and unwelcoming, like everything else here.
I don't speak as we go. Don't struggle or argue. I just walk, half conscious, half lost in my own world. I think of Arbor, think of my mother. Maybe, in death, I'll see her again. Maybe we can all be together, all be free...
The end of the corridor leads towards the perimeter wall. We cross the tracks and enter the lift. I hardly bother looking as the guard presses the button. But not for the deck, for Surface Level 8.
Up we go, my final ascent through this city. We step out into the claustrophobic world that I used to call my haven here in Eden. The level that's home to the menial workers here, those deemed less worthy of accommodation on the deck. It was the only place that reminded me of home. Small rooms occupied by simple people with simple lives.
I don't bother questioning why we're here. I hardly even care. In a matter of minutes I'll be dead, and nothing will matter any more.
I don't see anyone around though. The halls aren't filled with people as they used to be, the rooms crammed. All doors are shut. Perhaps they're inside, perhaps not. Maybe everyone is up on the deck above in the main square, eagerly awaiting my death. I wonder if any of them will remember me...
As we pass, one door hangs open. A small face peeks from behind it, the face of a young girl, innocent and curious. One of the guards darts forwards and barks at her.
“Shut that door! You were told not to come out!”
The little girl sticks her tongue out at him and retreats, shutting the door before
he can get to her.
I look at him with disgust. He stares back with an equal look of hatred.
“What are you looking at, traitor!” he growls. “Do it again and I'll rearrange your pretty face. Can't pull your fancy moves with your hands tied up can you!”
The other guards laugh, nothing but meat heads groomed to grunt and follow orders. But I don't hate them, not really. They don't know any better, not with the lies they're fed.
Still, I don't look away. If nothing else my pride remains intact. He raises his fist to strike me and throws it forward. I see it coming but can do nothing. He stops a few inches short, and laughter bellows from his ample chest.
“If the High Chancellor hadn't told us to deliver you in one piece...” he says, leaning forward menacingly, “...then you wouldn't be so lucky.”
Lucky is an ironic word, I think to myself, for someone who's about to die.
He turns away, and we keep on going, moving deeper down the corridors of Surface Level 8. On a couple more occasions, I see faces peering out of doors. Mainly of kids, keen to see me close up as I pass. They always shut, though, before the guards can rush forward, opening again once we've passed.
Not everyone, I suppose, is lucky enough to see me die, me and the rest of them. Even an execution is the domain of the wealthy and privileged.
Soon, we're entering an area of the level that I've never been. On my previous wanderings here I never ventured to the centre. It seems that even the residents of this level don't have access here either, given the large security door blocking the way.
A guard steps forward and scans a keycard. The door splits open down the middle, parting to reveal an open space beyond. In the middle of it is a small stage, wooden, archaic. And standing on top of it, Augustus Knight.
“Cyra Drayton, so good of you to join,” he says triumphantly.
I'm pushed forward into the room, the guards staying behind me.
“Gentlemen, you can leave. Wait outside please.”
The guards disappears, moving back through the door. It hisses closed, leaving me alone in the room with Knight.
He comes towards me, seeming in an exuberant mood. I suppose for him, this is a special day.
“Well, it's good you're restrained, Cyra. Perhaps now we can have a proper conversation without you trying to kill me?”
He chuckles, and call out to Eve, the city A.I.
“A couple of comfortable chairs please Eve.”
The chairs springs up in front of him, deep red and leather.
“Come, Cyra, sit down.”
I don't move. I won't take orders from him.
“Suit yourself.”
He moves forward and relaxes into a chair, crossing his legs casually. I stay where I am, wanting to look anywhere but him, but finding it hard not to stare with fury.
“Oh, you really do hate me don't you. I just think it's a clash of ideologies, of views. You see me as desiring control, as some sort of despot. I see myself as the saviour of this country. Do you even know what things were like before I came along? Someone needed to stamp their authority. That was me.”
“You've gone too far,” I mumble. “You killed my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“The virus. You released it. That's how she died.”
“Oh, I'm terribly sorry about that. The virus was intended for the rebels, not for us. Some were just unlucky, your mother among them.”
“The rebels are normal people. I've been there. Just normal people, discarded because they wouldn't comply with your doctrine, your law.”
“Then they have no place in this world of ours. For a society to run properly, smoothly, you cannot have the awkward cogs not doing their work. This country runs like clockwork, Cyra. What would you prefer, a clock that ticks along and tells you the time, or one that stutters and goes wrong and is always inaccurate.”
I shake my head.
“You can't compare the lives of people to how a clock works. Everyone deserves the chance to improve themselves, to choose their partners, to be free.”
A smile appears on his face.
“Ah, so that's what this is all about. It's what this has always been about with you, dear girl. Jackson. You wanted to be with Jackson, but you were forced apart. And you blame me for that.”
“You can't think beyond yourself, that's your problem,” I snap, ignoring his taunt. “Everything you do is to suit you, you just dress it up as being for the people, for society, for the country. But you'll lose. If not now, you'll lose eventually. And then people will see you for what you really are. History will remember.”
He stands up from his chair, his visage darkening. That jovial spirit he's trying to portray slips, the man behind the mask coming forwards.
“History,” he says coldly, “is written by those in power. I am creating history, and I will write history. And you, Cyra, will be lost to the dust, discarded from the records. You and your friends and your family. And all those across the wall will never be remembered, just a footnote in my life.”
He steps towards me, tall, menacing. That perfect skin, untouched by the sun, seems to glow. He looks so young, but those eyes have grown even deeper. Grey and lifeless. Inhuman.
“I thought I could show you the truth, Cyra, but you refuse to accept it. You could have been a great Watcher. It's such a shame.”
He takes a deep, long breath, and reaches forward to brush his fingers through my hair.
“So young, so much potential...the offer remains, Cyra. Face your fears. Choose to kill one of your friends, and you and the other two will survive.”
He walks past me, then slowly starts circling me.
“Can you really sentence your friends to death like this?” he asks. “Choose one, conquer your fears once and for all, and embrace your destiny. The other two, I promise, will be released. They will not suffer. I give you my word. They will live long, happy lives, free from duty.”
He stops behind my back, his voice high above me.
“All you have to do, is give yourself to me. Just let go...”
His voice ends in a whisper, and I hear the door slide open once again. Then, the sound of footsteps hustling back towards me.
His voice, his words, linger in my head. I stare forward as arms grip me once more and push me on, up towards the stage. I'm lifted up the steps, and placed in the middle. A guard removes my shackles, but I don't try to fight, try to escape.
My hand is pulled up from my side. I feel a weight placed into it. I don't need to look down to know what it is.
A gun.
Then I hear the guards step down off the stage. The final one speaks a few words in my ear.
“You have one round,” he says, half laughing. “Make it count.”
Then, with a rush of legs, they beat a hasty retreat, leaving me alone in the room, standing on the stage, my fate about to be revealed.
And now, I have no idea what to do.
32 - Executions
I stand on the stage, refusing to look at the gun in my hand. It's the same one I saw in my vision, loaded with a single bullet. Knight's words echo around in my head.
Kill one, and the others will go free...
Do I believe him? How can I trust him? And even if I can, can I really do what he's asking of me? Can I really kill one to save two...
My mind twists in turmoil. Ellie. Jackson. Theo. Who would I choose? Who could I choose?
I immediately throw the option out of my head. And then it creeps straight back.
We're going to lose this anyway. If I don't do it, we're all going to die. But if I do, two will live free, and me...
I'll be a slave to Knight, lose myself to him, become the powerful Watcher that he's always wanted me to be. That's what all this has been about, forcing me to confront the death of those I love, to lose myself and commit to his cause.
And now, this is his final offer, his final play. The choice before me is impossible.
The stage doesn't move
for a while. I just stand on the precipice, my fate hanging in the balance, waiting, just waiting for the inevitable.
Minutes tick by. Ten. Twenty. I don't know. My nerves grow now, my heart begins to pound. Once again, I'm being left in the dark.
Then, suddenly, I hear the sound of gears turning. The stage shudders slightly, then starts to rise, slowly, out from the ground. I look up and see the ceiling begin to slide open. And immediately, the cacophonous sounds of a baying crowd filter down through the crack.
The rumble of anticipation from above permeates every fibre of me. There's a buzz, an energy in the air, that grows with every extra inch the ceiling parts. I look up as the stage rises, and force a stoic, defiant expression onto my face. Eyes cold and staring, I lift up and gradually see the centre of Eden appear.
It's the same central square that I visited several times before, but looks so different now. It appears more like a stadium, high seating spreading on all sides around me. The faces of thousands of people stare, mixing into one, a collective visage of disgust and hatred.
I look forward now as the stage completes its ascent, and I stand alone in front of the thousands of faces surrounding me. In front of me appears a stretch of empty ground. There's no sign of my friends, no sign of another stage. Not yet...
Suddenly, as I look forward, I hear a voice shout out from a microphone.
“And now, welcome the other deserters and conspirators...”
My eyes widen as the ground ahead of me begins to crack open. The crowd roars louder.
“Ellie Woodson, Jackson Kane, and our very own...Theo Graves.”
The sound of boos is deafening, growing more intense as Theo's name is called out. I look around and see people staring at him with disgust written on their faces; from old women to young men and children, everyone shares the same loathing.
The floor continues to open, my friends appearing before me about twenty metres away. Each are standing upright, hands fixed behind their backs to wooden plinths. They all hold stony expressions, refusing to be intimidated by the bristling, febrile atmosphere. But as the chants grow for Theo's head, I see his façade begin to crack, and his eyes drop to his feet.
