by T. C. Edge
He turns back.
“What now?”
“I’m doing it,” I announce.
“No…you’re not.”
“Do I have to get back in your head again, brother?! You said it yourself…they’re only Con-Cops. And I’m meant to be in training, right? Let me take them. If you think I’m in danger, you can step in.”
He considers it for the briefest of seconds, before tugging his arm away.
And then, to my surprise, he steps to the side, and opens up a path for me.
“Fine. I’ll be watching,” he says nonchalantly. “Go ahead, hero, save the day.”
A wry smile appears on his face. Grit appears in my eyes.
And around the corner I go.
17
I stand by the wall, peering around the side. Through the mist I see them, crowding around the poor woman. Their voices flow to me, but their words are muddled by distance.
They’re probably wondering why she won’t wake up.
And then they don’t have to wonder anymore. As one leans down to lift her by the shoulders, I see her body suddenly come alive and struggle. And from her lungs, a blood-curdling scream empties, surging down the underpass towards me and echoing out into the city.
The reaction of one of the Con-Cops is immediate. Pulling out his immobiliser, he zaps her right in the chest. Her body goes quickly quiet again, and they resume their work automatically, lifting and carrying her off down the tunnel.
With their backs to me now, I start to make my move.
Silent as a mouse, and using a portion of my Dasher powers, I slide through the mist towards them, leaving a trail of clear air behind me. With my Hawk-eyes now operating on full alert, I sense one of them about to turn.
His collar crinkles, and his shoulders rotate, and his neck starts twisting to the rear. I immediately shoot to the side and behind a small pillar that lines the sides of the underpass, sneaking out of his eyeline.
Lowering my body to the ground, I gently peer from behind the pillar, nice and low and down in the thick mist. The man looks out for a few moments, a crease between his eyes, before turning back, satisfied.
I slide back out of cover, and continue towards them. I’m only 20 metres away now, nearly close enough to strike. Beyond them, outside the underpass, I see a truck, similar to the one we saved Drum from. Inside there must be more Disposables, gathered up like stray dogs to be taken to the pound.
I’ll free them all too.
I scan their bodies for weapons. Pulse rifles hang from their belts. Immobilisers, too, are similarly attached, only one of them holding his, its end zipping and zapping with flashes of blue lightning.
The other two carry the woman, her head slumped and eyes white, a bit of foam dribbling from one corner of her mouth. She could swallow her tongue in such a state.
But they don’t care about that.
It’s time to act. With my muscles coiling and ready to spring, I send my gaze at the first man, equipped with his buzzer. I’ll take him down first, then the next two. I’ll be on them so fast they won’t know what hit them.
I run through the play a single time, and then put it straight into action. Taking a breath, I activate my Dasher ability, bursting forward through the mist and coming up on the rear man in mere milliseconds.
He appears to move in slow motion as the world decelerates around me, my short burst of pace enough to bring me right up to him before any of them even notice.
As the realisation of my presence dawns, he twists on the spot, his arm moving through treacle as he tries to bring the immobiliser up to zap me. It’s comically slow, and I have no trouble in whipping a thunder-punch right across his open jaw beneath his visor.
My arm moves with such a furious pace that I feel the bone crack. His jaw snaps out of place, slackening as his body tumbles off into the dirt. The other two men turn, dropping the woman straight from their arms.
Her head immediately starts falling back, closing in on the hard concrete floor. With my Dasher powers still in operation, she appears to move so gently that it hardly dawns on me how hard and fast she’s actually falling.
I realise just in time, pressing forward and darting to the ground to cushion her fall, laying my arms under her head to stop it from connecting with the floor.
It bounces into my biceps, and I let out a breath, my burst of Dasher energy all but depleted. As yet, I’m nowhere near practiced enough, or fit enough, to be able to use my powers for long. And right now, that’s not a good thing.
The world quickly comes back into regular focus, returning to normal speed. As the woman thuds upon me, I turn my eyes up to see the two Con-Cops descending, whipping their immobilisers from their belts as they charge.
I roll away, huffing and puffing, and just about escape their attacks. Flying to my feet, I summon some last shreds of Dasher energy, and use it to avoid the incoming thrusts.
Grabbing one of the men, I pull him into the direction of his partner’s jab, and the immobiliser connects with his back. Blue sparks begin shooting around his body and across his armour, running all the way up and onto my arms. I get some of the residue of the attack, my limbs tingling as I let the man go.
The charge appears to have had no impact on him, however. I guess his armour must be designed to soak up the electric shock. I recoil, stepping back again as the two men thump the earth with their feet, marching towards me.
I’m unarmed, my Dasher powers failing and arms numbing. I’d quite like Zander to step in right now…
He doesn’t. But I have on last trick up my sleeve.
As the first Con-Cop surges forwards once again, I send my Hawk-gaze right through his clear visor, right through his eyes, right into his mind.
In a split second I’m into his consciousness, shouting out an order.
ATTACK YOUR PARTER. ATTACK YOUR PARTNER.
I retreat just as quickly, his electric prodder looming. It seems to be suspended in thin air, his body frozen half way through his swiping assault. He stays still for a moment, his eyes glazing over.
And then, as the other Con-Cop comes charging, he turns his attention on him.
With a sudden burst, he bundles his partner to the floor, much to the man’s surprise. I stand back and watch as they begin to battle, one attacking, the other simply trying to understand what the hell his colleague is doing.
Panting, and with stinging arms, I watch for a moment as they roll about, wrestling. Then, behind me, I hear light footsteps and turn to see Zander appearing at my side, smiling at the sight.
“Nice move, setting them on each other. What was the order?”
Still slightly dazed by it all, I answer: “Just attack…I just told him to attack his partner,” I puff.
Zander laughs.
“Well, I guess we’d better leave them to it. He’ll keep on going until his friend either knocks him out, kills him, or a Mind-Manipulator comes along to erase the order.”
He begins moving off, turning away from the fight with total indifference and towards the unconscious woman down the tunnel. I consider it a little heartless to leave these men in such a fashion. I mean, they were once normal people, after all. We can never be sure which ones were violent criminals, and which ones were just unlucky.
So I end the battle. Scooping up a spare immobiliser, I step towards the bundle of flashing limbs and jab both of the men in the neck, pricking them on the soft spot between their armour.
They both fall silent and still.
“I guess that’s what they call ‘mercy’,” remarks Zander, turning back to watch. “It’s lucky they got you and not me.”
“How long will they be out?” I ask, wondering just what setting the immobiliser is on.
Zander shrugs.
“It doesn’t matter. We need to go. Come on, help me with her,” he says, standing over the unconscious woman.
I walk towards him and straight past. I hear him sighing at my incessant inability to follow his orders. He probably kn
ows exactly what I’m doing.
I move towards the truck just beyond the underpass, and find the back door unlocked. I slide across the bolt to open it up, pull the door open, and see a collection of unconscious bodies before me, all lying in a bundle of rigid limbs and torsos.
I step inside and reach for the nearest one, set my fingers to his neck, and feel for a pulse. I check another couple just to make sure. They’re alive, just knocked out, most likely temporarily paralysed by immobilisers.
Zander drifts in beside me, looking in.
“There’s nothing we can do for this lot,” he says. “We can take the woman, but no one else.”
“You can’t wake them up? What about that pen-like device you used before, when you de-paralysed Astor? Do you have that with you?”
He shakes his head.
“No.”
He probably does. He just doesn’t care about these people.
He moves back to the woman, refusing to offer any help as I briefly consider how to wake the prisoners up. My mind draws a blank, and Zander’s voice sizzles over on the breeze.
“Come on, Brie! Other Con-Cops, or worse, Stalkers, might be around,” he hisses. “For God’s sake, stop trying to help every damn person you meet!”
He’s getting frustrated, stamping about as he lifts up the woman onto his shoulder. He’s easily strong enough to manage her weight, her frame largely emaciated by her time out there living on scraps.
He starts moving off, disappearing into the mist. I have no option but to follow, sparing a final look at the pile of bodies behind me. Death or worse awaits them. And there’s nothing I can do.
Catching up with Zander, we begin moving off towards the same entry point into the underlands we used last night. Either it’s the closest one, or he’s not yet willing to let me in on another. Maybe both.
With night falling fast, the lights of Con-Cop patrols begin to rise up in the distance. I can see them down the ends of streets, and illuminating the mist above low buildings. We work our way around them, staying silent as ghosts, reaching the safety of the entranceway without detection.
Inside the cluttered room at the rear of the dilapidated building, Zander once more moves the stack of chairs and flicks the switch embedded in the wall. Meanwhile, I pull out the sofa, revealing the hidden tunnel.
As I do so, my brother bends over above the woman, pulls a familiar looking pen-like device from his jacket, and sets it to the girl’s neck. With a click of the end, her rigid form eases up and her white eyes roll back round, blinking furiously as a scream threatens to bellow from her lungs.
Zander’s hand is quick enough on the draw, pressing over it and muffling the sound.
“You had that device all along?” I query angrily. “You could have woken those people up.”
“There wasn’t time. Don’t argue.”
He turns his eyes to the woman. Hers are wide and fearful. With nothing but a look, she calms, and he releases his hand from her mouth.
He glares at me again.
“Don’t give me that look, Brie. We’re here to train you, nothing more. Saving this woman is enough. You don’t agree with my methods? I don’t care. Stop acting all high and mighty…”
“Jeez, alright Zander, chill,” I say. “I’m just saying…how hard would it have been to zap them in the neck? It would only have taken a minute or two.”
“Yeah, an extra minute or two where we might get caught. These people don’t matter. There’s only the mission.”
He doesn’t let me respond. With fresh orders in the woman’s head, she begins crawling through the tunnel. I follow behind, grumbling internally about Zander’s way of looking at things. I mean, I get it, I do, but it just seems heartless leaving people behind like that.
We don’t talk again until we reach the safety of the underlands, splitting as soon as we enter into the grand cavern. Zander goes off to make sure our new friend is processed properly. I head off to find Drum, searching selfishly to find someone to moan to.
When I locate him in his assigned area of the cave, I let off a bit of steam. I find no ally in my giant friend, though. He appears to agree with my brother.
“He’s right, Brie. You can’t save everyone.”
Of course, he has no idea about my mission. If he did, he’s perhaps realise that I can save everyone. To a degree at least.
“But they could be innocent people, just like you, Drum…”
He huffs. “I’m not innocent. Maybe lots of them deserve to go to the REFF. Who knows who you might set free? What if you freed a killer,” he says, his eyes sinking a little. “I mean…not a killer like…me. But a proper killer. Someone who likes it. Someone who kills people to take their clothes or food or money…”
The thought of Linda, Zander’s guardian, enters my mind once more. I suspect my brother’s lack of caring, and trust, of many of these Disposables emanates from that fateful day six years ago. It was a Disposable who killed her, murdered her for her purse. Perhaps Zander looks upon all of these forgotten people with the same eye.
I can’t blame him for that. Not after what he’s seen. And yet, up there, in the wild parts of the city, such a way of life is necessary for some. Perhaps not to kill, but to steal and fight to survive. It’s just the natural order of things for these people, their world far more brutal and unforgiving than mine.
I suppose, above all, this is all new to me. If I ever find someone helpless on the streets over near Brick Lane, or any of the other quarters, my natural inclination will be to help them. That’s just what being human is all about. Helping people in need.
But maybe out here it’s different. Maybe I’m not being fair to Zander, criticising him at every turn. Just looking around this place is enough to show what good the Nameless are doing, and my brother is a big part of that.
Still, I barely know him really. All I’ve gotten are snippets of his life, his personality, his past. I can’t possibly know what he’s been through over the years. How many people he’s helped and saved.
So yeah, I do need to stop acting all high and mighty. I need to realise that this is how it works here. It’s not perfect, far from it in fact, and in the end there’s only so much a single person can do.
And for me, the one thing that can help the most is the one thing I should be concentrating on. Anything beyond that, anything that might put my mission in jeopardy, is rightly considered superfluous by Zander.
Because, after all, his job is to make sure I see it through. That’s the directive Lady Orlando gave him. Like Adryan, his task is to clear the path for me, make sure that I’m ready when the time comes. To train me, open my mind, prepare me for what’s to come.
And looking at things like that, he’s doing a great job. In no time at all he’s changed me, fashioned me into a force I could never have imagined. He’s doing his job brilliantly.
And maybe it’s time I did mine.
So I go to find him, and I pull him silently into a hug. And with his tense limbs around my back, I say sorry. I tell him that I won’t question him anymore. That I’ll do as I’m ordered, and nothing else.
Because at the end of the day, it was him who saved Drum, not me. I was just there. I just supplied the most basic of information about what had happened to him.
From that point on, he located him inside the holding cells. He tracked the trucks. He took out the Con-Cops and freed my friend, and the rest of them too.
That was my input, to force him to let the rest go. Something that almost got us all caught or killed. My participation nearly brought the entire house of cards crashing down. Without my brother, Drum would be dead or worse.
And most likely, I would be too.
I struck a bargain that night. I told him I’d do whatever he wanted. I told him I’d kill whoever he told me to kill. Take a life to save a life. I’d do it all if my friend was saved.
He’s held up to his side of the bargain, and more. And me…I’m still here, questioning him, undermining him, pr
odding and probing when I should be listening to every single word, every single order, that flows off his tongue.
And so I will. From now on, I’ll put my mind to the mission and nothing else.
I’ll pay my debt to him.
I promise I will.
18
I spend the evening being assaulted.
Assaulted by Zander, by his mental intrusions, by his relentless attempts to creep into my mind and read my thoughts and memories. For hours and hours, he works on me in a quiet little chamber away from the rest, the two of us sitting in darkness and silence.
I defend myself with everything I have, using everything I’ve learned. Using all the training Zander has put me through to shield my cognition from him, his attacks becoming increasingly direct as the evening grows late and my mind and body grow weary.
He puts me under stress and duress, making me tired, forcing me to continually focus to weaken me. As he does, his ability to infiltrate my memories and thoughts grows stronger, old memories of mine being mined from somewhere deep inside my consciousness.
Memories I barely recall are brought to the surface, dug up and shown to my eyes. He works to read my thoughts as they occur, telling me each time exactly what I’m thinking.
Yet it’s under stress that I begin to fight back too, to strengthen myself, to grit my teeth and block him from holding dominion in my head. Like when I battled him away earlier outside the underpass, I do so again that night, again and again, becoming more adept as the minutes and hours pass.
He teaches me other things. Not only am I tutored on how to shield my thoughts, but to hide my memories too. He tasks me with pushing the memory of that day, of all my activities, to the depths of my mind. To cloud them and cover them in other thoughts of the academy, of my home, of Adryan, of anything that my normal life still contains.
Anything that needs to be hidden has to be continually shrouded. Anything involving him, anything involving my powers, or my mission, or my knowledge of the Nameless and the Fanatics and the Consortium. Any memories or thoughts that might prove indicting have to be protected behind a barrier in my head, replaced by regular thoughts and memories that aren’t so incriminating.
