by Eden Wolfe
They were upon her without pause – hands on neck and twisting - and then they were gone.
The body laid limp in the streets, snapped neck so gentle that no one would know the cause of death until they cut her up, if they cut her at all. She'll be called out as a flawed design, just another death from a period of flawed designs. They would only discover the cause if someone dared to dig deeper, beyond the customary way.
They ran to the deepest southern tip of the city, on the edge of the jungled mass.
They breathed heavy air into heavy lungs as they fell against the palms and slid down to sit. Knees folded, heads on crossed arms. The rough dead palm leaves beneath them cut into their cloaks, leaving impressions on their skin. Without thinking, they smoothed the spots from the inside. Moving heat and blood, just to find a moment's comfort.
"We have killed an ant on the crest of an anthill."
Ariane nodded. "She died very easily."
"They are not hard to kill."
"But perhaps hard to identify in the crowd."
"They have blended well."
Ariane nodded.
They sat in deceiving stillness. Waves of information crashed through neural pathways to old sounds and smells as their heads in present time pulled together like magnets, closer to each other, unable to avoid it.
They were held hostage by the force of a lifetime of absence of the other.
Which next step?
So much more makes sense and yet rational thought has lost its luster.
The movement of space and time in their memory blended with the present moment and they came up empty, mutual emptiness in seeking answers for their next move.
Their heads touched and the flame reignited between them, so hot it burned, seeming to meld them, welding them together.
This is what we trained for, she said without speaking and the other felt it.
It was not to have all the answers, but to face the unknown and lead in the right direction.
That is what we were trained to do.
This is what we were born to do.
Underneath them their feet lifted, pulling them erect as machines. Looking into the city, it was no longer the capital of their youth, the empire of their dreams.
The city was their enemy.
They postured against it, backs inclined toward the wind, and they ran in different directions. Separate and solitary, they met the city head-on.
58
Maeva
"We have found three so far, and we can expect more," Irene burst through the heavy door as though it were made of tea leaves, the force of her people apparent in her eyes. They were on fire.
Maeva closed her eyes and tried to focus. She heard the flurries of people moving about the fortress but she couldn’t emerge from her quarters. Her mind was consumed in visions of the new Willing Woman campaign.
She was certain it would be insufficient. They had to move faster and at a greater volume. Incubation was the only way. But the idea of restarting the Rainfields program, whether or not it was in Rainfields, horrified her. After all she’d done to put the nightmare of incubation behind her, her destruction of the laboratory, how could she even consider it an option? Wouldn’t that be taking Lower Earth directly down the path she’d tried so hard to avoid?
Her eyes settled on Irene.
"Huh, what? Three what?"
Irene leaned forward, shaking her head.
“What is going on with you, Maeva? Haven’t you heard it all this morning?”
“I sent the women away. I had to focus.”
“Three dead bodies. That’s what we’ve found so far. Cork Town. They didn’t look out of place there. But certainly, there are more.”
“Three dead bodies. Alright.”
"We aren't sure of the method of kill yet. Given the lack of visible injury, I'm guessing poison or broken necks."
Maeva sat back in the chair, warm velvet feeling rough. Even her skin was on edge. Every cell in her body was on hyper-alert, feeling every wisp of fabric or air, her nose overwhelmed by every stench, and oh, how the city stank. Her nervous system screeched threats at her. An increase in murders in Cork Town was an alarming trend, but not the worst risk she'd ever faced, certainly not in times like these.
I cannot follow the logic of the problem. I'm getting too old for this.
The thought hit her in the face like a fist. Standing up to another round of threats would not be as it always had been. The time was fast approaching to announce the new queen.
Irene glared, her nostrils throbbing. Her warrior blood was running hot, Maeva saw it pumping just below the surface, red flows of it tumbling as a mad river.
Maeva took a deep breath.
"Bring it down, Irene. This is not new for us." If she could just calm Irene a bit, diffuse the situation, that would give her time to think.
Time. I've never needed time before.
Irene's neck seemed to pull her even taller. She took slow but deliberate steps towards the Queen. "Not new? I'm not sure we are speaking the same language here, my Queen. They are conspirators."
"And we'll treat these murderous traitors the way we have always treated traitors. To kill even one of our women in Lower Earth is to betray us all! We will find them and lock them up or see them disappeared as the people so love to say, whatever we must, but do not create such panic to serve your own ambition."
Maeva cocked her head, watching Irene while trying to act as dismissive as she could find.
Color rose in Irene's cheeks and the left side of her mouth curled down.
"My ambition?" She took a few more steps, tentative now, seeming to hold herself back. "You are misinformed, my Queen. It is not the killers who are the traitors."
The Queen felt a tic, a reaction in her shoulder, involuntary and uninvited. The voices would come soon. She prepared an insulating cushion against it.
"The dead women are scouts. They are all scouts. They are Upper Earth's scouts and they are living amongst us," Irene spat out, "My Queen."
The voices exploded.
You're too late!
Too consumed with your own foolishness. You stupid woman, murderous blood sister!
Here's your punishment, they are amongst you now and where have you been?
What have you been doing, you silly Queen-Child?
Playing Mama to genetic freaks you allowed to live on, you wasteful, stupid fool!
"Hush, damn it!" The voices deafened her.
"I cannot, my Queen. Permit me to do as must be done. This is not an age for strategy and refinement. We are already at war."
War! What have you done!
Since the Mist, we have been protecting it all. And now you - you have turned it into chaos.
You will be the downfall of humanity.
We will all become subservient again. All will know what you have done, what you have failed to do.
"I said stop!"
"We haven't even begun, my Queen. We have much to do."
So much to do, Maeva, while you were pandering about, concerning yourself with the murder of your own children, look what a mess you’ve created now.
How have you forgotten it all, the generations we've spoken in you, for a moment such as this?
"Give me the word. My Queen, Maeva, this is the moment! Say it, say it now. Tell me I can do as must be done. And it will be done." Irene was growing before her, or perhaps she herself was shrinking. Suddenly she was barely more than an ant before this mythic woman, her beauty and force so fierce that Maeva stood speechless before her.
"Now, my Queen! Say yes, say it now!"
Now, Maeva, Fool of Queens! Say it!
This was it, her defining moment. It would be one of her last, she knew it to be so. The treachery and future blended into one vast barricade and she closed her eyes to it all.
Face what you have done.
She opened her eyes. Walked to the window. The people below were so small, like molecules bumping into each other before b
ouncing away again. A world only in itself of any importance. This contradiction of design and nature, man's advancement left in a woman's world. All for what?
The response came in a small sound, deep within.
We will have to find out what this world was made for. We cannot remain blind for much longer.
The voice was buried so far inside the cacophony; she could hardly make it out. But it rolled on repeat, a record trapped in time, waiting for this moment.
Keep it alive. Keep this world alive. It's the only thing worth living for. Keep it alive for the world as it could be. Keep it alive -
It lurched forward, louder from that deep place, the beginning of life.
The first innocence.
The first meaning.
The reason for all reason, and Maeva was filled with a godly benevolence from all the generations who ever gave life.
Her holy tribute, her only calling.
Her eyes cast out beyond the city, to the edges of the world and it all became clear. She was the life-giver and preserver of life. She was their servant in word and deed. The screeching voices went silent in the instant of the thought and for the first time, the color of light filled her eyes.
The time had come.
Everything stopped. The people, the air, the smells, and all time. She turned and took in the sight of the beautiful warrior who was waiting on her word. The word that would define their future, the word she alone could speak. The word that would rally them all and turn destiny to a new sun.
It is time.
She nodded her head low to earth and high to generations past, calling the world back to movement as Irene’s dark eyes beseeched.
Maeva smiled at the tomorrow in her mind.
"Yes."
Irene's chin drew higher and she turned, bringing the whistle of the Guard to her lips.
"Irene!"
Irene stopped in the door, standing between the Queen and call of her birthright, whistle in hand, chest heaving with excited breath.
The Queen spoke with firm intent the words she had always known would one day be her legacy.
"It's time to bring forth Ariane."
Irene nodded slowly, her purpose painted her face in hues of yellow before she burst with the clamor of war on her tongue.
59
Ariane
Ariane felt it like a wave moving across the city, even before the Queen's Guard marched out. The air became thicker and anxiety was drawn on the faces of those who knew the rhythm of the city was changing. From her separate vantage point, she listened.
"What's happening?" Ariane heard a soup seller ask of a guard who paused to look down the crossing lane.
"Nothing."
"Obviously it's not nothing. I haven't seen the guard out like this since I was a girl."
The guard pretended not to hear.
"Is it a storm?" The soup seller ventured, desperately looking for answers. Ariane stayed in the shadow behind them, unable to read their faces but hearing it all in their voices.
"It's a kind of storm."
"Oh, well, then the screens should be announcing something, right?"
"I don't know what the screens should or should not do."
"Right, I see."
The guard maintained her place, looking off in some distance. The soup seller tried again.
"Could it be that -"
"I think that's enough questions for now."
"Yes, right." She dropped her head and seemed absorbed in stirring the pot.
Another guard joined, but the conversation was cryptic. Ariane strained to make sense of the words.
"She knows."
"All of it?"
"Commandante says so."
"Then it is so."
Does she know of us? Or only of our deeds?
Weighing the possibilities, Ariane listened for a sign from her other self, any news for perspective. She had not yet mastered this listening for herself at a distance, the concept somehow jarring that she should listen to her voice in another body and recognize it as such. Until now it had only ever been her own calculations by the millions to decipher - with this other it was suddenly exponential, all the possibilities. And yet in some moments, there was only one loud and clear response. She couldn’t be sure if it was her own or gifted from the other to her consciousness.
Has it always been this way? How many of the voices within were actually this other one speaking directly to me?
She couldn’t find an answer. She had spent so many years in lonely isolation, she still didn’t trust the idea of sharing her thoughts, much less sharing body and mind. Everything she’d ever learned spoke of her independent superiority. Separate, alone, strength in solitude.
Will this other self be my undoing?
She listened to the other voices of her surroundings. From her crouching spot under the concrete slab of the rain grate, the pictures were coming together of a city in the stages before a siege. The people seemed to sense it. She could make out pieces of conversation from across the city.
"Movement in the alleys – Night Watch reinstated - heard hushed voices speaking of others - closing gates - children told to go inside - "
"Word of 'others' - what others? You know of others? Me neither, not possible - foolishness. Yes, guards. Troublesome, I'll give you that."
"Closed down - moved - told me to stop, but I do this every day in the same place so I can't see why."
"Obviously don't want to tell us."
"Don't want to worry us."
"Maybe, maybe not."
"Stop the conspiracy theory."
"Wasn't me who started it."
She could hear children crying across the city with soft voices of Willing Women rocking them, hushing them lovingly, the same anxiety in their voices as the others. A quiet song floated to her, an unseen woman to an unseen child. Ariane felt her muscles relax at the sound.
Be lifted, darling bright eyes
Be lifted away
Feel your heart lighter
Your spirit at play
Be lifted, wise child
Know night-time from fear
Know daytime from bright lights
Know that I am here
The refrain continued, a backdrop to the tight voices and questions of the city. Ariane envied the child in that moment, the sweetness and intimacy of a mother's voice in times of fear.
How many times had she wished for comfort? For her mother's love? She had always known it was unattainable without knowing why.
Now she knew.
All the deception, the statements of Ariane being the ‘one and only’. It was all a farce. The burden of knowing crushed her lungs.
Aria laced her way up the pipes and mechanics of Central Tower, up the maintenance staircases and fire escapes. Everyone on the street below was distracted by their own business though, from where she sat, the sound of boots on asphalt dwarfed the usual noise of the city. Keeping her body stiff against an exhaust pipe, Aria took in Geb from above. The scurries of some with unmoving others were an unorganized weaving as the Guard began moving through the streets in formation.
An unannounced parade? It seemed to be, but to what end? A display of strength?
The answer rose in her, loud and clear, setting off momentary panic.
They’ve found the bodies.
Aria calmed herself.
This is an expected response. The Queen would have understood the significance of the deaths. But does she know their origin?
Unlikely, but with some statistical significance.
What is happening in her head? What is the most likely? What is the least?
Whatever is the least likely is what we should anticipate.
She willed the thought to the other, not knowing if it was received, not knowing if this was even a way they could consciously communicate. There was nothing in her studies to indicate even where to begin.
Collective thought?
Shared thought cannot be the same.
Aria shifted against the pipe to face east. The voice was not near, perhaps from the base of the fortress where a contingent was preparing. But she knew the voice. The Commandante had a way of speaking that she couldn’t forget.
"Be bold and smart. Ask the right questions and otherwise say nothing at all. Do you understand?" A quick nod from the lines of cloaked women replied. "If you are not sure, bring them to the prison. If you are sure, then do as you must." Another nod. "The Queen is relying on you. Lower Earth is relying on you. I know you are capable. Report back at first shift's end after receiving from the initial round's review."
And the guards dispersed.
Irene stood strong as the women moved out like rays from her into each corner of the city. Her shoulders were broader than Aria remembered, her eyes deeper in their darkness. She appeared to be in her element. A woman set to lead. And her face was the spitting image of an older Leadon. Aria blinked to take the sight of her friend away; she had to see the Commandante before her, not her childhood friend.
As Irene's eyes began to scan across and up, Aria shifted again to the west. It was not the moment to be discovered, though Irene did not have anywhere near the capability to see her hiding spot.
Even so, it was not worth the risk.
She slipped back into the Tower block. The guards would soon be arriving there, and she intended to find the best location to observe their actions.
She found several floors abandoned, unsurprisingly since the loudspeaker had announced a meeting in the first-floor auditorium. Aria ensured that she stayed in the folds of curtains and shadows of cabinets as the final stragglers filed past her, rushing. There would be too many suspicious eyes in the auditorium. Best to wait it out and listen from afar.
She passed by the door to the fatal office, Roman’s office, where Archer had jumped and they’d had their first insight to the events happening as a backdrop to their current situation. She felt a chill run from the nape of her neck and watched as tiny bumps arose on her skin. She made no attempt to stop it, though she could have.
