All the King's Men

by Alex Powell

  “Why did he do that?” Mrs. Parks asked. “There had to be something else he could have done.”

  “He did it because, although none of us knew where he lived or anything about his real life, he knew all about ours. He also knew all sorts of different contacts, what our future plans were and which we were in the middle of working on. That government could have found out everything.”

  “Then we really would have been caught,” Simon said, eyes downcast.

  “How?” Joanne whispered.

  “The agents gave him Dream Dust,” Karl said. “It’s not only a drug; it has a component that makes the brain more susceptible to change. Some people use it to enhance their learning ability or memory capacity. The erasing of a memory is a use King came up with himself and discussed with me. We hadn’t entirely worked out the theory, but he must have thought of something after Joanne gave her report.”

  “We don’t know how well it actually worked, though,” Fox pointed out. “He may still have some of his memories.”

  “If he does, then that means they could still find us.”

  Silence ensued for a few long moments before Fox stood. “Well, for my part, I’m going to do what I can to find and free King. It would be a lot easier if I had help, but I will make do with what I can get. This is going to be dangerous—more dangerous than anything else I’ve ever undertaken. But I knew this line of work was going to be perilous when I started, and I believe the cause is worth the risk.”

  Joanne nodded. “Fox is right. We can’t just let them keep King without a fight, and not even trying is inconceivable. Even if he doesn’t have his memories when we get him back, we owe it to him to try.”

  Karl spoke up. “He can regain them.”

  Everyone turned to look at Karl again.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Simon, an edge to his voice. “Why did you not say so immediately?”

  “What I mean is that the memories have a back-up, and if we can retrieve them, then we can restore King’s memories, if only we can find them all.”

  Fox would have done anything to be able to see Karl’s facial expression right now. Then again, Fox supposed that was why he always appeared as mist, to keep his thoughts and emotions hidden.

  “How did you know about them?” demanded Mrs. Parks. “How come none of us were let in on this little secret?”

  “We weren’t sure it would work,” Karl explained, and his misty form swirled. “All thought of erasing memories was purely theoretical. King wanted to experiment and see if it could be done. We created back-ups in the event that anything should go wrong.”

  “So do you know where they all are?” Simon asked, leaning over the table with renewed interest.

  “I have a clue that should lead us to the first one. The rest are hidden, and the next clue should be revealed once you’ve found the first. Like a treasure hunt, I suppose.”

  “How do we give them back?” Fox asked, frowning. “It seems complicated to me.”

  “I’m…not exactly sure how,” Karl admitted. “I’m sure an idea will present itself once we have the memories back.”

  “I’m not sure I like this, just going on one clue with no idea of how any of this works,” Mrs. Parks said uneasily. “What if this ends up being a wild goose chase?”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Joanne said grimly. “It’s what we’ve got to work with, and as Fox said, we’ll take what we can get.”

  “So what is this clue?” Simon broke in. “I imagine it is something we will be able to figure out if King wants us to be able to find it.”

  Karl hesitated, and everyone leaned in. “It’s not as obvious a clue as you might think,” he finally said.

  “Just tell us!” Simon impatiently waved his hand, and the movement made his cape swirl back over his shoulder.

  Karl sighed, but recited the clue. “A Battlemaiden. Hands to wield both sword and cross. Fit to crown a king.”

  Fox looked at all the blank stares and inwardly heaved a sigh as well, hoping that as nebulous as the clue might be, they still might have a shot at working it out.

  “How is that a clue?” Simon asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “I have to say, I can’t fathom what it means at all,” Mrs. Parks said. “Maybe you young ones with your sharp minds can figure it out.”

  “Don’t forget we also have to discover where King’s body is,” Fox reminded them. “If half of us work on the clue and the other half on finding King, then at least if we’re stalled on one thing, we can still work on the other.”

  “Dear, I really think we’re stalled on both at the moment,” Mrs. Parks said dryly. “But we can try our best. Leads on King’s location will be hard to find, or dangerous, but I’m willing.”

  “I, too, think I would be best used in locating King,” Karl added. “There is no use finding all his memories if we don’t have a mind to put them in.”

  Simon looked torn, because there was no doubt that Joanne would be helping find the clue. They might not know much about each other IRL, but they all knew that she was a scholar of some sort. If anyone could figure out anything about the strange clue, it would be her. Fox, too, had a university degree and had a job in that field, so it was obvious the two of them would be working together.

  “I should help them,” Simon said after a long pause of deliberation. “I know the most about Dream Dust, and there is no doubt I could be helpful in the event we find King’s body.”

  The meeting broke up soon after everyone had decided what their part would be, and Fox saw Mrs. Parks already talking to Karl about her plans to find King. There was no time for knitting patterns right now, and she was clearly determined to do her part. He and Joanne would be leaving together, as there was research to be done on the subject of the strange clue King had left them. Fox thought that Joanne already had an idea of what the clue meant, but was waiting until they were alone to discuss it.

  Simon approached him where he stood at the edge of the Eiffel Tower, looking out over Paris. “I have ceded my place at her side for now, but do not think that I have submitted to defeat,” he announced as he leaned against the metal rail. “Joanne will not be so easily won over as that.”

  Fox wasn’t entirely sure what Simon was talking about. It took him a few minutes of frowning and concentrating until it clicked. “You think I am after Joanne? Like, romantically?” he asked, looking at Simon in bewilderment.

  “Do not think I have not noticed your intentions,” Simon said, glaring at him.

  Oh. Oh, this made so much more sense now. Simon was jealous because he thought he had a rival for Joanne’s affection. Fox was an idiot for not considering this motive before. However, it was obvious to him and not at all obvious to Simon why the man shouldn’t worry about that.

  “Simon, mate. I’m gay.”

  “What?” Now it was Simon’s turn to look bewildered, and Fox thought it served him right for being so silly over this non-existent love rivalry.

  “I like men. I’m not after Joanne in the way you apparently are, not in the least.”

  “You aren’t?” Simon seemed to deflate upon hearing this news, and Fox rolled his eyes.

  “My apologies for depriving you of the drama you so ardently desire.”

  Simon perked up again. “This is perfect! Now my path is clear!”

  “It was always clear; you’re just a git.”

  “Does she know this?” Simon looked excited, as if this new knowledge somehow made Joanne more susceptible to his courting.

  “Of course, she does. She noticed right away, unlike some people I could name.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Fox sighed. At least that was one problem he hadn’t known existed solved. Simon, with renewed vigour, went to Joanne’s side, shoulders thrown back and chin lifted high.

  “Our leader is captured, all of our previous plans are in shambles, our mission to retrieve our leader is almost completely hopeless, and Simon’s biggest concern
in all of this is that Joanne might like me more than him,” Fox said, throwing his hands in the air. “How is this my life?”

  “It isn’t your real life, dear,” Mrs. Parks reminded him just before she left.

  Yes, and wasn’t that ironic. All of this was happening in his head, and IRL, he had a plane to catch tomorrow, bound for somewhere cold in Canada, and he had no warm clothes to speak of.

  Brilliant.

  Chapter 3: Battlemaiden

  Seven returned cautiously to his own Domain, waiting at the entrance to see if the Cat or the Reaper were anywhere nearby. One shouldn’t think ill of one’s own commanding officers, but the two of them gave him a weird feeling. Whenever they were in his head, they felt scratchy and sticky, like cobwebs and brambles.

  The Cat and the Reaper weren’t there, but the King had been returned to him. Seven could sense his presence, and he proceeded forward. The King in his present state was of no danger to anyone.

  The man showed signs of having been subjected to Dream Dust, but he was still in a sleepy, hazy state. Seven thought the Cat might have been attempting to return the King’s memories in the same manner in which they’d been taken. Seven didn’t think it would work, but they must have at least wanted to try.

  Either that or they’d been interrogating him. There was absolutely no use in doing that, as far as Seven was concerned. He’d seen the blank rooms in the King’s head for himself, and nothing they could do to him would make him give up information he just didn’t have.

  Well, there was one way to find out.

  The King was sitting on the same sofa as before, which he had claimed as his own in spite of it belonging to Seven’s domain. His pupils, hard to discern when his irises were of such dark colour, were wide enough to almost obscure the slightly lighter ring around them.

  “Hello, King.” Seven crouched in front of his prisoner. “How are you today?”

  To his utmost surprise, as soon as Seven was in the King’s field of vision, his form shimmered, and Seven was looking back into his own face. The King had made himself look like an agent.

  “Who are you?” Seven asked curiously.

  “I’m…” He paused and frowned, as if trying to remember. “I’m One-Twenty-Two.”

  “That’s a number,” Seven reminded him in a whisper.

  “Yes,” the King replied, nodding emphatically. “You’re a number as well.”

  “I’m Seven.” He felt a chill run up the length of his spine. “But you’re not a number, you’re the King. I know, because I’ve met you, and I’ve seen all the things you’ve done. You just don’t have your memory right now.”

  “I’m One-Twenty-Two.”

  “What have they done to you?” Seven asked, a hollow feeling filling his chest.

  The King didn’t resist as Seven placed his forehead against his. Seven tried to be gentle as they entered King’s domain, because he had no idea if they had caused him any more trauma than what was already apparent.

  There were new memories, painfully easy to go through, because there were so few of them. The one in which King had first met Seven was already grainy and indistinct. At first, Seven thought it might be because of the damage erasing the memories, but as he moved on to the new ones, he understood.

  The new memories had sharp edges and were almost too bright to look at.

  The first one was filled with mirrors. They were everywhere, and from every angle imaginable, like a funhouse. It was too bright, and Seven’s eyes smarted, even looking at it second-hand. The Cat and the Reaper were there, following the King as he tried to find his way through.

  It wouldn’t have been at all alarming except that the mirrors were reflecting the Cat and the Reaper normally, but every single reflection showed the King’s movements as belonging to an agent. The more the King saw his own reflection, the more his own features started blurring and reshaping, until finally, his self-projected image matched the false reflection.

  The Reaper and the Cat had the King in an interrogation room, a tiny cell inside someone’s mind. It was dark, and King was restrained in a chair, manacled.

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “I don’t know. Seven says that I’m the King.”

  The Reaper leaned into the King’s face. “We don’t listen to Seven, we listen to me. And what I’m saying is that you’re one of us.”

  “I’m not an agent of Death,” the King said, looking at his hands.

  “No, you’re like Seven. He works for the government. So do you.”

  “I don’t remember working for the government.”

  “There was an accident, and you have amnesia. You’re Agent One-Twenty-Two. Just like Seven, you do important things, but first, we have to remind you who you are.”

  “I’m One-Twenty-Two.”

  “Yes.”

  They’d started him on agent training after that, and Seven remembered almost word-for-word the same thing from his own time learning what it meant to be a true MindHack. Watching it now, from the perspective of an outsider, there was an air of marked brutality with the way the King was handled.

  King’s pain was nothing to them, and they urged him on, regardless of his suffering. They wanted him to get the training right immediately, and if he was too slow, he was rewarded with an even harsher punishment. Seven almost looked away, but he made himself watch it all unravel before him.

  Was it different, because the King was actually the leader of the rebel group, or was that how they treated all their agents? Seven couldn’t quite remember. Surely his memory was being influenced by watching what was happening in King’s head.

  “This doesn’t hurt.”

  Seven’s mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood as he watched Eighty-Eight, who had been brought in sometime earlier as a training aid, shoot the King full in the chest. He definitely remembered this part, and wondered if Eighty-Eight did, too.

  The King hadn’t yet managed to handle his mind in a way that he could resist the instinctive pain, or its reactions. He was coughing wetly and sinking to his knees, hand pressed to a wound pumping out blood in copious volumes.

  Seven hundred and forty times. That was how many times Seven had been shot before he’d managed to convince his mind the wound wasn’t real, and it didn’t really hurt.

  It still always hurt for a split second, because the mind was powerful enough that it always interpreted the sight of self-injury as pain.

  “You’re obviously not grasping the concept,” the Cat admonished. “We’ll get Eighty-Eight to demonstrate for us.”

  They heaved the King to his feet and shoved the pistol into his hand.

  “Shoot him.”

  “I can’t,” the King had said, shaking his head.

  “It doesn’t matter where, just shoot him. It won’t hurt him.”

  “It hurt me.”

  “Yes, because you still haven’t learned that it doesn’t actually hurt you. Now shoot him.”

  The King’s fingers stuttered around the trigger. The shot went wide and disappeared. The Cat said nothing, waiting for the King to do as he’d asked. The King steadied his hand, aimed, and took another shot.

  Eighty-Eight let out a slightly sharper breath, but otherwise showed no sign, not even a wound.

  “See? It isn’t real. It’s all in your head, the injury and the pain. Switch places.”

  Seven stopped watching and brought King back to his own domain. He knew how this went, after all. The King didn’t seem at all disturbed by their foray into his head, simply settling to his place on the sofa, with the difference that he now appeared identical to Seven.

  “How do we tell each other apart?” the King asked.

  Seven tilted his head to the side as he considered the question. He’d never really thought of that before, because to him it was blatantly obvious who was who. It had never occurred to him that because they all looked virtually identical, he shouldn’t have been able to tell them apart, not when they had no ID markers.

>   “You just know,” he said, though baffled. Logically, it was impossible.

  “You’re right,” the King nodded in satisfaction. “Before, I knew it wasn’t you helping with training, and I knew it was you returning and not the other agent. Who was that?”

  “Eighty-Eight.”

  “Okay.”

  Seven hadn’t realized before, but now that he looked around his own domain, there wasn’t a single mirror. He wondered if the other agents shared his apparent subconscious aversion to them.

  He created one now, and it showed him the face of one of the agents. If they could make him want to see his face a certain way, it stood to reason he could also make himself look differently if he so chose.

  The Fox had even changed shape entirely, he recalled. It couldn’t be so difficult.

  Agents had black hair in a military-style cut, even and regular features, and brown eyes. He moved aside his goggles and tried to imagine himself with a different face.

  Absolutely nothing happened.

  He’d seen other faces. He could copy one of them. Fox’s face was easy enough to imagine, even if he did have ridiculous hair.

  Nothing.

  Seven tried until his head started to ache, but nothing he did, no mind-trick or psychology, could change his features.

  They’d trained him too well, and if it took a long time to complete training in the first place, it would likely take time to undo it. The problem was, even thinking of undoing something he’d learned, felt alarming and wrong.

  The others would see him anyway, and they’d know he was corrupted.

  He was corrupted now, wasn’t he? He’d seen something, and it was changing the way he thought, had made him process data differently. Now he could see there was something not right. Or maybe the fault was with him, but he couldn’t unsee it. If he changed his appearance now, everyone would notice, and then they’d do something to him to fix it.

  He didn’t think he wanted this particular problem fixed.

  “I have a name,” he whispered.

  Realizing what he’d just said, he looked around to see if anyone had heard him. He had a name, even if he didn’t know what it was. If they could make the King think he was a number, then obviously they could do it to anyone. The King didn’t remember now, but he had a name, and he had a real life, somewhere outside the Cerebrum.