by T. C. Edge
“I know. I’ll be done for,” I rush. “I’m not that stupid, Adryan, despite what you might think.”
He fixes me with as warm a stare as he can.
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all. I think…I think you’re very brave.”
His more pleasant eyes are joined by a smile, and his cheeks cut with a couple of unexpected dimples that, I suspect, never see the light of day.
For a moment, he seems like he could be anyone, not a Savant at all.
“I’ll be in touch soon,” he tells me. “Think about what you want from all this, and think about what I’ve told you. Talk to your brother, Brie. He may have some more answers for you.”
“I…I will. Thank you for filling me in. At least you were honest.”
“A quality I’ve lived with my entire life. Until now, at least, with all this subterfuge. Savants usually have no reason to lie. It’s just a symptom of our world.”
He reaches over, like he did when removing my coat. I have no expectation of a hug this time.
Instead, he opens the door for me, and leans back.
“Now go, Brie. Don’t let me keep you.”
I take one last look at him, so intriguing as he is, before stepping from the car and rushing towards the gate. When I reach the door to the side of it, I find it unlocked, and quickly step through. It appears that only the Outer Haven side of the gate is guarded by Brutes And the door itself is like a cat flap: unlocked going one way, and locked going the other.
“Back already?” asks the Brute, watching me scuttle past. “Didn’t it go well?”
I stop briefly in front of him.
“It went fine. I just…I saw the explosion from a window. Do you know where it was exactly?”
I look up to him eagerly, praying that no one I knew was caught up in it.
Is such a thing selfish? People will have died, and judging by the size of the blast, many more than before. Am I a horrible person because I don’t even care about that right now? That I’d be happy if a hundred died, or two hundred, or many, many more, if it meant someone I truly cared about was OK.
Maybe my Savant side is taking over? Or maybe I’m just colder than I thought…
My insides churn as the Brute looks at me, the cave that is his mouth opening up to deliver the news.
“District 5,” he says.
My body tenses.
“Where!”
“The main market there,” he says. “Terrible thing. These Fanatics…”
I don’t hear the rest of his sentence. Turning from the gate, I set my sights on the cloud of orange and grey and black fog swamping the distant streets, clearly visible even now under the cover of darkness, and start to run.
Hindered by my dress and accompanying shoes – the heels I wore on my first visit to Inner Haven – my progress is slow. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Pumped with adrenaline as I am, who knows how my newly altered body would react. I might just shoot off down the street, my Dasher powers blazing to life, leaving a trail of dust behind me for the Brute to follow.
And he knows my name. Not good.
Heeding Adryan’s advice, I focus and make sure I’m only going so fast. Before I’ve travelled a hundred metres, however, I’ve grown sick of my heels and have discarded them to the street, flicking them off down a side-alley for some lucky person to find and leaving me running barefoot.
They’d probably fetch a pretty penny at a second-hand market or pawnshop somewhere. For the poorest among us, such a treasure could feed them for weeks.
I don’t quite know how to feel as I run. I’m relieved, of course, that the explosion wasn’t closer to the academy. The market is nearby, but not so much that anyone on Brick Lane could be affected by it. They’d have felt a ferocious rumble and heard a thunderous noise – and perhaps a few plates or glasses would have been broken from the ensuing tremors – but nothing more.
However, what does concern me is the fact that the marketplace is a common venue to visit for several of the occupants of Carmichael’s. It’s where Mrs Carmichael will often go to buy the foods we eat, especially when there’s a particularly good sale on, or if certain foods are available for bulk purchases.
Others go there too, mostly those in transition. If Mrs Carmichael doesn’t want to go herself, or if she has a particularly large order to fetch, she’ll either bring along a host of the transitioners to go with her or will send out a troop in her stead.
And tonight, I know, the night market will be in full swing. Mostly it’s busiest during the day, but during the middle of the week, when people go along after work, it can get extremely busy after dark as well.
And that’s why they chose it.
The ‘Fanatics’, under orders from the Consortium, will have taken another batch of lives. It’s the perfect place to strike, and the perfect time.
Just when the people are starting to feel a little safer, just when they’re creeping back out of their shells, Outer Haven has been rocked once more with the cries of the dead. And the wailing of the loved ones they’ve left behind. And the terrible realisation that this isn’t going to stop.
Fear will spread again, and the warnings of the Fanatics will echo in people’s minds.
Emotion is Evil. Give in to Logic.
Bit by bit, such a belief is being seeded. And when the Consortium bring forth their reckoning, the people will greet it with open arms.
They’ll walk willingly into the darkness, and the endless gloom of a life without emotion, a life without meaning. Only muted expressions of love will remain. The entire notion of family will die out. Joy will be expunged, no pleasure blooming in a heart from the sound of music, or the sight of a beautiful painting, or the taste of delicious food.
In the end, we’ll all just march on into the future, each day the same as the last. Nothing but a bunch of pawns on a chess board, and just as inanimate.
My mind whirs with such thoughts as I speed through the streets, passing through district 1, and along the centre boundary of 2 and 3, and arriving into the heart of district 5.
I continue on, the district unusually quiet. Even when I near the market, set in a large square and surrounded by low slung tower blocks, the numbers of pedestrians remain thin.
When the first attack happened at Culture Corner, it caused a stir. People who’d never been interested in art and music gathered to look at the site, at the carnage the attackers left behind. Those days following the blast, the place became more of a tourist attraction than ever.
It was a novelty. An attack like that hadn’t happened in decades, and nor did anyone expect it to happen again. A terrible tragedy that looked set to fuel the rumour and gossip fire for many a month after.
And then it happened again. This time in the eastern quarter, where a warehouse was destroyed, and so many workers were killed. The Fanatics’ markings appeared again. And people realised – this isn’t going to stop.
The warehouse didn’t attract as much attention. People stopped gathering in large groups unless necessary. Some even stopped going to work for fear the Fanatics might strike again.
And now, as I rush towards the site of the most recent blast, I find the streets so clear, almost deserted. People have already flocked to their homes, wrapped up tight in fear, their faith that the Fanatics will be stopped beginning to wane.
And so it should.
The scent of burning is powerful. The colours, in a part of town usually so vibrant, are dark and foreboding. With my new eyes able to see so much more clearly, even in the darkest of places, I make out the heaving swirls of black smoke, and the smouldering reds and oranges of the flames as they’re beaten back and quenched.
Moving into full view of the square, I see that the buildings surrounding it have been devastated. That the attack didn’t only target the merchants and browsers in the market, but the many families living along its boundary too. Hundreds of people killed in an instant, blasted apart or burnt to a crisp or suffocated by the toxic fumes.
>
My eyes scan the bodies on the floor as rescue teams continue to clear and secure the area. Many are regular people, dressed in the expected garb of Outer Haven. Yet among them are others, Con-Cops or members of the Enhanced, City Guards sent down here to keep the peace.
Bats stationed to listen for danger. Sniffers sent in to catch the scent of trouble. Hawks watching from their high perches on the building tops, blasted into the stratosphere as the world shattered beneath their feet.
I even see a couple of Brutes, their mountainous bodies and armour unable to withstand the blast, lying like giant piles of rubble amid the chaos.
Only Dashers, perhaps, with their super speed, could have possibly escaped the onslaught.
I stand and stare and, unlike the first time, I don’t react at all. I just stay stationary, betraying the advice of Adryan, using my vision to scan the place for some sight of someone I know.
It’s no use. The place is too hectic, too many people pulling bodies from rubble, or dowsing flames, or holding back any onlookers or loved ones of victims, wailing to the sky and cursing the Gods.
It’s not the God’s they need to curse…
As I stand there, I feel a hand on my shoulder.
It causes me to jump. I swing my head to the side and see Rycard, looking so different to how he did this morning. His face is half covered in soot and shadow, blood dripping from multiple lacerations on his right cheek and forehead. One eye is shut, a cut slashed across it, oozing blood down to his lips.
“Rycard!” I gasp.
I raise my hands as if to offer attention. He holds them back.
“I’m OK,” he says. “Just a few cuts.”
“But your eye!”
He shakes his head and turns to look at the carnage.
“I was lucky,” he says. “I’m alive.”
“What the hell happened?!”
He seems subdued, his voice soft and far less buoyant than usual. His playfulness is gone, replaced with a grimace and a stare.
“I was stationed on the roofs to the north of the market. It…it came from nowhere. It just happened. I couldn’t see it until it was too late.”
“Does Sophie know you’re stationed here?”
He nods.
“You need to let her know you’re alright. She’ll be going out of her mind!”
“I will…when I get a chance. I should go back…go and help.”
“But you’re injured. You need attention…”
“Others need it more.”
He steps away from me, preparing to re-enter the fray. I reach out and grab his arm, stopping him. He turns his good eye back to me.
My mouth opens, but the words don’t come out.
It was ‘them’. It was the Consortium. That’s what I want to say. To tell him that all of this has come right from the top. That his own bosses commanded the deaths of my people, his people.
But I don’t. I merely smile weakly and say: “Stay safe.”
“And you, Brie. You should go home. This isn’t a safe place to be…not for you.”
He turns and his figure fades away into the fog, engulfed by a fresh deluge of smoke as a wind sweeps through, bringing a rain of ash with it. I look to the sky and see black clouds approaching, the type that people usually run from.
Insult to injury. Acid rain onto the site of such terror and devastation.
If I ever needed to be reminded how unforgiving my world is, I only have to remember this scene before me.
I know it’s time for me to go. But there’s something that keeps me there for a few moments more, an impulse to let the vision sink deep into my pores, settle into the back of my head.
To take a mental picture of this, and place it side by side with the face of Director Cromwell.
If what I’ve been told is true, and he really is the man behind this scheme, then maybe I will do the unthinkable. If it’ll save innocent lives, and stop a war, and if I really am the only one who can…then do I really have a choice?
Was I born for this purpose, this very reason?
Is it my fate to become a killer?
My train of thought is broken by the fresh arrival of relief, a small platoon of Con-Cops swarming through nearby from the street behind. They move in formation, and go right into the fray with no fear whatsoever for their own safety.
Some people call them brave. But to be brave, you first need to feel fear. And for Con-Cops, such a sensation of fear is no longer present, their emotions suppressed and modified and altered to make them better at what they do.
I used to hate them all, and perhaps still do. But now, at least, I understand them better. Every one of them was once an Unenhanced, living right here in Outer Haven. Some will have committed serious crimes, and were thus taken and reconditioned and turned into something quite the opposite.
Forced into slavery. Forced to serve.
Others, however, would have only been accused of minor infractions. Yet their fate will have been the same.
Looking upon them, it’s impossible to know which is which. With their memories altered and erased as part of their therapies, even they don’t know what crimes they committed.
It’s an awful fate, really, but the experiment has clearly worked. In fact, I suspect that Adryan, working for the Institute of Human Relations, will have been involved in some respect in examining the results.
If criminals can be turned into such loyal servants, then why shouldn’t the rest of the population share their fate? That, after all, is just what the Consortium are thinking…
As the Con-Cops rush past, a couple of larger shadows loom behind them. I turn and see two armoured Brutes stamping through. And walking between them and a step ahead, I see the shape of the Deputy Commander of the City Guard, Leyton Burns.
I shrink away into the shadows of the side street, hoping he doesn’t see me.
Standing in silence, my glowing eyes trace his steps as he marches towards the devastated market, stopping on its boundary and looking on as the many rescuers and paramedics work to save lives.
I focus on his face, and only his face, and zero in on his expression. Standing fifty or so metres away, and with smoke still swirling, I see his cold eyes coming into focus through the dark shroud.
They carry their usual stony detachment, the scene giving him no grief at all. Whether there’s a reaction in his mind I don’t know, but his expression isn’t showing it. He stares upon it all, his head slowly turning to take it all in, and I feel a burning anger rise up through me.
He must know about this. He must know who’s behind it. He must be part of this terrible plot, so high up as he is among his people.
Standing there, looking at his own City Guards lying dead and dying, sent here on patrol and to keep watch. Yet he knew all along that this place would be the next scene of devastation. That his men would die.
And he sent them here anyway.
My fists ball and my eyes burn brighter. His face appears as if it’s right there before me, my vision taking me so far into his pale blue eyes I feel I may get lost.
Another reason to despise the colour.
And watching him, I notice his eyes change and shift. I blink hard and find my vision pulling back, and open my eyes to see them staring now at me. Hidden in the shadows, I wonder if he can see me.
The recognition on his face becomes clear, and with a sudden step, he begins pacing forward.
No, not this time. I have no interest in treating with you.
I slink back further, fading into the darkness, and notice him stopping on the spot. His head cocks slightly in confusion.
Then I turn on my heels and begin running.
I need to get back to the academy.
44
My lungs and legs are burning when I reach the threshold of Carmichael’s.
I press on through and into the main hall, which I find deserted. That’s not unexpected. It’s hardly a popular hangout spot for the residents here.
The common ro
om, however, is, and especially at a time like this. News may have begun to filter through about the attack. The kids will be gathering about that TV set like flies around a bright light.
Moving through the hall, I feel my feet sliding, and almost lose my footing. I look down and see that I’m leaving a trail of blood on the wooden floor, the soles of my feet cut up from my jog through the city.
I quickly stop and move around the side of the reception desk. Opening up a drawer, I find some tissues inside which I fashion into a temporary bandage, wrapping up my left foot – which appears to be more heavily afflicted – to stop the flow of blood.
I grimace in pain. Only now, with my heart rate slowing and adrenaline waning, does it start to show, my feet throbbing and stabbing at me as I lay them back to the floor.
With more of a hobble now, and keeping my weight off my left foot, I continue on towards the common room. The trail of bloody footprints will have to wait.
As I reach the corridor, all is quiet but for the muted sound of a single voice coming from the common room door. I burst through to find the room completely full, and yet in almost total silence. The one voice belongs to a TV reporter, standing on the outskirts of the market I just left.
Eyes turn to me. Eyes of girls and boy of different ages, all huddled together in silence. It’s a rare thing to see, these rowdy kids so subdued. And rarer still are the glinting, shining tears that cover many of their eyes.
My chest tightens and constricts.
Something’s happened.
I cast my eyes over the room and a little frame drifts from the crowd. Abby moves towards me, her head arching up the closer she gets until she’s right in front of me.
Her eyes are wet.
“What’s the matter, Abby?” I ask, dropping to my knees in front of her.
The same names as before rush through my head.
Tess.
Drum.
Mrs Carmichael.
She sniffs out another name. And then another after it.
