by T. C. Edge
She’s already dead…
I enter her mind so easily now. I slip right in, and let the order drift from my mind to hers.
Take the gun from my jacket. Put it to your temple. Pull the trigger.
I repeat the order as I’ve learned to do. I feel it spread and filter through her, embedding down deep, deeper than ever before. Yet it’s different this time, her mind working to fight back.
I feel myself repelled, feel my order thrown out. I refocus and try again, and bend her to my will with all I have.
Take the gun from my jacket, I say again. Put it to your temple. Pull the trigger.
The order starts to take hold. A darkness pervades her mind as it sinks and infuses through her consciousness. Gradually, it locks in. She’s unable to fight back.
I drift out and see her eyes. They stare, pale blue and empty, a dampness forming in their corners. I feel an awful pinch of pain at what I see, but it doesn’t stop me. I pull aside my jacket, revealing the pistol.
Her fingers creep from her rags and take a grip of the handle. I can see the struggle in her as she draws it out, some part of her still trying to fight the terrible order I’ve given her.
Shaking, her sallow index finger slips against the trigger, and her arm lifts and places the tip of the gun to her temple. My chest stiffens and my breathing grows short as I watch her finger hover, slowly pressing down.
A part of me wants to stop it, to reach out and grab the gun. To fling it away and leave this poor woman alone.
But another part doesn’t. Another part just watches as she works, as she shivers and trembles, as she squeezes the little switch that will end her life, right here, right now.
She pulls a little harder, and my chest tightens a little more, and the mist seems to thicken, swirling about us on a light breeze.
Any second now…click, boom, dead.
Forget Cromwell. This will be the first life I take.
With a battle raging in me, and her, her final act on this earth takes place. Her index finger pulls a little bit more, and the trigger clicks to signal her doom.
I feel my eyes wishing to shut, but they don’t. The click echoes through my head, but brings with it no other sound.
The barrel doesn’t burst. No bullet shoots from its end.
The woman’s eyes rush open wider, confused. Then she tries to click again, and the same thing happens.
No discharge. No bullet. Nothing.
Over and over, she clicks and clicks. And each time, her temple stays intact.
The gun is empty.
Then I feel a presence to my side, and see Zander’s form appearing through the mist. He moves in front of the woman and takes the gun from her hand, before holding his palm to her cheek and looking into her eyes.
Within seconds, they come back to life, and a few salty tears suddenly flow down her cheeks.
“It’s OK,” whispers my brother. “It’s OK now.”
Slowly, her eyes grow numb again, and then begin to close. She leans back, breathing lightly, and drops into a calm slumber.
I turn to my brother with a whisper, a realisation now beginning to form in my head.
“It was you,” I say, a heavy frown swamping my eyes. “You put an order in my head. You made me do it…to give her the order.”
He nods. “Yes. You would never have done it otherwise, would you? Of course you wouldn’t. I was never going to have you kill an innocent woman, Brie. I just wanted to see if you could do it.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me the gun was empty?”
“Because then you’d have known, and it wouldn’t have tested you so much.”
“But it didn’t test me. You made me do it…”
“I made you try, yes. It was you who succeeded.”
It’s all too much. I feel drained and strangely ashamed that he could manipulate me so easily. And worst of all, I didn’t even know he’d done it. It felt a little odd, for sure, but not completely unnatural. Only now does it fully dawn what an awful thing I was doing.
“I’m sorry if I manipulated you like that, Brie. But it just goes to show how strong you are now…”
“More like how strong you are,” I mutter. “You made me do that with such ease. I wish it was you doing this mission instead of me. Can’t we just smuggle you in or something? Once you’re in the High Tower, maybe you could just get it done…”
“Brie…no. I’d be caught and killed, and so would you, and so would Adryan, and all of this would come crashing right down. You should have more faith in yourself. You can do this. I know you can…”
“Yeah, well you have more faith in me than I do.”
“Because I know exactly what you can do. Everything I can do, you can do. And you’re learning much quicker than I ever did.”
“Not quick enough,” I mumble. “It still takes me a while to impart an order. You can do it with barely a glance.”
“Yeah, and you’ll be able to as well.”
“With Savants? These Disposables are all well and good, but they’re hardly the sharpest tools in the shed.”
He seems to concede on that point, nodding along in agreement.
“You’ll get your chance to test your powers against better brains, I’m sure of that. And you know what, we’ll start with mine. You need to learn how to block mental intrusions, and shield your own memories…”
“Like you did the other day? With Mrs Carmichael and me?”
“Exactly. I can’t be relied upon to conceal your memories, especially when you’re over in Inner Haven. And if a Mind-Manipulator gets into your head and you can’t defend yourself, you’ll be found out straight away.”
“That doesn’t sound good. So, you’re going to teach me how to do that?”
“It’s the final thing you need to know,” he says, nodding. “For now at least. Once you’ve got the basics, it’s all about practice. Just, don’t go overdoing it with what you’ve learned so far. You never know who might be watching.”
With that warning filtering through my head, we turn our attention back to the man I’d sent off to get bread. Naturally, I suggest to Zander that we return here after to take this poor woman beside us down to the underlands. I ask the same thing with each person, but mostly he tells me it can’t be done.
Seeing, however, as I got this woman to try to kill herself – or at least she thought she was going to – I feel like I owe her.
“Your heart is too soft sometimes, Brie,” muses Zander. I can’t tell if it’s a criticism or not. Having a kind heart doesn’t sound like a bad thing, right?
Of course, his thinking is purely that things are bigger than any one person, and that I can’t go off on a crusade trying to save every Disposable we find. At the end of the day, if my mission succeeds, then that’ll have a far greater impact on not only the people around here, but across the whole of the city as well, Inner Haven included.
Still, given the state of play, Zander agrees to help this woman.
“We’ll go and check on our courier first, then come back here and fetch her. We’ll pair her up with Ricky or something. Right, come on, let’s see about that bread.”
We ease back through the deserted streets and alleys, past run-down and mostly empty buildings, the mist still hugging the air as the day trundles on. By now, as the hour grows late, the chances of running into Con-Cop patrols will heighten.
The Stalkers, too, who enjoy hunting at night most of all, are an ever present threat in these parts. Knowing this all too well, Zander makes sure we walk with a little more vigilance, hushing me any time I try to talk to him.
When we reach the alley where I sent the man off on his task, we find it deserted. I check my watch and note that sufficient time has passed for him to have made it to the market and back.
“Where is he?” I ask, turning to my brother.
His eyes have narrowed. There’s a tension in him that wasn’t there before.
“Was my order wrong?” I wonder out loud.
>
He shakes his head.
“I doubt it. Something may have happened to him. We shouldn’t linger here, Brie.”
“Why? Shouldn’t we wait a little…see if he comes? He hasn’t had that much time, has he?”
Zander shakes his head, slowly scanning the streets now.
“No,” he says smoothly. “We don’t wait. Come on…”
With a bit more haste, we return to the woman beneath the underpass, rushing with more urgency now. As we arrive, however, sifting through the thick mist to where we found her, Zander reaches out to stop me.
“What are you…”
“Shhhh,” he says, staring forward.
I do the same, and search through gaps in the smog. And as I do, the sound of voices drift towards us on the wind, and the shapes of bodies appear as shadows in the haze.
Zander immediately shifts me over behind the cover of the bridge. I move away from him and send my eyes down through the tunnel, and find three men standing over the defenceless woman. She’s still asleep, her mind switched off by Zander.
“We have to help her,” I say.
Zander tugs at my arm, dragging me away.
“We’re going back down, now,” he says.
“NO! You put her in that position. You put her to sleep. We’re not letting them take her,” I protest through gritted teeth.
Zander’s strong grip stays on me, and he pulls me right in front of him. I note his pupils dilating a little and he fixes me with that stare of his. And somewhere in my head, I feel him again.
He’s trying to manipulate me…
I fight back this time, battling him away. For a couple of seconds, we duel in my head, before the world materialises around me again.
“Get the hell out of my head!” I snarl. “We’re helping that woman, whether you like it or not.”
Now, on some sudden whim, it’s me who staggers into his consciousness. And it’s me who tries to subdue him with an order of my own. He repels me, kicking me right out.
“As much as I’m enjoying this cerebral scuffle, we’re wasting time,” he says with a droll slant to his eyes. “That was good, by the way. You knocked me right back…”
“Well…great. But this woman!”
I step off again. Zander’s grip on my arm isn’t going anywhere.
“Fine. God, if she means that much to you. They’re only Con-Cops. It won’t be a problem.”
“You’re sure? They’re not Stalkers?”
He huffs.
“Stalkers don’t bother with Disposables. I’ll go and sort them out. Wait here.”
He lets go of my arm and steps towards the wall. Now it’s my turn to grip his arm, strong and lean.
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.
69
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 u
p 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.
