THE WEAPON OF POWER. CHAPTERS 1-6
1.
THE PROPHECY RETURNS
Fear the void.
Fear the temptation to peer into the future. Beware this power that lets you enter the place where all moments from times to come can be witnessed. It is not a gift, and the dead will remind you that if you give in to these desires. If you enter the void and push yourself to look just that little further forward than you can withstand. Then the void will consume you.
She’d pushed the girl though. Pushed her hard. Pushed her right to the very edge of what her mind could withstand. Right up to its fracturing point.
There’d been no other way, of course. In the seventeen years since the Oracle’s death, the girl, Racquet was her name, had been the first future-seer with the predictive ability anywhere near as sharp as the metic who’d been considered more powerful than any who’d come before her. The one they’d called, the Oracle.
It was said she could move as freely through the void as regular people do through their own memories. Yet even the Oracle’s mind had almost been completely torn apart when she’d risked everything to descend to the very heart of the void and gaze upon all the secrets of the universe.
Down there, fighting against the unrelenting forces of the vortex, she’d witnessed a future where a weapon of such power would be constructed that its master could use it to bend the entire nation to his will, for all days to come.
The Archon knew he had to be that master. From the moment his spies came to him with news of the Oracle and her prophecy, the leader of the Directory’s every waking thought became consumed with taking the weapon into his possession.
It had to be his. His and no one elses.
No matter what it took to get it. No matter the cost. Even if that cost would eventually mean killing the Oracle to stop her from revealing the weapon’s secrets to anyone but him. Even if that meant waiting years – almost a lifetime, in fact – and sacrificing hundreds of other future-seers in his quest to get back that which he wanted more than anything.
The Archon would give everything for the weapon.
So what if Racquet’s predictive abilities were stronger than anyone had seen in a generation? It meant nothing if she couldn’t travel to where the Oracle had gone, and retrieve the vision the Oracle had seen. That was why Racquet had to be pushed. The orders were clear, the girl came back with the Oracle’s last prophecy, or she didn’t come back at all.
“Wait? Did the predictor stop breathing?”
The physician’s assistant asked, chocking on the food in his mouth.
“Are you serious?”
A table was knocked over and plates shattered on the floor as the two men sprang to their feet.
“Quick, feel for a pulse.”
Nakano heard urgent footsteps as the two men rushed to the dual cots set up in the middle of the room. Then a pause as one of them checked the vein on Racquet’s wrist. Nakano already knew the answer he’d find.
“Nothing.” The assistant’s voice was a dry, terrified whisper.
“Start resuscitating her! I’ll check the beacon?”
When it came to navigating the void there were always two. One to journey into the vortex, and one to show the way home. A predictor and her beacon.
Beacons straddled the divide between the real world and the one that lay just beyond it, guiding their future-seer companion home after her time navigating the vortex was complete.
In the Directory, there was no better beacon than Nakano.
No one else could’ve kept Racquet alive for the three days she needed to make the long descent. No one but Nakano had the stamina to hold the tether between their two minds in place for over seventy-two hours as the distance between the two women stretched to an eternity, and the link became so fragile she could barely feel it.
It was exhausting work. Yet, the greatest strain on Nakano’s mind came at the end, when she was forced to commit the necessary evil. It made her concentration slip, and the void’s vortex captured her.
To break free and cross the divide back into the real world, Nakano held the final image of the last prophecy in her mind and clung every fiber of her being into it.
Sometime in the future, as two armies were locked in a great battle, a massive wave of blue light would appear and swallow them both whole in an instant. When the wave was gone, so were the enemy’s forces, and the war that had raged her whole life. That had cost this nation the lives of countless thousands, including her sister’s, was over.
“Nakano can you hear me? It’s Doctor Lommott.” The physician grunted as his assistant continued trying to revive Racquet.
“We have a problem.”
She mumbled something but her tongue was slack in her mouth.
“We’ve just lost the future-seer! Do you understand? Racquet’s heart has stopped! Can you tell me what happened in the void?”
His words stirred in her mind a memory of Racquet crying out as she felt the link that bound their minds together disappear.
“What are you doing?” She screamed telepathically through the tap.
“What I must.” Nakano responded.
Strange, that felt like a lifetime ago. Had it only been in the last few minutes that she’d cut the tether and let Racquet’s mind be destroyed.
“Irenic Nakano? I need to know what happened.”
Lommott was frantic. He had good reason to be scared she thought. She’d signed his death warrant the moment she killed the girl.
“What happened was, I did my job. I got her back.”
Her voice sounded terribly weak to her ears. When she tried to move her arms, they felt like rubber. This plan of hers was not going to work if she didn’t even have the strength to stand.
“Well, she stopped breathing and we cannot detect a pulse.” The physician told her.
Nakano glanced across at the pretty dark-skinned girl with freckles on her nose lying in the cot next to her. Racquet was barely eighteen, just a child.
Nakano was still holding her hand, their fingers intertwined like lovers. A romantic display so starkly in contrast to what she’d done in the other world.
Nakano wished she could’ve completed her mission without eliminating Racquet. Yet, it had to be done. The Archon had insisted the girl be normalized, and that twisted process was designed to be irreversible. Once they brainwashed you into becoming a loyal Directory agent, there was no going back.
At least they can’t get to you any longer, she thought as she let go of Racquet’s hand. You’re free.
Now, it was down to her to make sure Racquet’s sacrifice meant something.
“It was a long journey back.”
She panted loudly through clenched teeth as she forced herself onto her feet.
“Maybe her heart failed her as we crossed the divide, but you have to save her, Physician. She witnessed the last prophecy. She has the information we need about the weapon in her head.”
The physician paused and licked his lips.
“She saw it?” He asked.
“In its entirety.”
Lommott’s assistant was still working to resuscitate Racquet. The physician pushed him out of the way and began doing the job himself.
“Should I get the adrenalin?”
His assistant pointed to a syringe on a nearby table loaded with an angry red cocktail.
“Not yet!” Said Nakano.
“You know, the chemists get the mix wrong more often than they get it right.” She added explaining herself. “We use that and we’re more likely to kill her than save her.”
“Fine.” Lommott grunted. “We’ll try this for another minute, then I’m not wasting any more time. We’ll go straight to preserving the body so we can protect her brain for the skin-readers.”
She nodded. One minute was all she needed.
As Lommott barked orders at his assistant to unlock the freezer and prepare the ice bath, Nakano staggered to a nearby basin where she slapped cold water against her face. Through a nearby window, she could see the city of Metropolitan Fifteen thirty-floors below. It was daytime. That was good. She’d be able to move more freely through the streets without having to worry about the curfew.
There was a latch at the back of the basin. She released it and slipped her hand into the small opening, her fingers finding the item she’d hidden there three days before.
“This is not working.”
The physician snapped after only thirty seconds.
“Make the call!” He ordered. “We have less than a couple of minutes to get a clean read.”
“Help me to the telephone?”
She held out her hand for the him to support her. When he took it, she drove the knife right up to the handle into his chest.
The assistant was distracted with noisily dumping ice into the bath that would be used to preserve Racquet’s body. He didn’t notice a thing until his boss slumped heavily onto the ground.
“What’s happening?” He asked, more confused than concerned.
When he saw the blood start to seep out from underneath Lommott, he only had time to express his utter disbelief before Nakano sliced the blade across his field of vision and opened a tear across the length of his neck.
His eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled to the ground next to the physician who to Nakano’s surprise was still alive.
“Help!” He coughed as he squirmed in pain.
“If you want to get the guards’ attention, you’ll need to try harder than that, Physician.”
Nakano stepped over his body and walked to a locker where she’d hung her uniform three days previously.
“Why?” He grunted. “The Archon would’ve made us rich.”
That warmed her, fed her body the strength she’d need over the days to come. The reminder that there’d never been any real loyalty in the Directory. The Archon’s people only followed him out of fear or because he could cater to the worst elements of their personality; greed and hatred being the most common. It’s why the resistance would eventually win.
“I have all the reward I need up here.”
She tapped a finger to her forehead. It took a moment for the shock to register on the physician’s face.
“You transferred the prophecy.” He gasped.
“Every moment of it.”
The physician went silent after that. Long enough that Nakano thought he’d finally expired. Yet, when she was fully dressed he spoke.
“Nothing will change.”
Bubbles of blood stained his lips.
“There’ll never be a weapon powerful enough to destroy an army as great as the Directory. No matter who its master is.”
Nakano remembered the vision she’d seen of the future. The explosion of light. The destruction of the enemy’s forces.
She smiled.
“We’ll see.”
2.
COOP AND LEE
“Keep your head up, Cooper! Don’t let her corner you, Riley!”
On the grounds of a lost civilization lake house, by a rocky outcrop that looked out onto the water, they'd marked out a confined grid between two uprooted great oaks.
Bathed in the first rays of a cold fall morning, the twins completed their first routine of the day; combat training. Already their lightweight training clothes were stained with dirt and soaked through with sweat. Both were panting heavily as they were driven to the point of exhaustion. Yet their mentor, a bear-human blend named Acadia, didn’t let up. If anything, seeing them so physically spent only made him push them harder.
Nearby, their father stood watching. With hands clasped behind his back and his face as impassive and unemotional as the mountains behind him, he rarely spoke a word during this time. Leaving it to the grizzly to train them how he saw fit.
“Hey ladies, you’re starting to bore me.” Acadia boomed and pelted the girls with acorns scooped from the ground.
“Stop that!” Riley complained when one of them hit her on the jaw. “They hurt, you know.”
“Would you prefer I motivated you with my bow instead?”
“Are you kidding me?” Cooper grumbled as she cut down with her sword. “The last time you did that I almost lost a foot.”
“The arrow barely grazed you.” He replied dismissively but his eyes twinkled with mischief.
“I couldn’t walk for a week!”
Taking her eyes off her sister to glare at him, Cooper left her body exposed and Riley jabbed her hard between the ribs with her fighting-staff.
“Ouch! Not so hard idiot!”
Cooper rubbed the spot where she’d been struck and mouthed obscenities.
“It’d sting more if she’d cut you with the real thing.” The grizzly reminded her idly.
When they trained they only fought with wooden equivalents of their real weapons.
“Really? Are you sure?” Cooper replied with salty contempt.
“Do you want me to show you?”
Acadia held up his massive hand so she could see the tips of his retractable claws.
She bit her lip cause she knew he’d do it.
“No.”
“Good. Then let’s go again. And this time concentrate! I don’t know what’s wrong with you this morning, Coop.”
That had to be a lie, thought Riley as she once again squared up to her sister. Acadia had to know that today of all days they’d be distracted, and that Cooper would be the worse of the two. She’d been talking about nothing else but this day for over a month.
“Begin.” Acadia grunted.
Armed with a wooden sword no longer than her arm, Cooper immediately lunged for her sister, cutting and thrusting forward. When Riley used her fighting staff to parry both blows meticulously, Cooper lunged for her again, believing – as she always did – that she could create a weakness through sheer force of will.
Riley fought more conservatively. Always retreating and parrying blows, always waiting for her opponent to tire and present a weakness for her to exploit. It came when Cooper once again lost focus and Riley used the opening to crack her staff against her sister’s knuckles.
“Sorry.” She said as she watched Cooper suck on her fingers.
“I don’t need your pity!” Her sister seethed with unexpected venom.
“No she doesn’t.” Acadia agreed. “And never apologize to your opponent for beating them, Lee. It’s not your fault when you’re better than them.”
That would make Cooper see red, Riley suspected. She also knew Acadia didn’t care. He was ursinian after all – part-bear – and like many of his kind said what he pleased. You could do that when you were over seven feet tall, bull-necked and as broad as a tree, with a large hump-like mass of muscle on your shoulders.
“Maybe we should call it a day.”
He huffed, scratching at his button-like nose that gave his face an almost baby-like appearance.
“No, we go again!” Cooper refused.
“Pick up your staff, Lee!”
Cooper kicked the staff to her sister then took up her position. Digging her feet into the sand to find purchase.
Riley gave her sister a tired look. “Do we have to, I’m …”
Exhausted, she was going to say. Yet, the moment she had her staff even slightly elevated, Cooper pounced.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She asked as Cooper brutally pounded her sword against Riley’s fighting staff again and again.
Cooper didn’t answer, and Riley had seen her sister become possessed by her anger before. Her pride had been wounded. She wanted revenge, and wouldn’t stop till she got it.
“Hey! This is not my fault.”
Riley tried to remind her when her sister shoved her to the ground. She wasn’t the distracted one, the one who hadn’t slept in days because she was too excited.
“Calm down!”
She added, but that only seemed to enrage Cooper more.
Seeing Riley with her back up against the trunk of one of the fallen oaks, Cooper pressed her advantage. She attacked for what she must’ve thought would be the final time. Yet, lacking finesse, she gave Riley an opening to both parry the blow and then to step nimbly around her, reversing their positions.
Now Cooper was up against the tree.
Riley swung her staff down to cut her sister at her waist but found nothing but air. Cooper had dropped down into the splits and curved her chest backward to miss the strike.
The advantage was gone and a furious Cooper was rolling and slicing before Riley could inflict another blow. So she retreated across the grid, her feet kicking up sand as she ran. When she got to the opposite fallen oak, she used her momentum to vault her body up onto the trunk.
“Coward!” Cooper snapped tartly.
“Tell her, she’s to get back in the grid.” She told Acadia.
He shook his head. “Sometimes the rules change, little one. Adapt.”
The younger twin gave him a cold stare before turning her attention back to her sister.
“Get back here!” She said pointing at her feet.
“Why don’t you come join me, little one?”
Riley lazily swung the fighting staff like a windmill above her head, her feet dancing as she moved down the trunk of the tree right over the lip of the outcrop.
“Or are you worried I’ll hurt your pride when I push you off?” She added unable to stop herself.
Cooper deserved to be teased, and not just because of this morning’s hysterics. She was the better marksman and archer of the pair, and gloated about it openly whenever they practiced. It was time for Riley to take her ego down a peg or two.
Cooper’s eyes narrowed and she rankled her nose in disgust. Then she was on the tree, charging her sister down.
For a moment all of her lunges came up short as the tree’s branches kept constricting her. Then Cooper leapt down to a branch below Riley and reached for her foot to trip her. Before she could, something snapped loudly and Cooper only had time to cry out in frustration before her body crashed down into the lake.
When she surfaced, she was less hurt than humiliated. Her embarrassment only magnified by the sound of Riley’s laughter.
“You look like a drowned cat.”
Riley giggled and with Cooper’s dark hair plastered against her skull, there was some truth to it.
Cooper didn’t see anything funny about it and looked at Riley with an almost feverish rage.
“I’m not done with you.” She ranted.
“Looks like it from where I’m standing.” Riley pointed out.
Still laughing, she casually made her way back up the tree. That was until something invisible swiped against her ankles and drove her off her feet.
She fell flat on her face and rolled off the tree, her body hitting the water in a painfully loud belly-flop. When her head came above the water’s surface all she could hear was mocking laughter.
“I can't believe you tripped, what an idiot!”
Cooper roared with obvious satisfaction, her rage instantly extinguished at Riley’s expense.
“Something pushed me!” Riley protested.
“Who?” Cooper asked pointing at the tree.
“Wait!” She added, a devilish thought flashing behind her eyes.
“Perhaps it was me. Perhaps I did it with the power I can wield in my little finger.”
“Get off me!”
Riley snapped, flicking away Cooper’s pinky when her sister tried to stick it in her ear.
“Get out of the water you two.”
Acadia ordered from the top of the bluff.
“Something pushed me!”
Riley protested again, with a childish whine.
“An invisible man perhaps?”
Riley shrugged. “I didn't trip.”
“It's not going to change the fact that you're in the water.” He responded dryly. “Now come on out, Whiskers has returned.”
The twins looked to the shore and saw a dark figure standing by their father’s side.
Dressed in the garments of the Sekhem warrior caste, she wore a dark grey loose tunic-cloak over dark clothing that looked to be almost wrapped around her body like bandages. On her head, she wore a tight head-cloth, and her eyes were hidden behind thick black goggles.
It was Mayat, the felisian or feline-human in their service.
“Welcome back, Whiskers.”
The felisian hated the nickname and visibly bristled every time Acadia said it. For that reason alone, he did it at every opportunity.
“What’s the story?”
Asked Cooper as she shivered in her wet clothes and hugged her sister for warmth. The girl’s anger toward each other had been instantly forgotten in the excitement of Mayat’s return, and the news she was bringing.
Their father looked at them with his usual blank expression. If there was ever going to be a time for him to change his mind and send them back to the ranch this would be it.
Then he told them what they'd wanted to hear for the last seven years.
“It's safe for us to go.”
3.
A NECESSARY LIE
Acadia asked Mayat to take the girls back to the wagon to dry and change. After they’d left, the grizzly joined Quill at the shoreline of the lake.
It was still early in the morning and a thin layer of mist hovered just above the smooth as glass surface giving it an ethereal quality that beckoned you to enter. A silent Quill watched it with hypnotic longing and wondered what he'd find if he plunged to its depths. In the cold suffocating darkness would he be able to reach across the boundary that separated the living world and the one that existed just beyond it? Would he be able to find her down there, he wondered? Would she come for him?
“You have something to say?” He asked breaking the silence.
He knew what was coming. The moment Riley fell off the tree into the water he knew they were going to have to have this conversation. It still irritated him. He didn’t like to speak on this topic and yet in the last few months it was all his old ursinian friend wanted to discuss.
“You saw what happened?”
Both men stood together but looked out across the water toward a line of lost civilization ruins that were slowly crumbling into the water.
“I did.” Quill replied.
“Should we be worried about snoopers?”
Acadia was referring to the Archon’s telepathic army. Hundreds of psychics in every Directory city, scanning the nation day and night for spies, rebels or metics.
“It was only a small disturbance. I’m not concerned.”
Quill had a handful of pebbles. He idly skimmed one across the surface and concentrated on keeping his temper measured.
“What about the girls? You think they suspect anything?”
“No. They thought nothing of it either.”
“Maybe, but if these things keep happening they'll get suspicious.”
When the grizzly spoke softly his voice sounded thick with gravel, as if it had been dragged over the very pebbles they stood upon.
“Suspicions can be erased if required.” Quill replied stone-faced.
He was a lean man now having lost much of the muscle he'd had in his youth. To look at him you wouldn't think he was only in his forties. His face was too rough, his eyes too sad, his hair too grey. So much had changed in the last seventeen years that he was barely recognizable from the man he’d once been, outside and in.
“You don’t have to worry. I have them under control.” He added.
That caught Acadia by surprise.
“Are you sure? Cause from where I was standing, I'd say the box you built to hold your daughter’s secret in is starting to come apart.”
Quill didn’t flinch at the criticism.
“It’s time to tell them, my friend. They're ready.” Acadia added with a softer tone.
“They’re only seventeen, Caddy. That’s still too young.”
“This nation demands you grow up fast. You of all people should remember that.”
“I remember the blows hurting more at their age. And the scars I have from then are deeper, too. That’s what I remember.”
“Then when?” Acadia pressed.
“When I say so, and not before.”
That made the ursinian growl.
“Like it or not those girls are growing up and soon they're going to want to know what part they'll play in this nation. When that time comes, you won't be able to stop them and this land is unforgiving to people who can't protect themselves from it.”
Quill already knew this, it was exactly what scared him.
“If I do what you say and they're not careful, the Directory will find them like that.”
He clicked his fingers. Then sighing he added.
“It’s too big a risk.”
“They have a gift, Quill. One they could use to help the resistance win this war.”
Quill shook his head.
“I’ve already given this war one person I love. I will not give it any more.”
Acadia opened his mouth to respond then thought better of it. He was no longer in the mood to rehash an argument they’d been through a hundred times before.
“I'm going to get some coffee.” He huffed after rolling his big globular head around his shoulders to ease the tension in his neck.
Grabbing his coat he made to leave but paused after noticing something unusual. There was a faint message carved into one of the larger boulders on the beach.
It was worn almost smooth by the elements and time and was just one of many thousands of similar inscriptions littered throughout the nation. They’d been made by a dying group of people trying to leave one last mark on a world that had suddenly grown weary of them.
“Why don't you ask this person how prepared he was to survive?” Acadia asked. “If you search around the void I'm sure you'll find him. I doubt he went far.”
Then he spoke the parting words they'd once cried out to each other on the battlefield when they were young and brave. Today they sounded hollow and meaningless.
“Live free or fight on, my friend.”
Quill continued to stare at the boulder long after Acadia had gone. The grizzly was probably right, the message was carved by a person who didn’t expect to live long.
It read simply:
“There’s no one left.”
4.
ONE CIVILIZATION FALLS, ONE RISES
What came first, the great plague or the wars? Those who still cared to discuss it, thought it was the Dark Storm that started it all – the name given to the great plague that swept the world – but no one alive in this time could ever be certain; writings from those turbulent days no longer existed.
What they did know was that in the year 2025, now over a quarter-millennia ago, the unthinkable happened. One day it was said there were as many humans on the earth as grains of sand on a beach. Then within the blink of an eye the shoreline was swept clean.
The Dark Storm took ninety souls for every hundred and the wars took almost all the rest. What remained for those who survived was lawlessness and chaos.
In the first few months after the outbreak, scientists believed a cure could be found. Only humans seemed susceptible to the plague so they believed humanity’s survival lay in blending the genetic code of man with animals.
That's how the mutants were born, though in this new civilization they were simply known as ‘blends’.
There were many kinds of blend but the most well-known were the felisians, ursinians, houndsmen, scalies, ratties and serviles. And though their existence was the result of a series of desperate scientific experiments, the blends had over the centuries developed their own way of life, some even their own language.
The felisians, like the cats they took after, were reclusive types and kept to themselves. If rumors were to be believed, they lived in a secret city that no one outside of their own kind was allowed to enter.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, were the giant bear-human, ursinians. Loud, grouchy, and so intimidatingly massive you could almost feel their presence before you saw them. In peace time they were men and women of honor. Yet, in times of war, they were the fiercest of warriors.
Loyal, happy, playful and persistently hungry, the houndsmen were as much dog as they were human and exhibited such traits. With their near limitless energy, they were excellent trappers, cattlemen and farmers. Yet, if there was mischief to be had you could be sure they’d be at the center of it.
Scalies, ratties and serviles – part-lizard, part-rat and part-toad, respectively – exhibited all the worst qualities of the human personality. They were scheming, sly and devious and given the opportunity, they’d stab you in the back for little more than the money in your pocket. They were Directory men through-and-through.
* * *
The scientists created another group of mutants during the Dark Storm. Not basics or blends, they were something different altogether: the metics.
No one called them that, of course. If you were to refer to a person who had the ability to teleport across short distances, or create a lightening bolt in the palm of their hand, you’d call them a ‘crink’.
Crinks could speak to one another over great distances and use their abilities to make themselves stronger and faster. With just a thought they could move heavy objects or push themselves through the air like a bird. Some of the gifted ones, the truly special crinks, could even see far into the future.
* * *
Years dragged on and still the wars persisted. Those scientists who were left became more desperate and reached ever deeper into their bag of tricks to see what else they could create. Unbound by laws that no longer existed, they continued to manipulate and mix creatures. Not just with man but with each other and not just with the ones that had existed in their own time but with ancient beasts from civilizations long extinct. This was how the colossals came to be.
The deadly raptors that lived in the southern swamps, the mammoths that roamed the Great Unknown to the north and the mythological dragons that attacked from the air. All these beasts and more now walked the earth.
Yet, it was all in vain.
The world of men continued to disappear. Governments, gone. Armies, gone. Police, gone. Order, gone. Soon the scientists themselves were gone and when they died they took their great knowledge with them.
Gone went their technology, their medicines, their history, their culture, their art. The Dark Storm and the wars took everything man had once come to rely upon as quickly and decisively as the light on a candle being snuffed out.
Within a decade the world had changed. For the next two hundred and fifty years all that was left for those who remained was the rising and setting of the sun and the fight to survive.
5.
THE UNSEEN SHADOW
Two mornings before the twins would train on the shore of a Borderland lake with no name, an old resistance soldier watched the delipidated streets of Metropolitan Fifteen through a small window in the basement of a café. And waited.
Three-days had passed since Nakano's signal, and Kamran's heart pounded with a mix of anticipation and dread. He clutched an old watch in his pocket, its ticking a constant reminder of the time that had slipped away, tick by tick. Eighty hours vanished like smoke, leaving Kamran restless and hollow-eyed.
With the arrival of dawn, church bells announced the end of curfew and only seconds later the café erupted with the sounds of life. There was always a sense of jubilation among the citizens in those first few minutes of a new day and Kamran shared in their relief of making it through another long night.
Under the ever-present threat that loomed over the city, the night was always the desperate time. When you could hear the sick and old cry out and knew no one was coming. When you listened at the window for the sound of soldiers approaching and shook with terror as you prayed they weren’t coming for you. The night was also when you were left alone with nothing but your own thoughts and indulged in your worst unspoken fears.
Yet, nothing was ever unspoken under the Directory. Not with their army of snoopers. Those telepaths had the power to open the door to your mind and listen in on your every thought whenever they wanted. Hear you sing about what you really feared and what you truly desired.
Something caught Kamran’s eye outside and he inched closer to the cellar window to see better.
She was moving like a field mouse. Hugging walls and hiding in the shadows to stay out of sight. Dashing across streets when she thought no one was looking. She swept passed the café’s entrance without pausing and darted down the adjacent alley.
“How easy was it to get out?”
He asked as she quickly descended into the cellar.
“As expected.”
Nakano told him as he bolted the door behind her.
“The predictor’s the one the guards are charged with protecting. As long as they believe she is safe they have no reason to detain me.”
Kamran nodded and led her further into the cellar. Underground, the oppressive weight of the snooper’s constant surveillance would be temporarily lifted and they could talk freely.
With only a single oil lamp to see by, Kamran saw Nakano note with little surprise that the cellar’s shelves were bare except for the usual thin black grime that pervaded every surface in the city. Food shortage was a way of life in the Directory.
The grime was from a nearby coal-fired power station that provided electricity to the Directory’s factories in Metropolitan Fifteen – once known as, Denver City. Day-and-night it belched dirty-black columns of smoke into the air from its tall chimney stacks. When it came down it stuck to everything.
“Is that my cover?”
Nakano pointed to a woman sleeping in a small cot tucked away out of sight in a corner of the cellar.
“The best I could do, I’m afraid.”
Kamran said almost apologetically as Nakano knelt to perform a quick examination.
“I was about to wake her, actually.” He spoke to fill the silence. “Was starting to believe this attempt through the void had been unsuccessful.
“What do you think?”
He asked when she’d finished checking the woman.
“She’ll do. Who is she?”
“I'd like to say she's a sympathizer to our cause but the reality is she needed food for her family, and she'll keep her mouth shut if the squeaks come to question her.”
There was a stack of civilian clothes at the foot of the woman’s cot. Without another word Nakano began unbuttoning her uniform.
When she took off her gloves Kamran tried not to gasp when he spied the coiled wire tattooed around her wrists. It was a Directory branding for their officers, the Irenics. Or, as they were more commonly referred to because of the sound their new leather boots made as they walked, the ‘squeaks’.
“So, you’re here.”
He didn’t have to say what that meant.
“I have it.”
She confirmed almost matter-of-factly as she slipped a shirt over her head.
“The whole thing. In my head right now. The prophecy, I have it, and it’s in motion.”
Her voice was surprisingly quiet, somber even. Yet, why wouldn’t it be? A fifteen-year odyssey had just come to an end and he had no doubt that the road to this place had been a hellish one. The things she’d have done to complete her mission. The people she’d have killed.
“Then maybe there’s still hope.” He said.
A commotion from outside interrupted them. Kamran snuffed out the lamp and rushed to the window. As he peered through a crack in the curtains his breath caught.
“Soldiers?”
She asked barely able to get the words passed her lips.
Struggling to swallow, he looked at her and nodded. She joined him at the cellar window and watched as a dozen armed Directory men marched their way.
“Just a patrol.”
He attempted to say confidently, smiling even as his lips trembled.
Without another word, Nakano walked back to where she’d left her uniform. She removed her pistol from the holster on her belt and turned it on herself, pressing the muzzle against her temple.
“What are you doing?” He was stunned.
“They mustn’t get the prophecy.”
She replied and calmly cocked the weapon.
He tried reaching for her. “Were you followed?”
She took a step away. “No, but there are other ways of monitoring my movements.”
“You told me, the Watcher’s psychic army was forbidden from looking into this city while your predictor was inside the void, remember?”
“I remember, but I’m not taking any chances.”
When the guards came to within a few feet of the café entrance, Kamran squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see Nakano pull the trigger. Then the patrol’s footsteps grew fainter and he heard her holster her weapon.
“I'm sorry you had to see that.”
She’d resumed tying her boots as if nothing had happened.
“These are dark days.”
He stammered having to sit and hug himself for a moment.
Not for the first time did he think they’d been wrong when they’d pushed Nakano to become a spy and infiltrate the Directory’s ranks. She’d been only fifteen when they’d recruited her. Still a child, and one who was mourning the death of her sister, Yin. They’d taken advantage of her and it was something he regretted.
“You know, I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard the Oracle had seen an amazing vision of the future.”
He said wanting to lighten the moment.
“No more wars. No more needless death. A nation at peace for the rest of time. What a wonderful idea that was.”
He gave a happy sigh.
“And where were you when you heard she’d been killed by the Archon’s men?” Nakano asked and his smile slipped from his face.
“How could a woman who could see everything miss something as important as that?”
There’d been no answers to that question seventeen years ago and she knew Kamran had nothing for her today. Yet, he could tell her one thing.
“I’m curious, were you there? When it was decided the people should be lied to. That they should be told we knew how to construct the weapon even though the Oracle had told us nothing before she was murdered. Were you in that room?”
“I was.” He looked at her directly. “And so was your sister.”
“Right. And during the long, dark nights we’ve had to live through these past seventeen years. Have you ever asked yourself if things would’ve turned out differently if you’d all just told us the truth?”
She was letting her years in the Directory command her tongue. When words were spoken only for the purpose of inflicting pain. Questions asked whose only answer was an admission of guilt.
So she changed the subject.
“What news of the resistance?”
He cleared his throat.
“From what little gets back to me, they’re still winning some battles, but they suffer heavy casualties for their successes. I’m afraid they’ll soon be overwhelmed and then all will be lost.”
“We still have time.” Nakano said standing determinedly. “And now we have the means to stop them.”
Kamran nodded and stood as well.
“The gateway to Charlottetown is scheduled to open in two hours. I have a contact near Hellanta who can get you to the resistance.”
“No.”
She interrupted as if she were remembering something anew at that very instant.
“I have to go into the Borderlands. When does the Harvardtown gate open?”
“In thirty minutes.” He checked his pocket watch. “But I don’t know of any resistance cell operating in the north.”
“I’m not going to the resistance.”
When she caught his expression, she clarified.
“That’s where the prophecy wants me to go.”
It was a terrible risk but he nodded his agreement. Like she’d said, the future was already in motion and he did not want to get in its way.
“Then let’s hurry.”
He directed her to sit at the head of the cot above the sleeping woman.
“Do you have my bag?” She asked.
Kamran grabbed a small satchel from an empty shelf.
“Everything you’ll need: identification papers, false travel documents that will clear you through the gateway. Bribing money if you need it. Some food.”
He also gave her a card.
“My contact in Hellanta.” He was referring to the city once known as Atlanta. “In case you find yourself needing the resistance.”
She memorized the name, location and code words before tearing the card to shreds. Then from her satchel, she fished out an old black-and-white photo. It was of an attractive couple on their wedding day. Standing on either side of them was a ten year old Nakano and her sister, Yin. It was the only possession Nakano had kept from before her time in the Directory.
“This will all be insignificant if I can’t get passed the gateway’s skin-reader.”
She pocketed the photo and looking down at the sleeping woman whose head now rested in her lap.
“Does she have her story straight?”
“She'll get you through.”
He replied offering her a glass filled with a tonic that looked like curdled milk. She drank it in one go.
“You should come with me.” She told him, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her coat. “When they find out I'm gone they'll come looking for me.”
She didn't have to say who’d come, Kamran already knew and his hands shook as he rinsed the glass out in the basin. Myrmidons.
“I'm needed here.” He declined with a smile. “Other people require my help to get out of the city. I can't abandon them.”
“Then this is goodbye.”
She said and in her first display of real emotion, she kissed his forehead.
“Perhaps we will see each other again.”
He tried to humor her but neither needed to be a predictor to know that if he stayed he was as good as dead.
“When the war ends, come find me?” She tapped after closing her eyes.
“I will.” He whispered to her as he started the cognitive transfer. “Even if it’s only in your dreams.”
Perhaps soon people could afford to do that again, he thought. To dream, and not have to worry they might be revealing their secrets to those who were always listening in.
If ever there was a chance of that happening, it was because of what was hiding in the head of the woman in front of him. Her mind held the secrets to a weapon that could crush the Directory’s army in an instant. For that’s what the Oracle’s last prophecy spoke of.
Kamran could barely fathom at what this weapon might be. Or who was destined to be its master.
6.
THE INVENTOR’S DAUGHTERS
Finished braiding her blonde hair, Riley, or Lee as she was more often called, pinned it back then hid it beneath a knitted beanie fished from her dark blue riding coat. Fastidious to the point of obsessive, she then spent the next few minutes double-checking the weapons hidden on her body.
The Sekhem fighting staff concealed in her coat, the shotgun holstered to the hip of her pants, and the hunting knife tucked into one of her high-riding boots. Everything had to be easily to hand. She'd been warned about the dangers lurking in the black-market souks and wanted to be ready in case they decided to seek her out.
Still anxious, her fingers by habit reached for the comfort of her mother's signet ring looped on a necklace around her neck. All the Elders of the Torchbearers had been given one, to press into hot wax when sealing their official documents. It was stamped with the Torchbearers symbol; a burning torch shining brightly against the night. Engraved on the inside of the band was the fighting-call of the Torchbearers army: ‘Live Free, or Fight On’.
Along with the wedding ring that hung around Cooper's neck, it was all the two girls had from their mother to remember her by. For this reason alone Riley never took it off.
“What are you so nervous about?”
Cooper asked as she sat down next to the fire and began spooning food into a bowl.
“I'm not nervous!”
Riley replied defensively, then blushed. She rarely raised her voice, so when she did, it was a clear sign she was agitated.
“Why'd you think that?” She asked forcing herself to sound calmer.
“You looked worried is all.”
Cooper spoke through a wide-yawn, already growing tired of the conversation. Then she pointed at Riley’s neck.
“And you're playing with mother's ring again. You know father will be upset if he catches you doing that without your gloves on.”
Riley cursed under her breath as she hid the necklace under her shirt. Then she grabbed her gloves from her coat pocket and put them on. Away from the ranch they weren't to touch anything barehanded, especially metal. Second to touching your skin, metal was the best way for the skin-readers to steal your thoughts.
What was it their father said?
“Cover your skin and never let your mind wonder. For the Directory is watching, and listening and hunting, always.”
“You know, if you’re worried about today, all you have to do is remember this. Whatever happens, it still beats doing chores back home.”
It was just the sort of thing you could expect Cooper to say. She liked to be care-free, cheeky and effervescent. Had marked out her territory as the rebel of the family since the day she was old enough to crawl and never left it.
Riley, on the other hand was far more even-keeled. Whereas Cooper was naturally impulsive and could be relied upon to engage her mouth before her brain, her sister was far more cautious. They were almost like the turtle and the hare from the bedtime tale; one slow and methodical, the other impatient and quick.
They shared other differences too, so many in fact it sometimes felt like the only common thread that bound the two girls together was their identical looks. Yet, they were identical; to look at them closely you’d find no more perfect copies had ever existed.
“If you really want to know what I was thinking, it was about father. I was wishing he wouldn’t worry about us all the time.”
Riley admitted with a sigh.
“But worrying about us is his favorite and only pastime. It’d be kind of mean to take that away from him.”
Riley chuckled. No denying it, her sister had a point there.
“I guess I keep thinking back to what he said about how the black market souks have changed. That they’ve grown more dangerous these last few years. That they’re now riddled with Directory spies and trappers.”
“So?”
“So, did we make a mistake demanding he take us this time?” Riley asked her sister.
Cooper sighed. She was tired of having this conversation with her sister.
“For the last time, Lee. If we let him, father will keep us hidden from the world for the rest of our lives.
“So, you have to ask yourself, do you want to be that old, ugly hag, we both know you’re going to end up as, whose never seen any more of this nation beyond that small sliver of land we call home? Or maybe, for once in your life, you could listen to your younger, more attractive and funnier sister, and be excited about doing more than planting seeds and shoveling manure. How about that?”
Riley rolled her eyes.
“What’s your point?”
“That our father is a paranoid, crazy person. Who, I bet, would find the Directory at the bottom of his coffee cup if he looked hard enough.”
There was a lot of truth to that, Riley had to admit. Their father was a wanted man – probably the most wanted man in the nation – and bore all the characteristics of a fugitive on the run; with one eye permanently fixed over his shoulder.
Cooper continued.
“Here’s the thing, Lee. He’s the metic. He’s the ‘Great Inventor’.”
She made quotation marks with her fingers.
“He’s the one the Directory’s looking for. So, if he can walk through the souks without trouble, why do you think anyone is going to give us a second look?”
“I guess you’re right.” Riley supposed.
“Of course I’m right. If there’s anything to worry about, it’s the rugged, but crazy handsome, blackhat who’s going to instantly fall in love with me the moment he lays eyes on me. He’s going to be a problem, for sure.”
Cooper’s eyebrows danced suggestively on her forehead.
“I have no doubt the blackhat will change his mind the moment he gets to know you.” Riley said.
“With talk like that you’ll find yourself excluded from our secret wedding.”
Riley gave an exasperated chuckle as she shook her head. Her sister was incorrigible.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid when we’re there. Okay, Coop?”
“Define stupid?”
“Anything that’s going to get us into trouble.”
Riley replied through clenched teeth.
Cooper put a hand on her heart. “I promise.”
Then she gave a knowing wink, and held up her other hand to show she’d crossed her fingers.
“I’m not the one who’ll get punished if father has to use his powers.” Riley said looking stern.
“Thanks for reminding me, Mom.” Cooper rolled her eyes.
“It’s important, Coop. If the souk suspects him of being an metic he won’t ever be able to return. Which means we won’t ever be able to return.”
“Because, if they think he’s a crink, they’ll think we are too.”
Cooper shot her sister the wink-and-gun as she recited the lecture their father had given them a hundred times.
“See, I can remember somethings.”
“It’s not a game, Coop. The men in those places know the reward the Directory pays for metics. They’ll come after us.”
“Then won’t they feel foolish when they learn we take after our mother and are nothing but a bunch of normals.”
Though their father was a powerful metic, he’d married a woman with no abilities and the twins had taken after her. It happened a lot they’d been told.
“What’s this?”
Cooper asked, changing the subject and finally inspecting what was in her bowl.
“It smells like a houndsman.” She gagged.
“I don't think Red would like to hear you say that.”
Redtail was a red-haired houndsman and their ranch-hand. They'd left him and Goose behind to guard the livestock.
“Then maybe he should take a bath more than once a month.”
Cooper joked as she tossed the bowl aside and reached for her boots.
Slipping them on, she worked out the stiffened black leather through a routine of pirouettes, hi-kicks, and the quick-steps of a shadow boxer before morphing it all into a fun dancing jig she'd learned from Redtail.
“How do I look?”
With a blissful smile on her face, Cooper held her arms aloft and pivoted around on her toes.
She wore a loose, blue cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves and tucked into dark trouser pants that were held up by a thick gun-belt. Over it was a dark grey jacket, then black gloves, and a dark worn-in wide-brimmed hat.
She looked like a boy and Riley said as much.
“Well, I hadn't realized we'd been invited to a beauty parade.”
Cooper scoffed and stuck out her tongue. Yet, both girls knew Cooper liked the tomboy look, favored being in jeans and having her hair cut short.
“Besides”, she continued. “You know father wants us to look as different as possible. So me looking like a boy is a good thing.”
What they'd been told by Acadia was that the Directory knew their mother had been carrying twin girls before she’d escaped on the night Sancisco fell. They’d have told their spies and informers to be on the lookout for a man traveling with identical looking daughters of their age, so it was important to make them look different. Cutting Cooper's hair short and dying it dark brown was just the start. They’d also put an extra step in the heel of her boots to give the impression she was taller.
“Not a very good looking boy though.” Riley teased.
“Hey!”
Cooper made to pick up her bowl and throw at her sister. Before she could her whole body stiffened.
“You weren't watching your back.”
A voice whispered and Riley suddenly noticed the Sekhem standing behind her sister with a knife to the back of her neck.
Cooper replied dryly. “In my defense, I thought Riley was watching it.”
It still never failed to surprise them how quiet Mayat could be. It shouldn’t have though, the felisian was a Sekhem, the name given to their order of highly skilled warriors. No other soldier in the nation was as lethal and both twins had felt the cold steel of her blade against their necks more than once.
“She was too busy enjoying the sound of her voice to notice anything.”
Mayat quietly spoke through the cloth mask covering her face.
“That’s not fair.” Riley pouted. “I knew you were out there checking for danger.”
“What did I say about relying on other people with your life?”
Though soft, Mayat’s voice was thick with a guttural accent, a sign that the common tongue wasn’t her first language. There was also something about the way she moved, acted and looked at things that suggested the world she lived in now was very different from the one she’d once known.
“Your father is coming back to the camp. He is expecting you to be ready to leave when he gets here. You have five minutes.”
Without another word, the Sekhem returned to the woods where she quickly blended in with the trees.
The twins had grown used to the fact that Mayat liked to appear from the shadows and disappear back into them just as quickly, so they paid her little mind when she left their sight. It was comfort enough to know she was always close by if they needed her. Instead, they focused on packing away the last items from breakfast and were sitting in their saddles when their father returned.
He made them wait another quarter hour as he silently completed his own inspection of the horses and wagon. Then, saddled himself, he addressed them one last time.
“Remember”, he said, looking at them seriously. “We keep a low profile while we’re in the markets. We move around in the shadows. We make sure no one remembers our faces.”
He held up his index finger to emphasize his next point.
“Most importantly, the number one rule. If you believe for a second we've been discovered, you run! Even if I've been captured.”
“Understood.” Riley replied dutifully.
“Whatever you say, boss.” Cooper said flippantly and gave a big salute.
The muscles in their father’s jaw stiffened.
“Understood.”
“Don't worry, father. It'll be okay.” Riley offered reassuringly.
He nodded and tried to smile his agreement but the look in his eyes echoed the warning he'd given them a few days before: bad things always happen at the black markets.