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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Sci-fi >> ID #1488868 |   |
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| [Introduction]
2472 should have been a year that proceeded as any other year that anyone could remember. And for a while, it did. The giant megalopolises of steel and plasma whirred and groaned. Walking the streets, working in the sleek buildings, and living under constant surveillance were the people. They obeyed, content with their lot, comforted in knowing that they actually existed- because to not exist was a crime. All life documented, all vital signs detectable, everything monitored and catalogued at birth by the insertion of identification chips, or IDCs. To not receive an IDC at birth meant living one's entire life in secrecy, always running, always hiding. Those who met this fate were hidden in the dilapidated outskirts of the massive cities, in neglected mile upon mile of crumbling concrete and wood buildings from centuries past. Always running, always hiding from the drones sent out to search for and destroy any undocumented sentience. These people could not commit any crimes, for they were technically never people- they were only Undocs. For a real person, the most horrible crime to commit was to exist, and then render oneself inexistent- to consciously and voluntarily remove the IDC from the body. Being imbedded in the flesh of the upper arm rendered the task both difficult and painful; such an operation was so stigmatized that it was almost always done without aid, by the criminal's own hand. Doing this meant that an individual must be convicted in their dissent against the world government: their protectors and providers. This dangerous dissent, of course, could not be tolerated. In the year 2472, the complacency began to unravel. Three were born Undocs. Three became Undocs by choice. One was a government worker, one was a leader of the rebel Undocs. These eight individuals sparked a revolution. ------------------------------------------------- When I approve your invitation, please include the character slot you'd like in the optional RSVP box- but keep in mind that your choice may be taken, so if you request an invite, keep in mind you may need to be flexible. I will be writing for the government worker; the rebel leader is taken. You can choose: -ONE choice Undoc (TWO are taken) -ONE born Undoc (TWO are taken) I'm not a fan of the bio block, so don't even bother with one! Your first addition should introduce your character, but you may choose to leave some things out if you wish, such as their background or place of origin. But try to keep the introduction subtle... I know you've all seen soppy, self-centered things like this: "Jenny pulled her bright pink baby doll tee over her slim, 5' 4" body with just average curves and shapely legs, and she brushed back her straight, light-brown hair with highlights in it. Her green, inquisitive, and round and big eyes flashed in her creamy comple-" Please, don't do that. If you can only write tactless physical descriptions without the development of personality or the actual plot itself, don't even bother requesting an invite. Authors, you have five days to contribute. It doesn't have to be long, but it should advance the story. If you feel you need extra time, don't be afraid to ask! I'm really most excited to see good additions, though I do ask that you specify the time that you need. Otherwise, I will skip you, and I will continue to be snobby (as if you couldn't tell already) and delete you from the CF for the following crimes: -not making your first addition within five days -getting skipped three times -writing "Jenny" pieces about your character's shapely legs Other than that, go wild. The rating is XGC not because I expect everyone to be grotesque and graphic, but because I don't want to limit anyone by making them feel they shouldn't write something. If you feel it makes the story better, by all means put it in. |
 t.s. wood, the sleepy art kid  “Julie.”There was the clatter of plastic on plastic; the slim box of data cards tumbled to the floor, knocked by a bony elbow. It was shaking, along with the rest of the skinny body that lifted itself from the desk. The young woman looked down at the spilled contents of the box and wondered to herself, How many speeches and papers could I have written from those? How much praise could I have earned? “They’ll be here any second, you should go-“ “It doesn’t matter. They’ll just find me anyway.” “Julie-” The other woman choked on her breath, her sterile green clothes giving a fearful rustle from full bosom to bottom. For some time they waited, Gerta tearing and Julie sitting, trembling, staring at the blank, paper-thin entry screen that hovered in front of her face. In its standby mode it glowed a soft green, turning her pale face a pastel version of her identical uniform's hue. She had done such good work, written so many wonderful speeches here. She had been one of the government’s inner prodigies, recruited before adulthood. Still so young, they had already praised her for her work, given her the highest honors, and handsomely promoted her. One mistake, however, rendered everything meaningless. Two officers, clad in their elegant blue suits and silver filigree, entered her workspace. Gerta lowered her head and stepped aside, and Julie stood slowly, stretching herself to her fullest height. Her eyes were level with the men. She would not let them forget that. “Julia O’Connor, you have been charged with crimes against the state,” began one of the officers, locking eyes with her. “Your charges include-“ She did not back down in her gaze. “I know,” she interrupted, eliciting a stern glare from the other officer. “I know what they’ve charged me with.” “In that case, you will come with us immediately for questioning.” Julie shot one last glace at Gerta, the coworker who had been as close to a friend as Julie had ever known. She remembered what the plump woman had warned about the word “questioning.” It never meant questioning alone. Something else always went with it. She turned away, faced the officers, and marched out of the office. ---------------------------------- Questioning finished two days later. Slumped in the corner of the interrogation room, stripped to her undergarments and bathed in sweat and speckled with dust and bruises, Julie bitterly remarked to herself that Gerta had been right. Questioning was more than just questions. Questioning was fists, metal, a chair, a truncheon. Every now and then there was an actual question. And there were plenty of answers. Julie had enthusiastically given them any answer they wanted and volunteered some they had not been seeking. It was me, I did this, it was all my fault- anything to make the pain stop. She rubbed her bottom lip, swollen and rough. They’ll convict me of everything, she thought. I'm as good as executed. No well-written speeches could help her now. She was too feeble to protest when the same two officers entered, hauled her up, and hobbled her down the hall into another, much larger room. It was well-lit with a comfortable yellow glow, lined along the sides with what seemed like pews- though no one could find a pew anymore, for they were the relics of religion, evidence of a shameful past that needed to be destroyed. There was a smattering of people along these benches, the official witnesses of the sentencing. At the front of the room, behind a large, polished obsidian desk sat the head of the Justice Committee, all eyebrows and leathery crow's feet. "I wrote that campaign speech for you," she grumbled as the officers sat her down in a chair and shackled her wrists behind her. "And it was quite a wonderful speech. Which is why I'm so disappointed to see you, Miss O'Connor, in such a position." Turning to the entry screen at his side, he pulled up a list of information. "Proceedings for the nineteenth of Februrary of 2472: Julia O'Connor, born on the tenth of September of 2452, on the fifteenth of Februrary of 2472, you knowingly released a document into the global media that discussed, in detail, the use of Undoc laborers in the outer territories in mining operations-" "It was an accident. I submitted the wrong data card to be published- someone must have put it in my outbox, I'm sorry, I really, truly never meant for that to happen- I know none of it was true-" "-you have been charged with and confessed to the following crimes: the crime of distributing harmful propaganda; the crime of slandering the protective government; the crime of inciting violence; the crime of plotting against the protective government; the crime of lying under oath; the crime of using government facilities for personal gain; and the crime of political subversion." Julie fell silent. She was too exhausted, too hungry, and too sore to argue at this point. All she cared about was whether or not she would die; people died like this all the time. “Punishment must be symbolic of the crime,” he muttered with his eyes still downcast, talking to the electronic screen before him. He thought to himself a bit, then looked up. “Death would be too harsh a punishment for your offense.” At these words, Julie’s body slumped, the tension that had been caged within it flying into the air like a flock of startled birds. She wouldn't be killed, she would live! For the moment, she felt a loving admiration for the man who could have been her executioner. “But punishment, indeed, is required,” he continued, louder this time. “A lack of vigilance, a lack of foresight,” he said to the room, pausing to think on his words. “The eyes,” he said in a low voice to the official on his right, who nodded and exited at the back of the room where Julie had entered. She jerked her head up, the fine, yellow hair hanging limp with fatigue. “Eyes? What- what-” she looked about the small room frantically. “What does that mean?” No one answered her. “My eyes, what are you going to do to my eyes?” she shrieked, pulling her body against her restraints, feeling the clamps digging into her flesh. The official reentered the room, followed by a medical employee. “A retinal detachment should suffice. Two weeks; we can fully reverse any damage done if she survives,” said the medic. Julie drooped forward in her chair, her throat dry and rasping. “Survive what?” “You will be deposited in the outskirts and will be doing everyone a noble cause, in a sense. We can track your movements. Being blind but moving with purpose,” he said smugly, “would mean that you must be in contact with Undocs. Survival means having contact. If we find you alive, we will restore your sight and commend you for aiding us in our searches.” He twiddled his stylus aimlessly, his bushy eyebrows curving up, talking like a business confidant offering a plum deal. “You may even come back to your work.” Her head sagged between lithe, sweat-laced shoulders. “You’re using me as bait.” He smirked. “That’s a bit blunt for someone who can turn such a pretty phrase.” And with the apathetic gesture of a wrist, she was bundled off behind the medic, down the hall, into one of the many egg-shaped pods that flitted from floor to floor without a sound. Then came the lights, the white room, the table with more straps; twisting, shouting, begging, only silence responding; the metal device, the laser pinpointed to the back of her eyes, stretched open; her sight filled with a red glow, swelling in a balloon to burst suddenly and painfully. All was black. Julie lost consciousness on the table, the last sensation in her body the cold grip of the gurney, the last image in her mind the red balloon. Quaddy Everything the world had ever known about her disappeared suddenly, like a fluke in the system, a glitch, a mass deletion of files that no one would ever be able to remember existed. With a quiet chink, the IDC landed, along with more blood than she had ever seen, in the porcelain basin of what had been her bathroom sink. It sat there, an innocuous piece of silicon, as her life’s blood flowed around it, whirling toward and down the drain, taking everything that she had been with it. How was it, she thought, that this chip- this, this piece of practically nothing- could contain everything that she had ever been. Her name, her family, her school records, even her marriage and the death of her husband attempting- and failing- to do what she had just done, was on that chip. And now, but for her memories- and could memories even be said to be more than the shadow of the thing, and nothing that could be proven true- nothing of who she was existed; no proof that anything she had ever been existed. Unless she reversed what she had just done. And that, she knew, she could never do.It had not been done quickly. Like her late husband, she had been forced to do it alone, locked into the dark recesses of her apartment, hoping that no one saw what she had done- knowing that they had and she had no choice but to escape into the underworld that existed as nothing but myth to the documented peoples- and hoping that she lived to run. For all its innocuousness, its triviality sitting there along with bits of her flesh, the IDC had a strangle hold on her; it had not wanted to leave her arm, but had bit deep into her flesh. She had not been hampered by the excess folds of fat that so many attempted criminals were forced to contend with, but lean muscle had proved harder to part than soft, cushiony fat cells. The steak knife- all that she had at her disposal after the Watchers had come and taken her dead husband’s body away, along with the surgeon’s scalpel he had hoped, one day, to convince her to use- meticulously cleaned and sterilized, had not been kind, nor had her fingers, under control of her own body, as they searched for the piece of invasive foreignness that proved her existence. She had not dared to scream, though the agony of it eclipsed even that of birthing her first- and only- child. A girl who, screaming, had died of fever as her body failed to recognize the IDC implanted in her upper arm. It had been the death of their daughter that had finally driven her husband to seek inexistence, though she had continued to luxuriate in the safety of the Watchers; cruelty had stolen her daughter away, and she could not bear the meanness of life outside the bounds of existence. To live like rats must live, hiding from everything that had ever been, turning their backs on the Watchers who took care of them and ensured their continued health and happiness? She could not have borne that. Her husband could. So he, alone as she was now alone, had cut the chip from his arm, cutting the artery as he did so. He’d bled to death on the floor of the bathroom, where her feet now stood in drops of her own blood. Then the Watchers had come, had taken him away from her, had arrested and tortured her for remaining alive, for remaining silent on his attempted Disappearance. It did not matter that she hadn’t known of his attempt; they tortured her all the same. Nothing visible, mind you; nothing that would mar her handsome face, for that would lead to unrest among the people. Just the breaking of bones and the searing of skin and night after night of brutal rape, all the while saying it was her fault, that scum like her would ruin society. That her daughter had died to get away from her. She had fallen pregnant once- no twice- when they raped her at the wrong time of the moon cycle. But that, too, had been given over to torture. They had aborted each child, taking care to be as rough and slipshod as possible, using tools that had not seen a sterilization machine in weeks, ripping her uterus to shreds. After the second abortion, though the nightly rapes had continued, no child had stuck; the Watchers, in their torture, had rendered her infertile. Never again would she hold a babe of her own blood in her arms, all that she had ever wanted. And, when a month or two had gone by and she had not fallen pregnant again- though the rapes had never stopped- she threw herself against the wall of her cell, her head knocking against the hard stone, repeatedly, until her skull shattered. The Watchers, knowing they had taken it too far, reluctantly patched her up, and, because they could do nothing else, returned her to her apartment, locking her in to ensure she would never leave. It had been months, lying in the dark, not knowing whether it was day or night, winter or summer, before she had decided to follow her husband- not into death, no, but into inexistence, where she could destroy the Watchers, come at them from their blind spot and rape their minds as they had raped her body, steal their children from them as they had stolen hers from her. That it had not occurred to her immediately was not for lack of hatred toward her existence, not for chafing at her boundaries and her need for revenge, but the lack of strength to do so. Her body had been broken as much as her soul, and both needed more than the ‘patching up’ the Watchers had given her before dumping her into a familiar prison. So she had waited, passing the time, staring into space and dreaming up the most delicious revenge for each and every man and woman that had participated in the destruction of her existence. And finally, when it was time, she had grabbed a steak knife and padded lightly to the bathroom, still wrapped in the nightgown the Watchers had put her in all those months before. And there, in the bathroom, she had rendered herself inexistent. “Fuck you,” she spat, looking down at the IDC, seeing instead the Watchers, the faces she had managed to see, in any case; the bastards had a tendency of hiding behind their technology like the cowards they were. She looked up into the mirror, trying to see if anything else had changed as radically as her soul; surely, she must look completely different, she must have evolved, must have reverted to her true form the second she rid herself of that piece of deception. But, no, she remained the same, her biology as unaffected by the removal of her IDC as the world around her; she could hear her neighbor showering in the next room, lost in the monotonous loss of existence. No one noticed, and but for the open wound in her left arm, no one would notice. She stared at the knife cut, which still bled, and, watched in morbid fascination as the blood grew thinner and white pus began to form at the edges. It would become infected if she did nothing. And she hadn’t come this far to die like her husband and her child. Finally, she picked up a towel and doused it in alcohol, hurriedly pressing it to the wound and hissing at the sting of it. It stuck to the skin, infusing with her blood, as she first threaded and then sterilized the needle. Compared to the pain of getting the IDC out of her body, sewing the wound was as a drop in the bucket; she barely registered the needle going into and out of her flesh, the sting of the alcohol as it wiped away the last of the blood. She used her teeth to break the thread and then, with one last look at herself in the mirror- when had her eyes ever looked so bleak- she pushed away from the sink and left the bathroom, not bothering to clean it up. The Watchers would know, anyway, why bother to hide it? She walked into her bedroom and changed out of the filthy nightgown and into a sober outfit of gray and black, with sturdy boots. Taking nothing with her- she wasn’t the person who owned them anymore, and it would be stealing from the past- she walked to the back of her apartment, where she had managed to force a window open just enough to sneak out. There was a pounding on the door. “Cybeline McNamara, we are coming in. Do not attempt to resist.” The Watchers were already at her house, but Cybeline gave them nothing, not even a second thought. She forced her way through the window, the broken glass leaving shallow lacerations everywhere there was naked skin, and landed, hard, on the sidewalk below. They knew where she was, she knew that, but they wouldn’t know for long. Because they were blind to her, now, without her IDC. And that had remained, along with the blood of her past, in the bathroom sink of a dead woman. She ran. She didn’t know exactly where she ran, but she ran nonetheless. People stared at her, people forgot her the instant that she passed them by. And, eventually, when she could run no more, she collapsed into a heap in a hidden alleyway on the outskirts of town, a place she didn’t recognize. In her stupor, she thought she heard voices. “Shit, look at her.” A hard-edged male voice, deep and gravelly from what sounded like years of cigarette smoke, cursed and reached out to touch her neck. “Is that the one? McNamara? The one they tortured?” This voice was female. It sounded concerned, but efficient and harried, like a nurse. “It looks like her. She’s one lucky- forgive the word choice- son of a bitch to have found her way here blind, though. But, fuck, she is covered in blood. They’ll find her eventually.” The man’s arms reached around her body and lifted her effortlessly, bringing her inside; she didn’t know where inside was or what it meant. In her stupor, she just knew it was no longer outside, so it had to be inside. “And look at those scars. Those aren’t new. What on earth did this woman do to herself?” “It’s a surprise she didn’t do worse, locked in that apartment of hers. C’mon, Izzy, let’s get her to a bed.” Matt le Couteau “Darkness consumes the prison. The dimmest flicker of light is a crack in the brickwork that’s slick with the oils of damp and decay. In the dark lies an emancipated form. Body bent over as if trying to seek out the heat from skeletal legs, despite one being broken and the other weighed down. The almost transparent arms are bent above the bowed head in an 'M', long rusted nails rubbing bloodied elbows which they held up, the manacles otherwise trapping bent wrists, heavy and thick and chaffing the already battered skin. The cell is silence. A steady drip splatters into a puddle that leaks across the floor, icy to the touch, as if daring the world not to acknowledge its army of tiny stabbing knives pricking on every sense. The rasp of breath as it is sucked in, ricochets about the yellow ribcage, swelling the concave belly only slightly before being expelled as a chocking sigh. From time to time the head would move, rocking from the left to the right or right to the left with a low moan of discomfort from the broken form.” “Doesn’t it hurt, Sine?” A small voice whimpered from the circle Sine hung his head, dark blue hair falling across his eyes obscuring them as his voice clear but soft, made his audience lean forward, “Of course it hurts. This is a man who has made himself invisible. He doesn’t exist. He is at the world’s whim. And because o that… every limb pulsates with a throbbing, torturous agony! From the cramp in his muscles to the breaks in his bones and the chill of the water and the flow of his blood as it congealed to sticky sludge where he’d wrenched the IDC from his arm.” Sine grinned now, looking up at those around him. Most of them were younger, just children… but there were a couple of older people, frowning at what he was saying but not saying anything to reject his tale, “This man… he is becoming less and less of a man as the black of his world, the lifelessness of his cell, eats at him. He is being devoured in a nightmare, in the belly of a wolf with no woodsman to cut him free from. Demon whisperings press into his mind and urge him to give in. What remains of the rational part of his mind once knew that to do so would complete his disappearance…But he is a phantom-” There was a small whimper from a blond girl in the front of the group of people he spoke to. Her hazel eyes were wide and full of tears. As if she hadn’t known of any of the stories he had to tell. “He’ll wake at some point, his head wobbling up right when… The Watchers…” He winked at the girl, “they hate to see him alive still. They would have killed him. And in a small bitter way, our friend will try to decide which he prefers: spiting them by living as he does or the idea of dying from blood loss. Then again they laugh at him now… his skeletal figure huddled wretchedly in the dank corner of a prison.” Sine was a storyteller. And even as his tale teetered on the edge of silence, in the hollow of his mind his own creation: the Phantom was still clawing. His silver-grey eyes were stained black and purple with the darkness of insomnia. Sleeplessness caused by a hopeless desire to escape the horrors that he himself had nurtured into fruition and to escape the insoluble sights he had seen. “Sometimes he wants to let go. He can see the holocaust around him. He can here life beyond his door sometimes and he can still see in his mind the men and women ruled by a microphone and indoctrinated to accept what is acceptable only. He wants to give in. But he won’t.” Sine’s mind turns to a girl with hair that blew in an intangible wind and whose blue eyes reminded him of his brother. She smelt like eucalyptus and pine forests after a rainy afternoon in summer, the wafting odours spiralling and surrounding him in luxurious nostalgia. The pointed nose, the lips that quirked so the rose bud, that was them pursed, melted away to remind him… She was such a creature once. Like the phantom. “As time slides past him, memories will seem hazier, less easy to hold on too... Until time itself is more containable... Each moment is an eternity too short to diagnose. Each blurred line is too distinguished. He knows that there are no more questions. He knows he will be judged. He will be destroyed, shredded, all trace of him removed from memory. Perhaps he’ll be blinded, stripped and thrown into the world he left behind to starve. Maybe he’ll-” “SINE RAEDAN! What have we said about you telling these things to children!” Snapping his head up, he saw a familiar, large woman with curly red hair and scowling blue eyes. She wore her flesh well, bound into her clothes and showing off her curvaceous figure without flaunting it unnecessarily. “Mrs Willocks,” He rose and inclined his head, “How lovely to see you again so soon.” She huffed, chest heaving beneath her dress, “It’s a shame I can’t say the same about you!” He smiled, charming in his black attire. When she didn’t return the smile, he sighed, “Ah Mrs. Willocks… I apologise. I know how you feel about this…” He swept an arm across the still silent audience, “But how can I let them remain ignorant when no word I have spoken is false?” She almost snarled, her frown winkling her forehead and lowering her brow until it hung heavy over her eyes, “Sine Raedan, it is not your duty to introduce any child to the happenings of this world we live in. You are nineteen years old and you will behave as such!” There was a murmur among those around him. He smirked, “Very well.” He turned back to the children, the few adults and softly quirked his lips, “I have been told to stop repeating the reality of their lives to you. But before we leave, I will say this: you are lucky. You are lucky to sit here free of the horrors of that world. They are trapped. We are free. And if we can we should help them but-” He saw the scowl on Willock’s face deepen, “not until we are older. Until then… think.” He turned, posture straight, navy hair swept off his face and showing off his gaunt complexion. He heard the talking behind him and sent a wry grin across the room to Mrs Willock whose stern face softened and she winked, lifting her chin towards the door. * Outside the world was cold. Wind whispered around the corners and simpered about his body, muttering in ghostly voices of all it had seen and heard that day. The sky was blackened and a few stars soothed the world to sleep, not knowing of his own unrest. A cigarette hung from his lips, stolen from a corner shop that was being closed down, the owner having vanished. He sighed, breathing out in smoke and inhaling air that had never felt so clean. Everything felt clean compared to him. “Well done Sine.” A voice, leisurely drawled into his ear. He smirked, “Hello Max.” “Nice performance. How much do I owe you?” Max was a blond. Cold eyed and calculating on the surface but as a heavy coat was hung across his shoulders, Sine relaxed and he knew that business was second tonight. “Buy me dinner and we’re even.” “Mrs Willock said you hadn’t been eating.” Max looked over him with a frown, “Is that true?” “I’m broke.” “Again?” “What do you want me to say? I’m spending half of what I’m earning from you on sleeping pills and the other half on medication for my mother.” Max shook his head and slung his arm over Sine’s smaller frame, “You’re an idiot, you know that?” “That’s why you love me.” Sine nudged Max off him with another smile. “You’re my best mate, but the reason I love you is because of that silver tongue of yours. You’re far too good at telling people tales my friend.” “And that’s why I’m your propaganda artist.” Sine trudged alongside the taller man who he’d looked up to for so long. Max was like a brother to him but even he didn’t seem to fully understand what was going on in his head. He had seen too much too soon to open up the way they thought he already had. But they forgot how good he was at lying and happily ignored faults in his story of himself. They were all friends. Willock, Sine and Max and his sisters Lauren and Jasmine…. But… His stomach growled and Max shot him a concern glance. Food was definitely on the agenda tonight. He’d happily forgo anything for that. “Tomorrow you’re going to have to speak to the new Undocs brought in by Melissa and Ghert. There’s about four but there are a couple who are quite interesting cases. Their stories could be useable.” He sighed. But life was life. Max would never let him forget it completely. t.s. wood, the sleepy art kid "What do we do with her?""She can't hurt us on her own, that's clear- but she's got it in her, still. See? The little pink scar. That’s the mark from putting it in, not taking it out.” “What if we cut it out for her?” "Are you mad? They're obviously monitoring her. The second they realize it's gone, they'll do a full sweep." "But-" "We'd be as good as dead. Let's go." The voices ceased and the sound of receding footsteps filled the emptiness of the frigid air. Julie couldn't tell if her eyes were open or not. There was a strange pressure behind them, as if the red balloon she had seen had somehow lodged itself in the front of her skull. How long she had been sprawled there, still undressed, her bare back pressed against the cold, rough ground, she could not recall. She felt strands of her own hair draped across her cheek, the same sensation that had greeted her face every morning when she was roused from sleep, safe in her own bed. For a moment, she tried to convince herself that she was indeed just waking up in bed. But the gravel beneath her back, the bite of the air as it rushed over her lissome body, the absence of any detectable light behind her eyelids destroyed any hope of a nightmare having ended. Then the footsteps returned. There was the rustle of clothes, and a heavy cloth- a blanket, a coat- covered her body. She shivered, pulling it tighter around her chilled skin. A few moments passed, during which she expected to hear the footsteps fade away. But no footsteps came- only silence. Whoever had covered her was still there. She bolted up to sit, her breath suddenly rushing. Frantically, she jerked her head from side to side, trying open her lids as far as they would go: nothing, no color, no light. She felt her hands fly to her face, her fingers desperately trying to open her eyes. But, with a shudder of horror, she realized that they were indeed already open. They were just useless. "You're awake, then?" The voice- it was one of those that she had heard while half-conscious, the suspicious one- came from somewhere in the darkness in front of her. "Look at me." Gulping, she pulled her face in the direction of the words. "Looking over my shoulder?" said the phantom man, somewhat amused. "I can't see anything." Her own voice sounded ragged and small to her own ears, like a dried, wilted flower. "I can't see... where.... I can't..." Her breath quickened, and she felt herself begin to shake. She always shook when she was scared. "Shh shhh shhhhh." The man hushed her. "You're blind?" "They did this to me-" "Give me your hand, I'll pull you up." "You said it was dangerous, you-" "We can't just have you out here, so close to us," he muttered as he heaved her to her feet. "For now, you'll have to be moved." With her arm around his shoulder and the coat wrapped about her body, they shuffled across the gravelly pavement. Julie payed no attention to the pain and cuts on the bottom of her feet; the shock of blindness, of helplessness, numbed her. They continued for some time until the man abruptly stopped and loosened himself from her grip. "Stand there just a moment." The support left her, and she wobbled a bit on her feet. There was the sound of a door unlatching- they were at a building. The arm returned to her. "In here." With a single step, the ground went from rough and gritty to smooth and dusty. The air was dank. Julie thought of the interrogation room. "You'll have to stay here. There's an old chair-" he led her over to it. "I'm pretty sure the plumbing still works- behind this wall-" he helped her feel her way around the corner immediately next to the gristle of the chair. The irregularity of an old doorpost- a very old one, made of wood- slid beneath her fingers. "There's a toilet on the right..." she heard the rush of water and the man's chuckle. "Yeah, still works after all these years." "You're an Undoc." "Do I scare you?" "You're-" "Boo." They both fell silent at the chorus of low humming from outside. Julie felt the man tense and draw in his breath with a sharp gasp. "Fuck," he spat bitterly. "I knew there would be a sweep-" Julie had heard of the drones that searched the outskirts for the telltale signs of human life- for heat signatures, for heartbeats, for voices, for movement- that remained illicitly undocumented. Before she could open her mouth to speak, the man pushed violently past her, shoving her against the wall as he made his escape. She heard him run out of the building; the hum slowly petered away; she was alone, surrounded in the endless dark. Or was it even dark? What did she know about her surroundings? It might as well be broad daylight, she might as well be surrounded by garish patterns and colors glaring at her in a visual cacophany. She wished that, somehow, it would burn away the shadow pulled across her eyes. But nothing burned, nothing glowed. She felt her way out of the bathroom and fell heavily into the chair. Her weight raised a cloud of dust, choking her with the remains of someone's erased life. The coughing subsided, replaced with the feeling of emptiness. Julie clutched her stomach. She hadn't eaten in more than two days. A cold draft wafted through the room, causing her to shrink back into the large coat. She found pockets and stuffed her hands inside for warmth but jumped when she felt something crusty and crumbly in in her left palm. She gave it a light squeeze with her fingertips and pulled it out. From its texture and its dry, salty smell, she assumed it to be food, some sort of cracker. Tentatively and gingerly she bit at the corner, confirming her suspicions, and then crammed the whole thing into her mouth. She sat silently for some time, then fell asleep. Some time later- how long, hours or minutes, or even a day?- she was woken by a hand shaking her shoulder. "I've got something to eat." It was a different voice this time, a woman, gentle but wary. Into Julie's lap was placed a little bag. "There's some water and crackers in there. That's all for now, it's too dangerous for anyone to spend too much time here near you." And then she was gone. For the first few days of her punishment, this was all Julie experienced, save the fumbling along the wall into the bathroom. She grew bored and restless; eventually she gave in and took to hobbling around the room, feeling her way from wall to wall, sometimes falling and having to crawl for what seemed like miles, like an animal, to find a reference point again. The room was barren, save for the chair. But she was filled with so many questions, and nothing with which to answer them. Finally, some company arrived. Once a day, a few hours after the woman would hurriedly bring in small pieces food, another person would sit with her for a few minutes and talk. He said he'd been sent in, to explain her situation. "You feel like an animal?" She was startled at his forward question. "What?" He paused. "You're kept in here, caged, you crawl around, you're fed little bits and scraps." She couldn't deny his observations. "We don't mean to treat you that way. But it's all we can do. You're being watched," he said, "so it's dangerous even for me to be here. You're documented. We aren't." "It was punishment." "I can tell. But I promise you, if you let us cut out your IDC... you won't have to worry. We can take better care of you-" "No." She was surprised at the emphasis of the word. "If I survive for a few more days," her voice broke, "If I survive, they said that they'd reverse the blindness." "Who said? The government?" "Yes." She already realized the futility of her argument and ignoring his snicker. "You can't trust them. That's what I've come to talk to you about." "But I worked for them, for three years- I was given an important position-" "Really? What did you do?" he asked. "I wrote." She didn't want to give him any more information without being asked. "Wrote, what exactly." "Speeches. Articles. Anything." "You wrote propaganda." "I wrote what was important." "I'm just like you, then. I'll be the propaganda for the Undocs, you'll be the propaganda for the government-" "I didn't mean it like that." "But it's true." Julie was silent. He continued. "You write what's necessary for their cause. I'll tell you what's necessary for our cause; and you'll find that it's everything you'll never hear out there." And so the sessions began. She held a morbid interest in them at first, wanting to see how this rogue would try to convince her to give up everything, to run away and become an Undoc. But soon, she dreaded them. He was cunning. He was slick with his words. He was convincing. He was everything to the Undocs that she was to the government. There was one evening toward the end of her punishment- she could tell it was evening by the drop in temperature- that was a bit different. "I don't feel like hearing about your cause tonight," she mumbled, curling her knees to her chin in the chair. She heard him take a seat on the floor in front of her. "That's good," he said, "because I don't want to talk about it. I don't like drilling people who have to deal with enough already." There was a pause. "What's your name?" She didn't know if she wanted to answer, but the reflex was too automatic. "Julie." "Sine." She nodded to show whoever sat before her that she heard the information. "Well?" she said. "Why did this happen to you?" "I submitted the wrong datacard to the media, someone gave me the wrong card." He laughed. "All this, for a mistake?" "It was a file about Undoc laborers in national mine facilities." "Oh. I see. So you had acknowledged government corruption, then?" Julie was silent; she knew he'd take that as a yes. "I don't want to talk any more about government." "You want to talk about Undocs, then? Who we are?" "Why is that important right now?" "I was born this way. I didn't choose this- none of it is my fault. And yet I am punished for something I didn't mean to do, or to be. Just like you... though at least I feel somewhat free." Julie turned and faced the source of the voice. "I thought you said you didn't want to talk about this again, either." "I know, I'm sorry. I forgot. Get carried away sometimes." His voice had become quiet and wistful. She heard him scoot closer. "Are you all right?" "What?" "You're so young. Why are you working for them? What made you throw everything away for the highest scrutiny? How old are you?" "Twenty in September." "You try to make yourself sound older by giving the next number. You're just like me, though. You really are. In age, in occupation, in punishment that you didn't deserve." She couldn't protest, so he carried on. "I want to help you. All of us want to help you. But we can't help you unless you let us." She regretted the words the moment they came out of her mouth. "And I want to help you," she said. "But I can't, not like this," she hurriedly corrected. "I need to survive, to go back. I don't want to be blind forever." "You really do think they'll fix this?" "Yes." "And if they do?" she could hear his interest peaking as he spoke. "We'll see what happens." At these words Sine exhaled. "I see. Well. I don't think there's much else to say. Good night." "Good night." She counted in her head the times he had talked, added it with the number of days without him- she was near the end of her punishment. She would live. On the last night, someone else entered the room that she had been isolated in for two weeks. "Listen, Julie." It was the gruffer man this time, the one who had brought her in. "I'm going to try to explain everything to you, but I don't want to stay here too long- there could be a sweep any moment." He talked low and fast, as if a third unwanted person were among them; for the first time, she heard the pale tinge of fear in his voice. "Hold out your hands." She did so, timidly, keeping them close to her body. Immediately she felt his fingertips brush her palms as he distributed a smooth bit of plastic as long as her index finger and as thin and brittle as her fingernail. The sleek rub of it on her skin was so familiar, yet so out of place- a memory- a ghost- "A datacard?" "We do have some resources out here. In the tunnels. We can print our own cards, but we don’t have access to the global media-“ Julie interrupted him. “You want me to leak this for you.” He chuckled. “I knew you were quick from the beginning.” She sat back, cradling the datacard in her palms. "What's on it?" He took in a draught of air through his nose. "Oh, just propaganda, mostly. Some facts as well, about the Undocs." "I'll get killed if I send this out." "Unless you come back here," he said smugly, cutting her off. "I know what this has done to you, what it's done to what you believe, to your loyalties. You have none-" "That's not true," she lied. "Whatever it may be, we do need you. Obviously, none of us have access to the media. But you do." "So you're using me. You're not that different from them-" "I'm not using you, I'm trusting you. Keep it, take it back with you." He sighed, and for the first time, she heard fatigue in his voice. "You can either go back to living the way you were before, or you can try to change this. You'll either die at the hands of the government by failing to comply, or you'll die at the hands of the government by refusing to comply. You choose." She heard him get up. "Wait- what's your name?" He didn't answer. "You know mine, it's only fair. It's not like your name would give them a location." "Max." And with that he left her, alone, spending her final night in the outskirts even more confused and bewildered than she was when she first arrived. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The head of the Justice Committee had kept his word. She survived, and as promised, her sight was restored. After the surgery, she remained in blindness for another day in the medical ward, her eyes resting under a patch. When it was removed, a soft orange glow- the glow of light from behind flesh- greeted her once again. The balloon was gone from her skull. Slowly she opened her eyes, light flooding them with such suddenness and harshness that she screwed up her face and buried it in her elbow. After a few minutes, the pain subsided. She stared at her hands. "You will be allowed to return to your post as soon as you are well," said the medic, reading a newly delivered note from her superiors; her survival alerted them to a possible haven for Undocs. Her grey eyes watered, and for the first time in many years, she cried. Though not in happiness or gratitude or relief. She cried in confusion, torn so deeply inside between what was easy to do and what she wanted to do. She almost wished that she had been denied the reinstatement, just so that she could push herself more readily in the other direction. But the promise of safety and stability was too great to simply give up for fear, hiding, and uncertainty . And so the datacard remained hidden in her belongings for several days, its presence growing in her mind with each passing hour. The more she thought about not using it, the more her efforts to survive- and the help she had received- seemed like a waste. She remembered that last night in the outskirts, alone in the deserted building. With the flicker of possibility fresh in her ears, she resolved to hide the card on her person. She knew they'd search her clothes, and the coat was suspicious enough (indeed, it was confiscated when she was picked up by the guards in the small aircraft). Hearing the rumble of the government vehicle, she had pulled down her underwear and slipped the card up between her thighs as far as it would go, gasping at the cold against her warm folds, wincing at the discomfort. She was disgusted at the act. But it had to be done. So much effort had been done to create it, with what limited facilities the Undocs had hidden away in their crumbling ruins, and her dignity had taken a blow smuggling it back. She wouldn't just let it sit there, gathering dust. Too much time and work had been given to that silly bit of plastic to turn out fruitless. It was a week when Julie carried it with her from the offices. No one could have guessed what had happened to her; she appeared normal, efficient, blank. But she was numb, numbed by her own mind to keep her from lashing out. And she wanted to end the lack of feeling, the barrier to her expression. After work she took the two-hour long rail trip to the last stop, the closest she could get to the outskirts. The sky was dark and starless. Perhaps there were clouds. It wouldn't matter though, she said to herself, because the lights from the city would block them out, anyway. She meandered for a bit, disregarding the worn faces that traipsed the streets in this neglected area, before she found what she searched. A communication center. Entry screens and telecommunications were offered for a nominal fee. Datacard service was standard at every one these days; the government had nationalized communication a century ago, ensuring equal and uniform services for all. She stepped in from the cold night air, ordered a cup of coffee, and took her place at an entry screen. Its green glow brightened as it awoke into operation; a message asked her kindly to insert her paycard- all personal finance was stored on one card; life itself had become a series of cards- and then unlocked its command panel. "Welcome, Julia O'Connor," read the screen, blissfully unaware of what she was about to do. A translucent menu appeared; she selected "insert datacard." A steady hand drew forth the clandestine card from inside her green uniform (she hadn't bothered to take it off after work). Julie was amazed at how she so casually inserted this contraband into the device, but her astonishment grew at the massive amount of files that it contained, as one name after another flickered onto the screen. "Action:" Another menu appeared: "Send vocalized" "Send text" "Edit vocalized" "Edit text" She selected the "Send text" option. Another menu: "Send to: Personal reception Second party Multiple parties Local patrol offices Global media" Julie selected "Global media." She provided her authorization codes and was logged into the government system with which she had grown very familiar over the past three years. She selected all files to be sent, and all media outlets to be filled. The bulk of the data would take long enough to trace and clean up that a significant amount of people would have the time to see it; it would literally clog all outlets. All files loaded. Her finger poised on the button. Julie looked behind her and stole a glance at the news ticker that wrapped around the room. All buildings had news tickers that were permanently on, displaying their stories. Even private bedrooms were never isolated. The government had declared that a well-informed populace was necessary for society to function- and for the success of the government, if it chose what to constantly broadcast. She pressed the button, left her hardly-touched coffee on the countertop, and left, her head down, pushing briskly back out to the street. Only lifting her eyes, she stole a glance at one of the news screens positioned on the larger buildings, smirking when she saw that it displayed a different sort of propaganda. A couple stopped in their tracks and stared, their faces confused and bewildered. The current message- "YOU ARE ALL VICTIMS OF THEIR LIES. YOU ARE ALL HELPLESS AS LONG AS THEY CAN SEE YOU-" She turned away and pushed on. They know it's me. She broke into a run when she saw an officer rounding a corner down the street. They'll track me. She sprinted for her life, embracing the shadows that lay before her, the only place she could turn. I'll find- Her heart skipped a beat. How would she find the Undocs who helped her? She had been blind. She didn't know where they were, or what they looked like. The outskirts continued for miles. And they were undocumented, they couldn't be looked up on an IDC register. But behind her was certain death. In the world of uncertainty was the only place she could hope to find sanctuary. Her legs throbbed, her chest expanded as full as it could, gasping for air, only to be filled with the stabs of the frozen air. She had run so far- how long? The lights of the city were long gone. Here and there, only a meager streetlight lit the way. "Hello!" she cried. "It's me, it's Julie! I came back-" She coughed and choked back the pain. "I did it, I'm here..." Her voice trailed off. A man had emerged from a dilapidated building down the street. He came closer, walking, then running. Julie opened her mouth to say something, but he wrenched her away by her arm so forcefully that she could do no more but egg her legs on after him as he dragged her down the street. "Mrs. Willock, get Max, get anyone you can find. We have to do this quick. She was followed." Julie gasped and tried to regain her breath, looking up at the pale face shrouded in dark hair. She had never seen him before, but his voice- "Sine," she heaved, hardly believing her luck. He didn't bother to look at her. "Thought... you would be... happier to see me..." "I'll be happier when we cut out that IDC." Quaddy Cybeline awoke, rubbing at her arm, feeling the rough stitches that she had hurriedly run through her body...when was it that she had freed herself, exactly? She didn't know how long she had been asleep, and she didn't recognize the clothing or the surroundings in which she now found herself. There were bandages around her hands- obviously someone with some skill had tended to her wounds from jumping through the window- and they had taken care of her IDC wound, as well, cleaning it of the whitish seepage that had begun to leak from between the haphazard sewing job. It looked like it would, at least, heal properly now, leaving little more than a scar and certainly not turning septic. Around her, the room was dark, but clean; she was clearly in some sort of basement. She supposed that made sense; the Undocs wouldn't be able to live above ground with all the probes and searches that the Watchers felt necessary in order to protect society. The walls were gray and windowless- lanterns lined each wall, giving off no heat to beat the heat seeking bots that scanned the outskirts of the cities- and all the furniture had obviously been filched from the rubbish heaps of those who lived above. All of it was scratched and chipped, the paint faded and, in some cases, gone completely. The sheets and blankets were faded, torn and covered in bleach stains, but it was clear that they had been cleaned as best as could be. It wasn't a glamorous room at all- Cybeline imagined that there really wouldn't be much about her new life that was glamorous- but it was functional and it, at least, didn't resemble her old apartment in the least. There was nothing even vaguely prison-like about it. Sweeping her feet over to the side of the bed, Cybeline tentatively lifted herself from a sitting position; she didn't know if her feet would be able to handle the weight of her body. They did, however, and Cybeline walked over to the small mirror on the opposite wall. She was clean and it was clear that someone had taken care of her during her sleep, but there were a multitude of small cuts all along her face and her green eyes still swam with pain and bleak resignation. It appeared to Cybeline that all of her beauty- and hadn't she been called a great beauty all her life- had leaked from her with the blood that had leaked from every cut. The foundations of it were still there, but the life had retreated somewhere deep, trapped within the tattered remains of her soul. Would she never smile and laugh again? Would she ever sing again? Would she, could she, ever be happy, even with the freedom she had won for herself? Behind her, the door opened, and a woman walked in. She appeared startled to see the empty bed, but her eyes settled and the worry drained from her face when she saw Cybeline standing in front of the mirror. "Up, I see." Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Cybeline couldn't match the dark-haired woman to anything from her memory, though she tried. "I was beginning to think you had left us for the world of dreams." Seeing Cybeline's confusion, she grinned, blue eyes dancing with amusement. "I'm Isabelle, called Izzy for short. Myself and Ben were the ones that found you on our doorstep after you fell. We hid you from the probes and cleaned up your wounds. Between you and me, Ben seems to be quite taken with you. He comes to check on you at least three times a day. He's never done that for a Runner before." Cybeline flushed, vestiges of her old shyness surfacing, her skin turning nearly the red of her hair before returning back to its milky equilibrium. She ignored Izzy's comments. "Runner?" "Yeah, a new Undoc who's pulled the IDC out of themselves. Natives are Undocs who're born that way and never have the IDC put into them. I'm an Auto- someone who did it themselves, but has been around too long to be a Runner, you know- myself, but Ben's a Native. He and I run this particular outpost, though there's a group coming soon with someone important. A government official turned Runner. They spotted her and so that particular outpost was compromised. They're going to be coming here soon." "Oh," Cybeline replied. She didn't really know what to say to that. "Compromised?" she asked finally, wondering what that could mean. Surely people couldn't be expected to run from place to place. That didn't mean freedom, that meant fear. She had known that there would be a certain amount of danger to being an Undoc- didn't the Watchers catch and bring in fugitive Undocs all the time? But did that mean that she would spend the rest of her life running like some sort of criminal? Would she never find a home again? Izzy nodded. "Seems this particular governmental official spread some very incriminating information in our favor and then proceeded to run down the streets screaming for Sine and Max- two of the Undocs who are coming tonight- all the while being followed. Of course, the Watchers are searching that neighborhood up and down and it is only a matter of time before they find that particular outpost. Before that happens, they're vacating and coming here. There hasn't been much in the way of probes and searches going on around here." So there would be periods of safety. It wasn't always running. Just always being prepared to run; always conscious of the fact that they were criminals and the government would stop at nothing to find them and take them down. What would they do to captured Undocs? What kind of special tortures did they have in mind for them? "Hmm, what a fine piece of young cunny you are. I might have to come back tomorrow." He continued to thrust, hard, his breathing fast and shallow, periodically broken by groans and statements like that one. But for the cruelty now plastered across it, his face would be handsome. His hands grabbed and twisted at her ample chest, bruising her nipples, causing them to bleed as they chafed. She felt him inside of her, fighting against any pleasure that would normally come from that act. "Ahhh, fuck." "Cybeline, are you ok?" Izzy had her hand on her shoulder. Cybeline looked up at her, her eyes fiery, and pushed the woman's hand from her shoulder. "I will be. When they're all destroyed. When I can rip them apart and take from them everything that has been taken from me." Cybeline squeezed Izzy's hand hard, imagining it to be the head of the men who had raped her, until the woman cried out in pain and fell to her knees, pulling at Cybeline's fingers. "Cybeline, please stop. You're hurting me! No one here can help you if you don't let them." Cybeline looked down at the woman on the floor beneath her and all the anger melted from her eyes. She released Izzy's hand and the woman scrambled away, toward the door. "I- I'm sorry, Izzy. I don't know what came over me. I...I haven't been...I didn't even know it was your hand I was squeezing, I'm sorry. I- I flashed back to the rapes. I felt him pushing in and out of me and felt the warmth of him as he came inside of me. He was one of the two who- who stuck, whose bastard grew inside of me. And," Cybeline looked over at Izzy, her eyes filling with tears. "And, I would have loved that child even if it came from rape. But- but they stole it from me, ripped it from me and tore my womb to pieces in the process. They used wires and drugs, and stole from me everything that made me woman." Cybeline walked to the bed and sat on the edge. "All I ever wanted was to be a mother of a child of my own. Now, barring a miracle, I can never birth one. They stole that from me. They stole all I ever wanted to be." Izzy stood now, rubbing at a hand that had already begun to bruise. "I...I didn't know that they had done that. We knew about you, of course, that they had tortured you and that your husband had died trying to Run and that your daughter died in the Documentation Process." Cybeline looked up. "When your husband died and you were taken, we kept our eyes on you, wondering if you would ever Run yourself. We weren't exactly surprised that you turned up at our doorstep, you know." She sat next to Cybeline. "I was a doctor before I Ran. I can only hope that one day we can give you a child, but until then, we can only do what we can and that is to fight them. Do you want to fight them with us?" Cybeline looked up, eyes hard. "More than anything. I want to feel their pain." ***** "Ah, you're up." Cybeline and Izzy walked into another room- apparently the meeting room- and a man approximately Cybeline's own age, perhaps twenty-seven or eight, looked up and smiled. His teeth were straight and white and the smile itself was exceptional. It took a face of subtle good looks and rendered it remarkable. He was Izzy's opposite in every way- blonde to her brunette and brown-eyed to her baby blues, even dark-skinned to Izzy's pale freckles- and Cybeline had the feeling that this was the 'Ben' that Izzy had told her of. "Would you like something to eat, perhaps?" "I would love something to eat, actually." Cybeline smiled her most charming smile and sat in the offered seat. "Will anyone else be joining us?" Izzy shook her head as she sat across from her. "No. There are only two more of us here at this outpost and they're over helping the others on their way over here. It isn't easy for a group of Undocs to travel from one place to another. If they're caught, we all have to find a new place to go and that is even harder. Finding suitable hiding places is difficult, if not impossible, to do without being the subject of the probes." Cybeline nodded as Ben brought her a plate of food. "Eat up. You've been asleep for a few days and you'll need a lot of strength for what we're going to train you for." "Hmm?" Cybeline asked, her mouth full of food. "I'm going to take you under my wing," Ben replied. "I was born an Undoc and I've spent most of my life training as a fighter. Everyone has something that they're good at. Sine, he's coming tonight, is a master at Propaganda. I am a fighter. I am especially good at firearms." Izzy cleared her throat. "Ben," she said. "If I may interject. Cybeline here is rather strong. I've, uh, I've been on the receiving end of her physicality," here she rubbed her hand again, "and I think it would be a good idea to train her in hand-to-hand combat as well as firearms." Ben looked at Cybeline, his dark eyes glinting. "Really? Well then, hand-to-hand it is." Just then, there was a ringing from Ben's side. "That's Sine. They're on their way." Matt le Couteau It was just before dawn and there was still no word from Julie, nor anything about her of particular note. It had been nearly a week or so since he'd last been updated about her though. All he'd been told even then was that she had resumed her old job, no longer blinded, and there had been more sweeps than usual in the Dysart area. Of course, no one was stupid enough to go outside; they'd dropped down into the underground world of disused sewers and below-town tunnels. Max had come to hole with him, telling him that it he was going to stay hanging about until anything significant had been heard about the woman. They'd poked fun at each other in the gloom, Max mocking his 'emaciated POW' figure and Sine teasing the elder on his floppy hair cut. They'd talked about the world… it's broken state and the fettered hopes of the Undocs. They talked about her. Everyday he'd drilled her… slipped her snippets of himself as he spoke to her of the cause, the Undocs and their plight and their purpose. He knew he could win her over. They always won over the Blinded. But she'd been different as an official. They had very few of those in the ranks. Certainly none had become disillusioned in recent years. It was mainly the young or those with troubled families or woes caused by the Watchers and the government who made themselves nonexistent and of those only half ever made it to the ranks of the hidden city. Max slept beside Sine as he watched the grated window with sleepless eyes, waiting for the fell of dark. The blond head had dropped onto his shoulder and an arm crawled around his stomach as they huddled for warmth. It wasn't an uncomfortable position but he knew Max would be sheepish when he woke and realised that once again Sine had been stuck in the limbo of insomnia whilst he had fallen asleep almost literally on top of him. They'd been friends for so long, from the dark subterranean days of their childhoods when Max had used his four extra years of age to secure his power in Sine's eyes and he had whispered terrible stories which would rattle him into respect. He supposed their positions in life had already been decided then. He was employed by Max, his best friend turned captain of their particular group. Mrs Willocks was the logistics expert, he was propaganda, Ezra was weapons and munitions, Remus Booker and Jez Bradley were scouters despite their only recent Running and all except Mrs Willocks had simple hand-to-hand fighting skills and a basic knowledge of guns, having been taught by Reid, a thin wiry woman who'd been a gymnast before she removed her IDC. Now Mrs Willocks had set up camp about a mile or so away and closer to ground level, he was meant to be visiting her today to try and set up the next campaign. They needed to try and win over more adult Undocs to fight back with them against the government. Children were always more fun and more easy to beguile into feeling the same justice as them but adults feared more. Adults recognised their own mortality as well as the fragility of their families. That was their weakness of course, the factor he exploited but… He sighed and shifted uneasily. Soon Max would wake and it would be back to business and his friend would vanish away to visit Booker and Bradley. He felt as if something drastic was about to happen. Like things were about to become a lot harder very soon. But then again it was probably 4am blues. He often became morose in the melancholy morning glow. * "Sine, where are you?" "I'm on Dysart's East-Edge with-" "You need to get out of there now." Max's voice was panting, as if he'd been running… "What why?" Sine had just gone outside to take the call from Max when he heard the wail of sirens rising out from the smoke beyond the rooftops. "She did it. She fucking did it. In fucking broad fucking daylight. Fucking idiot didn't remove her fucking IDC. She'll be followed and she's coming this fucking way!" Max rarely swore. His abysmal language only emphasising his frantic fear, "Look I'm about ten minutes from you if we both run towards the East line. Get behind it and drop." Max hung up. And that was when Sine saw Julie, her eyes cleaned of their blindness, staggering towards him. He shouted to Mrs Willocks and did the only thing they could do. They ran. He was furious and at the same time empathetic. He could understand why she wouldn't have pulled the small metal tab from her arm again. It made too much sense to simply act on impulse in her case. He could imagine the turmoil as her rational side clashed with the emotional. But that didn't make it any easier to ignore the furious wails of the Watchers as they stormed behind them. His leg was aching and he didn’t know how much further he’d be able to go. Feet trampled behind him. The shouts from behind were less, were maybe ceasing but he wasn’t going to stop running. And his feet were sore as they hit the ground, one after the other, his heels stinging, throbbing in time with his blood. He could see Julie, now staggering in his peripheral vision. Max would find them soon, help them out of this race. With every thud he felt more of that obscre emptiness in his body. His shoes were not meant for running in, but he couldn’t stop, or he’d be caught. There were only four following them now. "Keep going, Julie!" He spat out as he saw her glance back eyes wild now that they could see. He wondered if she'd known how sad her eyes had been before… not scared or unseeing but sad. It had been unbelievably pure in the eyes bleached red by whatever they had done to her. The Watchers weren't catching up but he suspected that as they ran the air team was being called into action. He felt the cowardly fool for running like this… he should have tried to fight. But why fight when he would lose and… maybe die? He had a chance here. And of course whilst running… it was like being free… if he went fast enough he could take off… No one, not even his mother could have told him how akin fear was to grief. He wasn’t upset, he wasn’t bereaved of anything. In fact, if anything he had won against Fate. But there was the same fluttering in the stomach, the same relentlessness, the yawning. He kept on swallowing, as if trying to drown himself in the metallic tasting air. Or maybe he was bleeding. The Gods play games with men as balls… In wondrous ways do the Gods make sport with men. Titus Marcius Plautus's quote drifted into his mind. It was as if he was mildly drunk or concussed. An invisible blanket seemed to have enveloped itself around him until all that was left was the rasp of his breath through heaving lungs, the thud of his heart in his temple and the splash of his soaked shoes in another puddle that fancied itself the Atlantic, settled in the crevices of broken tarmac and cement. He wished he'd eaten. Max hadn't been there until late the night before and he had left early that moning so he hadn't been able to beggar food off his best friend as he had done the previous few nights. Now he ran on nothing. "SINE DROP!" A loud, piercing shriek bellowed from apparently no where. Mrs Willock had found Max and the others no doubt. He lurched towards Julie and once again pulled her after him as he dropped low to the ground and something whistled over head. Fire exploded at their heels. The earth began to thunder below them as a string of explosions launched behind them. They had crossed onto the friendly side of the Undocs Dysart Line. Designed by Ezra, it was meant to act as a miniature Marginot and it ran through half of the surrounding area under the pavements or aimed from secret holes in empty eyed buildings. In his pocket he had a blade, it was fairly clean, only having left his pocket once or twice befoe being insed. It wasn't sterile though… and he knew that it would risk infection… but they had no choice. He pushed Julie into an alcove, one he prayed wasn't full of explosives and fixed her with his gaze, green eyes flashing. "You know what we need to do." She held out her arm. "Don't scream." And he sliced open the raw skin, feeling deeper for the chip which had to be removed. Blood oozed out from around the jagged silver, her skin tore around the edges as she tensed around the knife. He'd done this twice before and it was never pleasant. The warmth of metallic scarlet slid onto his finger tips. But he could feel it. She whimpered and he glanced up. "I've found it. It'll be over soon." Her eyes were closed, her face turned away as her eyelashes laced themselves with damp, salty tears. It was always worse when someone else did it apparently… He glanced at his hand before pulling the flesh apart with two fingers and inserting his index to scoop it out. As he removed it, Julie vomited onto the ground. He wiped the blood on his jeans before pulling out his phone. He needed to call Ben. They had to keep moving. "SINE!" Max was screaming and he saw his blond friend desperately scanning the area for him. Reid and Ezra were with him. Lithe and demonic, Ezra was grinning, flicking switches on a small remote that he knew led to more explosives. Seizing Julie he murmured to her, "Come on. You're safe now. We can drop and get you out of this hell hole." "It wasn't a hell hole until you came around." She muttered, her breathing hitched and broken. "I suppose not…" he replied, "But whatever it was, it sure as Iago wasn't heaven." She managed a dry laugh and he grinned, "And just remember from now on: Quando omni flunkus moritati." "What's that meant to mean?" "When all else fails, play dead." Then he pulled her to her feet, dashed across to Max and the five of them dropped into the earths warm warrens which had become the sanctuary of the world's wearied phantoms. t.s. wood, the sleepy art kid Julie was confused. Mass had been taken out of her arm, in the form of blood and an IDC and a small bit of flesh. She remembered the conservation of mass, that central rule of the universe. Her left arm contained less mass, yet it now felt as heavy as a brick of lead. She had regurgitated the remains of her last meal in civilization- less mass. So why did it weigh her down as well? Why did her own body, a product of nature, seem to rebel against the very laws that allowed it to exist? Could she depend on mathematics to calculate what she should feel? But subtraction shouldn't yield exponential growth. If x equaled y, then you could find some way to make 2 = 1... maybe in higher dimensions... she had heard the idea before... there was dividing by zero, maybe that destroyed things... Her head swam with the jumbled attempts at logic, ran up against a wall of defeat, and suddenly sank down with her and Sine and Max into the manhole.Max went down first, then Julie, then Sine. She was slow on the short ladder, using only one arm, and stumbled the last two feet to the sewer's pathway. Max was already running in one direction, down into the dark, his footsteps betraying the invisibility afforded by the gloom. Julie was overcome by the haze of her thoughts and the disorientation of the underground until a second wave of fiery pain stabbed into her arm- another knife? No. Just Sine grabbing her again, pulling her out of the path of falling debris from above. This time she gave a yelp, that scream he had prohibited when he had cut into her arm. Another scream. Through new, hot tears, she saw the green eyes glance back at her. She was screaming in pain, yes, but in the shock of what she had just done, the overpowering disbelief. She knew why her arm was heavier. It was filled to the brim with fire. It was overflowing with pain, taking in the air of her surroundings and converting it to tangible sensation. She couldn't hold it in- screamed again- pulled her arm away- "You have to keep up!" Her stomach had emptied itself to make room for the fire, to hold the cold flesh that used to make up the arm. But the fire multiplied, ate away at the muscle and bone and meager fat- the stomach took it in, tried to keep it safe, but the fire kept eating- Again it was there, the sharp, gripping burn as Sine dragged her farther down into the underworld. There were stairs now, and she nearly tripped the both of them all the way down. A plain door held open by Max, and then light. The two tumbled in, gasping. "Julie, push down on your arm, you have to try to stop the bleeding," Max said, his voice calm and unfeeling. She shook her head in protest. Sine hadn't even grabbed the deep cut, and that had hurt enough. "I'll do it if you don't," Max threatened, taking a step forward. She understood he wouldn't be gentle. Her right hand felt its way to the gaping wound that softly dripped beads of scarlet onto the worn, rough concrete floor and pressed. She drew in a sharp slice of air as she felt the loose slabs of flesh squish and slide against one another, the warm liquid seeping into the crevices and grooves over her palm and fingers. She pushed; it didn't matter how much pain she felt. There was a point at which it made no difference. Max excused himself to find someone named Izzy and left Julie and Sine in the small front room. It was the beginning of a corridor of sorts, unnaturally lighted and bare but for the marks of time on the walls. Julie slumped into the corner by the door, holding her arm desperately against her body. A few feet to her side, Sine leaned back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting, his dark hair stuck to his forehead with a thin film of sweat, his eyes slammed shut against the synthetic light. They were both panting like dogs. A moment later, Max returned with a woman who eagerly ushered Julie and Sine farther down the hall, into a room with a few chairs. Sine collapsed in one, Max in another, Julie in a third. “You’re Julie?” Her voice was comically out-of-place, so light and carefree that Julie actually smiled a bit as she took from a shelf a cloth and a bottle of liquid, dabbing one with the other and wiping it around Julie’s arm- the smile immediately turned into a grimace with the sting of the liquid. “I’m Izzy. We got word of you a little while ago.” The skin around the gaping cut was cleaner, though the fabric of her fitted green uniform was blackened down the side with blood. Izzy bent forward and looked down her strong nose at the wound. “You did that to yourself?” “No… Sine, he-“ Izzy turned up her face to see Sine slumped in the chair. “What the hell did you use on her, a dull industrial saw?” “Pocket knife…” “I’ve seen neater with those-“ “I had to go fast, we were in the middle of the active defense system.” Sine clearly did not like his efforts so scrutinized, but Izzy immediately shrugged off the instance and smiled again. “You’re taking it better than a lot of other’s we’ve seen. Some don’t even make it, some lose limbs… For all the tearing in here, he didn’t catch on the artery at all. You’ll get a nasty scar out of it,” she said, “but after the bruising clears up, you’ll be fine.” The bleeding was slowing, perhaps because Julie wasn’t moving and breathing as desperately as before. She winced when she saw the surgical tweezers and needle and thread come out, but the skin was so taught with discomfort that it made little difference when the metal pierced her flesh. Time blurred. Izzy was gone, and others from the outside or other rooms filtered in. There were names- she only caught Remus, perhaps because he was so physically imposing in the small room, making herself and others appear wraith-like. A redheaded woman peeked out from a doorway and approached, her eyes lit up and fixed on Julie. “You, too?” she asked. Julie looked up and saw the woman also had a fresh injury to her arm. Her heartbeat quickened. So she was not just an anomaly… this happened regularly, enough to have the community out here prepared to receive new Undocs, with what medical necessities they could manage and what frankness the situation necessitated. Julie smiled at her as she continued. “You’re the one from the government?” “Yes… I fucked up a bit,” she said. The woman laughed. “Cybeline.” “Julie.” They both lifted their right hands to shake, both laughing a bit when they saw each other keeping the left arm limp and still. It was an odd laughter, though, that quelled itself almost immediately. Izzy came back with a bundle of men’s clothes and motioned for Julie to follow. “We have to burn the government clothes.” “Why? I could wash them- blood comes off in cold water-“ Max spoke up this time, his voice carrying over the room. “They put tracers in the dyes sometimes, or weave a small transmitter into a seam. It’s a slim chance they could follow that down here… but we can’t risk it.” Everyone was silent, even the wiry woman who seemed to have been in charge of the explosions and had been talking animatedly to Remus just earlier. Julie felt the eyes on her. She was still a liability. With a look back at Cybeline, she pulled herself up from the chair and followed Izzy, still feeling eyes on her back the whole way. They were in a closet space. “Just change in here… I’m sorry they won’t fit, but they’re warm. They’re all we’ve got at this one location for now.” Julie didn’t care who saw. She pulled the streamlined jacket and trousers off without flinching and took the shirt and sweats from Izzy. They were indeed big; though Julie was tall, she by no means filled the space available within the cloth she now wore. They hung from her shoulders and curtained straight down from the curve of her breasts, making her appear somewhat hollow. “You’ll get used to it in time,” Izzy said, taking the rumpled uniform, and the two stepped back out of the closet space. “Ben,” she said to a handsome man talking in hushed tones with Max, “could you get this to a furnace?” ________________________________________ Night deepened, the lights dimmed. They all slept in the same room, propped up on old pillows or cushions, huddled together after the shock of the day’s events. Julie had been next to Izzy, but she remained awake, her eyes fixed on the peeling ceiling. The arm was not nearly as burning as before, but it sent throbs through her whole torso that kept her from rest. After a while, she couldn’t sit still. Being aware of not moving made Julie want to move for the sake of doing so; she was a fidgeter, a finger-tapper, a pacer. She felt like pacing. Perhaps looking. With a steady sigh she hauled herself up and navigated the dark room. What had she thought Undocs would look like? From the information of her youth, she had supposed they would have the faces of hardened criminals. As she grew older and handled the private files of the government, as she was exposed to chance information about their conditions of living, that understanding changed a bit. She imagined weathered discomfort instead, fright, frowns. But as she crept through the dark chamber, peering at the unconscious forms about her, she saw something different. Their faces were those that could easily walk the streets with normal, legal citizens. Perhaps they were a bit more harrowed, some more tired, some gaunter than the documented faces she was used to. And prouder. There was more pride in the outskirts than in the city. She studied the face of Izzy, curled up with an old book by her face. A playful-looking woman, with thick dark hair and curved brows. She hadn’t even winced at the gash in Julie’s arm, hadn’t given it any more attention than it needed; for that Julie was grateful- she wanted to push the horrible sensation of fear and pain and shame away from her, and Izzy had done just that. Remus was sprawled out on his stomach close by, his face turned to the side against the ground. It was such a youthful face, so innocent and babyish that Julie was taken aback by his large, solid frame and the fact he was sleeping with the pistol by his side. She looked a few feet over- Two green eyes glared right back at her through the shadows, unearthly and shocking in their immediacy. Julie gasped. She didn’t believe in ghosts exactly, but, despite government efforts to eliminate superstition, old tales persisted. There were things in the dark that people feared naturally, things that watched from the blackness. “Sine,” she caught her breath, her heart pounding from the scare. He was lying stiff on his back like a corpse. “Why are you awake?” “Why are you?” “I can’t sleep.” “Well, obviously,” he muttered. His voice was soft and drained. “But why?” She held out her arm, he nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I could have done it alone… I wanted to thank you for it earlier.” It was the truth. She pulled herself away from the topic of the IDC and returned to sleeplessness. “And you?” “I just can’t.” Julie kept her voice low but attempted some sort of friendly jest. “You just spent more energy in ten minutes than most people spend in a day. How can’t you sleep?” He didn’t smile, didn’t continue the same jaunt. “Without the pills, I have trouble.” He saw her shift her weight and continued. “I can’t just let go.” “Let go?” He made it sound like losing a battle, she thought. “You should go back to bed,” Sine said with a sigh. “There needs to be someone awake, anyway, keeping watch. “You won’t keep very good watch if you’re completely spent.” He rolled onto his side from his back, still watching her. “You have no idea what it’s like.” She sat next to his knees to listen better. “You haven’t had the worries yet.” They were speaking in whispers, their voices reduced to melodic rushes of air. “Everyone here has plenty to worry about- I’ve been here all of a few hours, and I can tell that. But they can still sleep. You just have to relax,” she said, tilting her head to the side and looking at his face below. His hair had been pushed and spread on the folded jacket below his head, framing the pale face that shone grey in the dark like a black halo. The eyelids were now heavy with the need for sleep, but the brightness of the irises behind them defied unconsciousness. They were the same green as her uniform, before it had become marked up with dirt and the large smears and stains of her own blood. “It’s different for me.” There was something else in his voice now, something not quite sinister, but far from pleasant. “I don’t even bother trying anymore.” “Try this time. I’m more awake than you. I’ll stay up.” “If I miss it-“ Sine swallowed, his throat slowly undulating. Julie leaned in. “Miss what?” That was the final straw. He gave a shudder. “I’ve missed things. Things have happened- I wasn’t there, I wasn’t aware of what was going on. People die when you’re asleep. If I can hold out like this, then I might as well- for someone else’s sake, at least-“ Julie interrupted him. “You know that’s just stupid.” “I don’t care,” he said, pushing himself up a bit with his elbows. His face became clearer; she saw exactly how fatigued he was, how impossibly sleepless he had allowed himself to become. “I worry. Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s why I can’t do it on my own. But no one else seems to be able to give a damn-“ “I’m awake-“ “It doesn’t matter if-“ “Sine, I’m awake. I can- “You can’t trust anyone out here, anyone, they’ll just…“ His words cut off and he sank back to the carpet. “You can’t.” There was something in his face that wrenched from her a flinch, the foreshadowing of an unpleasant truth. She knew it would be coming. She wouldn’t get it from Sine, but she would find it. His chest rose quickly beneath his shirt, his hands fumbled a bit at his sides. “What happened?” He only shook his head. “I can’t afford to miss anything.” There was something pleading in his voice, something so betraying in the quick glance he gave her own grey eyes, that she felt as if something were pulling at her lungs. Without thinking, she pushed back the hair from his forehead. It was a gesture of tenderness, of comfort. Had it come naturally? It was just something human, something instinctive. Again she gently ran her fingers over the hair. Sine’s gaze went past her. “I want to, so badly… but I can’t…” “I promise I’ll keep watch tonight. I couldn’t sleep if I tried.” “If something happens-“ “I’ll wake you up.” Her fingers rested themselves in the fine, dark hair just behind his forehead, and she leaned against the wall, her arm beginning to throb again. “I promise.” Sine opened his mouth to speak again, but only managed a yawn, which he tried to stifle. Julie moved her thumb absentmindedly about his hairline, wondering to herself about her actions. Had she ever tried to provide comfort before? There were no such instances in her childhood that she could recall; perhaps some of it had been learned from a parent? But then there were no real instances of trauma in her life that had resulted in being comforted by a parent… and she didn’t care to think of them when she herself was in this current situation. There were unpleasant memories she would rather not overturn… Sine’s eyes were closed, his breathing calm and slow. Julie pulled herself away from the dangerous territory she had blocked off in her mind and back into the present. She had brought relief to someone, allowed sleep to come to the weary. There was a success for now, something to enjoy, something to distract her from the irony of becoming an Undoc. Sine was asleep. She was awake and in pain, but she had done something helpful. It was a small part of repaying the debt she owed these people. A feeling of calm washed over her. She knew, with a bittersweet resignation, that the rest of her life would be dedicated to that. Quaddy Cybeline was lost, but she tried not to show it. Everyone around her shared some sort of camaraderie, though it was hardly an easy relationship shared between the Undocs that had gathered the night before at what Cybeline was quickly realizing was a small outpost. It had been comfortable during the few hours that she, Ben, and Izzy had shared between just the three of them. But once the mysterious Sine had shown up with the government official- Julie- and what had to be about a dozen others, the underground hideout had become downright crowded. Still recovering from her injuries, Cybeline had been allowed to keep the bed in her room- a kindness on Izzy's part, Cybeline presumed, as the other woman had obviously seen Cybeline's near panic attack as everyone had come pouring through the doorway and the overgrown basement house had exploded in noise and motion- though everyone else had, for the most part, bunked communally in what Cybeline could only assume was the living room. Having spent nearly a year locked up alone in her house and, but for the nightly visits of the Watchers, for the two years before that in a prison cell, Cybeline wasn't one for huge crowds. Even if they were comparatively small ones.She had slept well and, but for the government official- Julie, she had to remind herself- it appeared that everyone else had, as well. Exhaustion was a powerful inducement, Cybeline supposed, and could induce anyone, even the most uncomfortable of people, to sleep. Breakfast, then, was a melting pot of personalities and histories, most of whom ignored Cybeline completely. She supposed that a former actress, no matter how famous she had been, was not much of a ripple in the world of the Undocs, especially when compared to the new arrival of a defector from the government. Julie didn't look like she was enjoying the attention she was getting, especially the pointed questions from all quarters of the room, falling back against Sine and Max like they were her safety raft in a dangerous storm. "I don't know," she said, answering the latest question, which Cybeline hadn't heard; she'd been entirely too focused on figuring out exactly what they were feeding her. It wasn't unappetizing, but it wasn't something that she recognized. "Enough," Ben said, raising his hand. "I believe you've all harassed Julie enough this morning. She is still recovering from her marathon yesterday, and there's plenty of time to wrack her insides later. For now, let's just eat some breakfast and get everyone settled in." "Right then, who's the other one?" A voice, young but with that certain worn timbre that Cybeline recognized in every Undoc she had met so far, from the other side of the table piped. Cybeline looked up and recognized the man- Remus, Izzy had told her his name was. "She weren't here last time I came." "Her name is Cybeline. She's a new Runner, just came in yesterday." Ben replied, giving Cybeline a small smile before taking a sip of his water. "Cybeline McNamara." The room burst into whispers and exclamations. "But I heard she was dead! Kilt herself after her husband died, she did." Remus was just the loudest voice heard. Pretty much everyone else in the room echoed the man's outburst. Cybeline looked over at Ben and shot daggers his way with her eyes. She didn't want this attention on her any more than Julie wanted it. But, she supposed, this attention was much less dangerous than what could happen if people pressed Julie too far. "No," Cybeline replied, her voice quiet. "I didn't die. I was arrested because my husband tried to do what Julie and I did yesterday and he died in the process. My husband was braver than I by far." "Arrested? People aren't arrested for their spouses running!" Julie exclaimed. "Really?" Cybeline replied, Scottish ire coming to the fore. "Really? Are you sure, Julie? Tell the two children they put inside me and then ripped from me. Tell that to the nightly rapes, sometimes five or six men, two or three inside me at once. Tell that to the tattered remains of my uterus, which now is useless. Tell that to my daughter, who died in the process of having that piece of foreign shit put in her arm and my husband who died from blood loss because he couldn't stand the lies anymore. Tell that to the skin they flayed off and then sewed back on without anesthetics, and the broken bones. You were blind for how long? What the Watchers did to me can never and will never be reversed, ever. So do not tell me that people aren't arrested for their spouse's actions." By this time, Cybeline's voice had dropped to a low whisper, harsh and rasping as it escaped through her teeth. Max coughed slightly. "I'd leave it be for now, guys. This woman was tortured for two years at the hands of the Watchers and then dumped into her apartment for a year. We know of her." "But, hey," Ben added, brightly, "now we have someone with some talent who can entertain us. Not that we don't love your stories, Sine, but sometimes something a little brighter would be nice." Matt le Couteau Things were going slowly, since the two girls had been introduced people had fallen back into their routines though as always the day after a raid everyone was less lively and more meditative than usual. It came with the territory. Max had disappeared, off to a meeting with a couple of Ben's team, needing to discuss where he was to regroup with some of the other local Edge dwellers. Reid and Mrs Willocks were off to see how the Palmyra School they had set up for the outskirt brats was coming along. The scouters, including Remus Booker, were drinking coffee and playing cards, their voices low and serious. He smirked; they acted as if they weren't talking about the mundane, the upcoming meetings and the finer points of women. He knew that expression on Bradley's face, it as the one he wore when he was reminiscing on the feel of warm thighs and soft bodies flush against him. He shook his head. He had spent far too long with these people. He probably knew them better than they even realised… Everyone underestimated the power of observation. That was the way things worked really. At that moment Sine was contemplating the fact that he had slept for the first time in seventeen days. He was Sylvia Plath's 'insomniac', a lone, listless life languishing in the dark recesses of night time. But he had to smile and thank Julie the next morning when he'd awoken, stiff and uncomfortable but with more energy than he'd had in a long while despite knowing that by lunch time the sleep debt would have caught up with him again. He wasn't sure how she'd even managed to do it… to lull him into that comforting nothingness… He hadn't even dreamed. That was an anomaly. He usually had such vivid dreams. So vivid that they hurt. And he was glad that he had Julie now and this Cybelline. Maybe they could take over from him for a little while and he could go back across the wall into the wild. That would be nice… He missed the sky and the rain and the trees. And from what he had heard his mother was a little bit better at the moment, she was even recognising words and faces. Max wouldn't like it though and he knew deep down he'd never be able to leave, his own conscience wouldn't let him. Dizziness meandered between the headache he was slowly working up and his limbs felt decidedly twitchy. He wasn't one for dwelling on people in situations like this, sentimentalising them when they lay so close to danger was something which made his heart beat more rapidly and his fear stifle his rationality. When he was doing something it didn't matter but in quite moments like this… He needed a cigarette though he only had half of his pack left. He needed one desperately… "I'm going outside." He murmured towards the cluster of men, ignoring the way their black pupils seemed to mail him off to space, their subconscious ability to disassociate leaving their eyes as empty as the great void that hovered around the earth. "Where are you going?" "Just out." He was dismissive, perhaps even cold… But they knew him. He was the moody storyteller, rarely the chipper boy that some had known when they were younger. Julie was watching him. Her eyes bright with curiosity and he let his lips quirk into a barely there smile and wondering if he should thank her again for helping him sleep. In a way he didn't want to… didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he had left his vigil, let his weakness take over. He didn't like to be weak. "May I?" She asked him quietly as he passed and he nodded imperceptibly. She rose and trailed after him, apparently not certain enough of herself to step up to his side. Perhaps she was as nervous as he was in lieu of their conversation the night before. He wasn't one to confide so easily. He guessed it was the strain of the day before, the utter exhaustion mixed with the memories, the fear that they could be tracked down here despite knowing that they couldn't be. As he led the way, through the tunnels, through the anachronous under-city, he nurtured the spider web cracks in the paint and the faded symbols of a world that he had never known but secretly wished that he could have. "What is this place?" "An old train line. Before all this… people used to travel through here. They didn't have the direct shuttles like you do now. They had tubes, subways… Right now you're walking where hundreds of people walked everyday to travel to work in the inner city." "And no one notices you're here?" "No." "But… how?" He didn't want to reply…. Memory replaying the scene of a young woman, clutching at a dead man, blond hair stuck together with blood and mud, face lacerated and burnt as she screamed and screamed, the whole earth shattering, "There was an accident years ago. It blocked the tunnels towards the city. The government assumed the whole place was destroyed. It very nearly was." If anything was noticeable, perhaps his language stilted and dispassionate, then Julie said nothing and he was glad of it. The gust of air from the land of sea and sky floated down towards them. He could imagine the clouds flowering, opalescent and mystical across the enticing blue… He could taste the clear, dusty air of the decaying outer edge. Sighing in pleasure, he found the rusted ladder and pulled himself out of the pit. He breathed in. Out. In… He could feel his heart, a ceaseless machine built to beat forever. It was so cold. So unbelievably cold. His hands as he fumbled with the matches were trembling slightly. His arms were clenched, his nose turning pink, breath swirling out in dragon breaths. Then in came the thick, comforting smog of nictotine and tar, his eyes closing in content bliss. Oh to be outside… "Do you really like those things that much?" Julie looked at him sceptically, dusting herself off as she sat on the edge of the hole, legs still dangling downwards. "Yes." "It'll kill you." He let his face break into a grin and wondered if it was as terrifying to look at as it was to feel, "Razors pain you, rivers are damp; acids stain you and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful. You might as well live." "Poem?" "Yup. Dorothy Parker. Resume." Silence. He let the pause drag, casual as a spring shower, "There are a thousand ways to kill yourself but these… they help you remember how to feel alive." "What?" He took a long toke before letting his eyes drift sideways to her. She was oddly striking now that he really looked at her. Slightly more angular than she'd seemed before. Perhaps it was a result of the stress and the days of her punishment… And tired. She looked so unbelievably worn, face almost as ashen as the dirty wool clouds, "When you breath in, you're filled with this thick, smothering intoxication. At first it burns your throat and chest. It hurts. You exhale and it leaves, your heart beats more loudly. Then you breathe in normally. Clean air, purity… It's soothing. I think it's that more than anything which makes me smoke. That interplay between pain and purity." "Only someone like you could make smoking sound poetic." "What can I say. That's my job." Shaking her head, she gazed at him. Having known her blind for so long he found it disconcerting the way she looked at him now. It was as if she was seeking out answers for why he had asked her to ruin her life all over again. Perhaps he was imagining it. "You know… that was quite a scene between you and that actress." He had to distract himself from the paranoid guilt. But it was now her turn to look away, "I didn't know, you know… About her. About that stuff they did." "The government lies to everyone, even the people who do the professional lying." "You mean, even to people like me." "And me." "I can't believe it." She corrected herself then, "I don’t want to believe it. Rape? Torture? Because she lost her baby and her husband went mad? Why-" He could hear the hysteria rising in her voice and dropped the end of his cigarette, moving to crouch beside her on the ground by the hole. The reference to Cybelline's husband as 'mad' suggested that she still hadn't come to terms with what she herself had done, was doing. It was mirrored by her wan face. Her eyes were so lost. More lost than the times he had seen her fumbling about in the room she'd lived in when blind. "Don’t think about it now. You ought to rest." "Rest? My arm throbs. I can barely move without it aching." He mock frowned, hiding the guilt that dug into his chest as he realised that had been the reason she had taken over for him last night… "You sound suspiciously familiar." He smiled, "If you're in pain you should have said you know, I have painkillers still, even if I'm out of sleeping pills." "Pain killers?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. * When Max saw his wraith of a friend standing in the open space of the old deserted street, he had smiled to himself, knowing that Sine would be smoking, philosophising to himself and contemplating the war, the stories he would tell. Enshrined in black, like a cloak of impermeable darkness, his best friend, his oldest friend was a skeletal creation of their world. But god he loved him for it. Grinning, he made to call out to him when he saw the younger man twitch, dropping his cigarette end and letting the spilt embers crumble on the earth, turning and revealing her the new girl that they had brought in the night before. Something coiled around his stomach and chest as he watched, paused mid-step. "OI! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ABOVE GROUND!?" Sine's head whipped up as his stance went from friendly to defensive in a matter of milliseconds. Max was almost proud of him before he remembered his anger. How could he put the woman in danger? She was the one person who couldn't be seen above ground. The rest of them could blend in easily enough but her? She was a traitor as well as a Runner. Sine was a fool if he had forgotten that. "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?" He bellowed, striding out towards them with his eyes narrowed into envelope slits. "Max," He saw Sine relax and he glared, internally smirking when he saw the boy wince, "I couldn't bear to be down-" "Don't assume I'm talking to you." He snarled, fixing his gaze now on Julie whose face was pale but with cheeks suffused with pink splotches as if she had been close to tears, "What the fuck are you thinking, coming up here?" She pulled herself together before his eyes, her focus on him bordering on disconcerting, "I didn't realise that I wasn't allowed to be." "You ran away yesterday. From the government no less. Who do you think they're going to recognise on those pretty little cameras of theirs? Zeppelins cross the sky every hour! You worked for them!" She shrank away slightly but didn't let his words force her into a retreat. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sine, the uncertain expression on his face matching the twitching fingers and shifting legs. Then his friend spoke, for the first time in years, against him. "She's given up her life for you. I will not let you force her to give up the sky." He frowned and scowled and then snarled, "Don't go poetic on me. She's freer now than she ever was before and-" "If this is freedom then it's overrated." Sine scoffed, blue eyes flashing dangerously. Julie stood up, her face set into a blank mask, setting a hand on Sine's elbow, "Calm down." It was then that Max noticed the quiver in the frail limbs, the life that he had seen revived on Sine's face that morning now gone. Sighing, he forced himself to push the anger away. He'd noticed that morning how his friend had slept with the new woman's fingers in his hair. He had known then that today would be a bad day for Sine, his desperate need to sleep trying to catch up on him even more fiercely than usual. He wanted to thank Julie for helping to put him to sleep at the same time as berate her for being above ground. "Let's just go down again. I have to explain a few things to everyone." Julie nodded. Sine simply turned away, separating from them, walking away into the muddle of broken up streets once populated by the proletariat of the city, "Explain to me later. I can't be here." Max let him go, used to it. But he wondered at the expression on Julie's face, concerned lines creasing her brow and her mouth becoming a pencil scribble. They had too much to do to bother talking about things now. He needed to discuss Cybelline with Ben and the others, see what should be done with her. There were differing views on her worth. She was an actress, he doubted she could fight and it was a vendetta with her. Right now she could become a liability, too prone to act because of her passionate hatred for everything they fought against but… she was undoubtedly loyal to them. He was certain of her much more than he was certain of Julie. He didn't trust her. He liked her. But he couldn't trust a woman who still believed the best in the regime of the world they'd all left behind. She couldn’t go back and live… but… He sighed again, wishing Sine would come back and tell him he was being foolish… Instead he inclined his head and watched as the woman lowered herself into the hole again. It was back to business as usual. LdyPhoenix Compliance is mother of all denial.Those were the first words Hel ever remembered her father saying to her, the main lesson he taught all of his children as he cleaned his weapons on the kitchen table and railed against the establishment. To be compliant was to give in and become a mindless drone like the rest of the population with IDCs stuck in their arms. The Undocs were born free. And to keep such freedom one had to have an open mind and a gun strapped to their waist. "Passion, my girl." The big man slammed the gun cartridge back in place, powerfully illustrating his point with enough force to make her flinch. "Passion and conviction will keep you alive. Never give them the satisfaction of your defeat." Now, as Hel stood in the shadows of a building on the verge of collapse, she could not see the wisdom in her father's words. Passion, she had learned, was a deterrent. An emotion that severely clouded the brain and made practical decisions a millions times harder than they needed to be. It was the fuel of sycophants and propaganda pushers, but not for the soldiers who lived on the edge. Ones on the jagged side had to be as cold as steel. It made watching the bullet splitting through the brain matter of an enemy a little less gruesome to bear. Especially when you're the one putting it there. A bright red strand of hair caught on the night breeze and stranded itself diagonally across her face over her left eye. Hel didn't move it. She didn't need to. The sight of her left side was completely lost, leaving her with an eye patch to cover the damage of what just to be. The extensive scar tissue was a gift from the Watchers, a token from the time they held her captive. Slowly, Hel scanned the perimeter, checking the line that separated the Undocs from the rest of the world. It always fascinated her to watch the transition from dirt and decay to sleek civilization, how cleanliness, no matter how nice, covered a whole mountain of sins. She had been there before, transported to some dark, generic building where time and pain had no consequence. Where screams were bred. She had been a gangly thirteen the first time they captured her. It had nearly killed her, both body an spirit. But she survived and escaped simply to piss them off, carrying with her one of their mistakes. They haunted her then. By the third capture, Hel learned not to feel. Satisfied enough that there was no cause for concern, Hel made her way back down below the earth where the rest of the makeshift crew was waiting. Before her boots touched the ground, she could hear the Sanchez twins conversely cursing and praising each other in a mix of intelligible Spanish. Like most things, she had grown used to the noise pollution since their time together was temporary. By morning light they would be on their separate ways - the twins to their group who’d relocated on the west side and she onto whatever crew who needed an extra scout. "Holy Hell, she's still alive." They hit each other in the arm, crumbling into fits of laughter at their play on words. Hel tossed her pack on the ground and covered it with her poncho. "That never gets old, does it?" The dryness of her voice didn't seem to taint there laughter. Her hand suggestively settled on the butt of her gun. "Alright, shit. We'll shut up." The stockier of the twins, Raoul, threw down two cards on a large pile between them. "I call." Hel watched as they exchanged another hand. "Anything over the waves?" "Two, actually. There's heavy activity going on about ten clicks southwest of outskirts. Something about a gov official defecting or some shit." Tony threw down his hand with a defeated sigh. "There might be some action there for you." "And the second..." "Just the letters G, N and M." He looked up from shuffling the deck. "Ring any bells?" Hel said nothing as she lay on the hard dirt ground, resting her head on her pack, facing away from the twins and their cards. Rest was needed. She'd head towards the southwest at dawn since it was the closest thing she had toward a direction of purpose. Far away from things that made her feel. G N M. Her stomach twisted itself into knots. Trying to let it pass, she traced the letters repeatedly on the ground in front of her with the tip of her finger. Softly so the others couldn't hear she whispered, "Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon..." Zephyr Shenkiken Teal AskanHe sat on the hard dirt holding a lit cigarette in his mouth barely bothering to take even the most periodic of puffs. Teal was named for the color in his eyes that now stared into the night on the outskirts almost hollow in light of his recession into his own head. Thought occurred deep within his skull numbing his outside along with the cold. The cigarette fell from his mouth bringing him back to reality. His eyes widened suddenly and he made a frantic yet useless attempt to scramble and catch the falling stick of paper and tobacco. Sighing in frustration he slid from the hood of the Shark. It was a jeep-like vehicle made for scanning the deserted outskirts smoothly and quietly. A thick silver hide was covered in brown camo housing a plasma combustor for an engine that made little to no noise. There were no tires to speak of because the vehicle traveled by hovering about eight inches above the ground. Teal’s brown boots hit the earth kicking up a small puff of dust as he leaned down to pick up his cigarette only to have another brown boot crush it. He looked up the dark brown and green military uniform at Sig. A thick cut of a man with ample scruff like all the other soldiers and a slightly outgrown buzz cut of black hair, “Are you sitting there thinkin’? Ha, that thinking…” Sig said with a cocky grin. He grabbed Teal’s outstretched wrist pulling back the long sleeve of his jacket revealing a series of deep scars on the spot that the IDC chip was imbedded, “Didn’t that shit get you in enough trouble?” “Fuck you Sig!” Teal shouted snatching away his hand and pulling his sleeve back down, “I thought you were trying to quit?” ”I was,” Teal said taking out another cigarette and holding it out letting Sig whip out a lighter and ignite the end. Teal took a deep inhale and slowly released the smoke. How he hated smoking, “You never could commit to anything Askan. How many promotions could you have gotten by now?” “Sig, seriously fuck you,” Teal replied rolling his eyes back and turning his head to the side staring at a coyote in the distance. It was eating what seemed to be a bird of some sort, “But you still have your doubts about the military? Why are you such a fucking cherry Askan? Best shot in the division, you’ve gutted more Undocs than the rest of us, and your melee is flawless, but you’re STILL a fuckin cherry!” Sig taunted, “You wanna find out how FLAWLESS my melee is first hand Sig?” Teal threatened. His face tensed and brow lowered. A dangerous pop came from the knuckles of his clenched left fist, “Eat shit. I’m not scared, you don’t even have the balls to hit me. What the hell are you brooding for all the time huh?” Sig asked. Teal stepped in front of him meeting him face to face. Teal suddenly grinned, “What?” ”I’m just thinking about how funny you’d look with this cancer stick poking out of your eye,” he said. His words dripped with malice as he shoved Sig back, “If you don't want to find out how it feels leave me the hell alone!” ……………………………………………………………………….. Moments later Sig had retreated and Teal sat on the Shark again. He remembered years ago how he'd promised his mom he wouldn't drink, smoke, or curse and she'd just laughed at his innocence. She was a smart woman. Lines ran hard across his face from stress. His youth was still apparent however. Twenty-one years had built a strong set of handsome features; of course ten days of ‘reform’ had crushed his jaw, scarred the right side of his face, and went on to partially cripple his right hand, and even turn him into a vegetable for a month. ”So you wanted to be an Undoc did you?” “Yeah he did, he thinks that shit’s funny!” “A real laugh right? Maybe he gets it now? Maybe it makes a little more sense why that was a bad idea,” the Watchers taunted brandishing truncheons and shackles. Teal fell down slumped against the wall. He slid onto his side. So much blood. His own blood everywhere. His right hand was mangled and clutched against his shattered ribs. A man who stood in the corner smoking spoke up, “You should thank us for treating that failed attempt Mr. Askan. Of course, this is your re-education. Your reform. After this, you will go to rehabilitation so that we can put you back on the frontlines. Is that clear?” A sputtered choke was all he could mutter. All the re's were just words. Words couldn't help him now. Here, words couldn't help anyone. Blurred vision picked up tattered specks of sight scanning the ground in front of him as he lay on his side. Pain numbed the corners of his mind as he registered what he was seeing. Three teeth in a pool of his own blood on the ground. He coughed and shivered. His broken jaw throbbed condemning his speech. The two men standing above him laughed as they put away the shackles. They didn’t need shackles for him now that the truncheons had crippled him. A metal rod collided suddenly with his left ankle making a sickening crack. Teal could grit his teeth in pain, he couldn’t even tense his jaw. A hollow scream sputtered from him as he crawled slowly a feebly away from the assailants, “What hurt more? Trying to delete your existence?” the shady man asked walking over. Teal looked to his left which was up at this point seeing the man standing over him, “No answer? Fine, let me give you a reason,” he said. Teal’s eyes widened as a boot came down hard on the side of his face. In an instant he felt his skull partially give way between the boot and the cement floor. His eyes shot open and he found himself rubbing his jaw, which was also scruffy. He’d jumped at the sudden shock of his memory. It was his punishment for trying to be free. The cigarette was in his hand now and slowly made it’s way back to his mouth, “Freedom…really isn’t free is it?” he asked himself. He ran a hand through his own dark hair, which had grown somewhat long in the extended time doing sweep detail and not having time to cut it. It was actually long enough to hang a little past his hairline. His eyes watched the sky again. No matter what they’d done to him he couldn’t forget, and he could resist the fiery desire to stop serving them, to rebel. After what they’d done to them he would never forgive, and never forget. During the month he was a vegetable after they'd injected some strange opaque tan liquid straight into his spine. It felt like someone jammed an iron steak into his back and actively tried to shove one of his vertebrae out of place. Those memories of that day…he'd gone over and over them in his mind. His precious government had decided that to deal with the soldier who’d suffered a ‘nervous breakdown’ they wanted to torture him with the thought that instead of killing him they could lock him in his own mind with open eyes able to watch the world and not interact with it. He'd sat for that month unable to speak, unable to move, only able to think and twitch his eyes about. Teal had withstood several nightmares and seizures caused by fear and panic. He'd listened to the sound of his heartbeat for countless hours just hoping that it would keep going. He couldn't die yet. Not yet. A firm grip held his shoulder suddenly, "It's time to move. We've got one more sweep to do," said Gale, a tall man with hard eyes and a wicked scar running down the right side of his face over his mouth, "We've taken this area under hold, but we found no one. The fact that there was a defense set up tells us we're on their trail," said Peirre another soldier, "I thought our orders were to stay put during the remainder of the month and head back?" Teal asked getting up again, "Orders change. It's time to kill some rebels," Gale said with a grin. He picked up an assault rifle cocking it and putting the strap over his neck, “You ready cherry?” "Fuck you too Gale. There could be more explosives," Teal said but everyone else was already on the move, “Are you gonna sit there and bitch or you gonna move your ass?” Sig shouted back "Damn it," Teal growled moving along as the Shark's silent engine hummed. He, once again, slid off of the front. They’d be moving slowly until they got close anyhow, might as well walk. He strolled up next to Pierre who was one of the only people in this unit who wasn’t a total douche bag. They walked a bit ahead of the Sharks to avoid the insults and annoying shouts of warcries by their comrades, “Sometimes you just wanna slap ‘em huh?” Pierre asked running a hand through his short blond hair, “Sometimes? You’ve got the patience of a saint if you only wanna slap the dick off his breath SOMETIMES,” Teal replied. Pierre chuckled. He was a cool guy, but if anyone was a cherry, it was Pierre. He’d never even had to shoot another person. His lust for blood was like that of an anemic vegetarian vampire who’s fangs had fallen out. They walked up toward the open area again just before a slew or rundown half blown away building. The area they’d just swept. ..................................................................... Teal woke up dazed for a moment. He had a violent and sudden start. His ears still rang from shell shock and a thunderous ‘boom’. The memories came flooding back. An explosion, screams, fire. There had been some explosives left over, just like he thought. How far had they gotten? He stood on wobbly legs looking around. Blood trickled from his forehead as he coughed slowly and rested his hand on his knife just in case. Dust still clung to the air around him as he saw Pierre stumble toward him from beyond the wall of floating dirt and staring at the two destroyed Sharks, "What the fuck happened?!" Pierre shouted. The panic in his eyes would alarm a blind man, "I was right that's what happened. Dammit! They could be hanging around here still waitin to pick us off!" Teal cried reached in his pocket. No cigarettes. He growled and turned southwest whipping out his pistol and holding it in front of him. His right hand shook hard from the stress. It had begun to ache again, "That's where we were headed right? There should be another outpost nearby," "But what if there are-" "No choice. Unless your radio’s still working?" Teal asked tossing his uselessly crumpled earpiece into the dirt after a brief tap and getting nothing. Pierre tapped his then did the same. Teal clenched his teeth together locking his jaw as his eyes scanned over a few limbs sticking out from under the wreckages. They smoldered emitting a burnt stench. After a moment of silence he cocked the gun and turned, "Let's go Pierre. There could be Undocs waiting," he said heading off, “Then why are we going toward them?” Pierre shouted back still following despite his fear, “Because going back may trip even MORE explosives. I rather like not being a grease stain,” Teal lied. In truth, now that the rest of the jack-offs were dead, this could be his opportunity. If he could find some of the refugees out here, maybe he could- “Teal I’m fuckin’ freakin out…” Pierre whimpered holding his own pistol close to his body, “Maybe we should have salvaged those SMG’s off our buddies huh?” “Pierre, when a plasma combustor explodes it’s not gonna leave anything within range in working condition,” Teal replied. He continued watching ahead of himself. They’d gotten past the slew of buildings up front. Eventually they came to what seemed to be an old subway. The same one that accident had happened in long ago, “Hey, maybe we can use the Pulser? Y’know, to see if there are people in there?” Pierre asked shakily. His gun could be heard shivering in his hands. God he needed to be popped already! “Pierre, chill!” Teal snapped, “How is the Pulser going to pick up people who don’t have an IDC?” “Oh…” “So calm down, proceed low and slow, hold your breath when you take a sharp shot, and shoot what moves. Oh, and for the love of God don’t start screaming while you open fire. It’s embarrassing,” Teal explained. Pierre nodded and proceeded behind him as they entered slowly. One thing did stick out. It was faint, and he didn’t know if it came from in or outside, but Teal could smell cigarettes. Stilavon-BackFromTheAshes Darkness: lights forever companion. Without it, there could be no light just as one could say the same for its reflection. But here, in the corners of her dream, this law and the laws of so many other “must be's” exist only to further confuse her from the truth: That here, no restrictions exist at all. Here she is free to float within a void of darkness. A darkness she created with her own mind to imprison the horrors of yesterday's that, for all she cared, could burn in an incinerator of forgotten pasts and rise up like moths of embers.But every so often these moths rise up high enough to catch the wind and fly on wings of pain and sorrow into the darkness she floats within. And so the real truth is born in the shape of a monster. A monster that hides itself in her safety blanket of darkness until it can get strong enough to creep itself into the reality which she has created to shield herself from the very beast that haunts her still. It is here that the moths of hot ember glow brightly enough to illuminate that which should neither ever be seen nor forgotten. Or else it shall fester and infect that which is most vulnerable and hardest to heal. What is this monster? Or the moths of which were born from the incinerator she wished to destroy them in? In ones dreams you return to your true self- the innocent which is locked away so that one can survive. Here that innocent is freed. Here is where her innocent unlocks its cage and slips out into the darkness to once again relive that which she tried for so long to make no more... Nine years. Anyone who's seen this long of life believes themselves capable of scaling mountains that not even the best of us dare scale as old as we are now. But as this innocent searches in the void of herself she creates a twisted, misshapen version of the truth in hopes of hiding it just enough so she can pass by it unscathed. The hallway she tip-toes down is massive in size and creates an eerie glow that her older self screams for her to escape from. But the innocent cannot hear that which to her, has yet to come into being. So she continues down the hallway which all who've seen at least twice the years she has would know what danger lies ahead. The monster... he lies in waiting at the end of the hall- through the door where the darkness is strongest. With her heartbeat racing she piers around the corner only to see a man- which to her is wounded and in need of the light she has yet to shield herself from. She draws closer to him, ignoring the blood stained uniform of the men that hunt her and her family. She calls to him, offering her assistance. When he looks up at her, his face is hidden in shadow- all but his eyes which show only his despair. She smiles and holds out her hand to help him up. In that split second he attacks. “They took it out! They stole it from me! I want it back! Give me back my life!” He yells as he grips her arm and flings her to the ground. The madness in his eyes shifts his form and finally she sees him for what he truly is... but it is too late. The monster tears at her flesh and devours her light, leaving her there to wallow within her self created night. ... Rin rolled over in a cold sweat onto her stomach, struggling against the white sheets that were tangled up in her legs. She grabbed her pillow and snuggled up against it in hopes of catching a few more winks before she had to get up again. She could feel the dogs soft fur rub up against her toes as it rolled onto its side, begging for some attention now that she was awake. “Not now Cole.” She mumbled under her breath while she absentmindedly began rubbing its belly with her left foot just long enough to get a long heavy sigh out of the mutt when she stopped. Rin lay there trying to fall back to sleep but, her mind was already beginning to wake up. It was quiet. Why in the heck was it quiet anyways? It was always noisy. Nobody ever let her sleep in this long without barging in on her and insisting she come check something out. Was something wrong? Rin let out another groan. “No... now go back to bed. Wake up later!” She complained to herself as she flailed about on the bunk. A strand of her black hair slid down her arm and began tickling her cheek. Why was she all sweaty? Had she had that dream again? She couldn't even remember the dumb thing. Why have a dream if your not going to remember it? Her cousin knew the dream... it had been dark enough for him to turn it into one of his stories. How funny, someone who seldom sleeps remembering the dream of someone else who can't remember it at all. Course it didn't really matter. A dream was a dream. She didn't have time for that sort of thing. For a while she just laid there, trying to get her mind to go back to sleep, letting the strand of hair tickle and further agitate her in hopes of falling asleep before the sensation became too unbearable. No such luck. Finally giving into the urge to move the strand of hair and itch her cheek, she roughly flipped her hair back- catching her tanned fingers into the ponytail and messing her hair up all the more. Frustrated, Rin flailed again and rolled back over on her back. The next thing she knew Cole's big golden eyes were looking down at her and he gave her a good morning kiss on her mouth without so much as a warning. “AWE! That's disgusting Cole!” She yelled, pushing the rot willer/springer spaniel off her chest and wiping the slobber off of her mouth. He jumped down off the bed, tail wagging. “You'd best say your prays!” She grumbled, reaching for the pillow she was going to chuck at him given enough time. Suddenly the door opened and Cole took the opportunity to get out of there while he had the chance. A well muscled and scruffy looking guy watched the black and copper colored dog leave before he looked back up at Rin, giving her a look as he leaned against the door jam. “Oye... Rin get your lazy ass out of bed would ya?” He teased. His down filled vest making him look even more bulky than he already was. Rin moaned and pulled the covers up over her head while simultaneously chucking the pillow at the burley fellow who dared disturb her slumber. He dodged it easily. “Five more minutes Severn.” The older man smirked. “You sure? You don't want six this time around?” He asked. “No.” She half sighed, half growled as she kicked the covers off and stood up, fixing her black tank top and womens boxer shorts. Severn stood there, stroking his beard and smiling. Rin didn't pay him any attention. “I'll be there in five minutes.” She repeated. Severn laughed. “Alright. That gives you three minutes to get ready then...” He teased before flipping on her light and shutting the door. Rin smirked and pulled out her hair tie. With the light on, her Raven black hair gave off its deep violet shine. She quickly raked a comb through it, noting she needed to chop it off- it was getting way too long, and retied it behind her head. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, looking in the damaged mirror at her own reflection. Her eyes looked like two aquamarines staring back at her coolly. As soon as she felt her mouth was clean enough, she spit into rust stained sink and walked over to the chair next to her bunk. She pulled off her tank top and slid her dark brown leather vest on, buttoning the form fitting piece up. She put on the matching pair of pants before sitting down, stringing up the steel toed combat boots and tucking her pant legs down into them. ... Rin walked into the bustling room, her every step commanding the respect she'd already earned. “Status.” She called out, walking over to Hex as she adjusted the strap on her black fingerless gloves. Cole trotted up behind her until he caught the look in her eyes that told her she hadn't forgotten his slobbery treason from earlier. He'd get his punishment later when she was supposed to feed him. Taking that as a sign he walked over to Severn, hiding under his desk for protection. “There's a shark scouting the area.” He replied, looking at the monitor and typing as fast as he could to keep up with his work. They'd built their own systems using scrap pieces of technology which was very apparent in the mismatched computers that looked more like piles of junk than anything useful. She noted the three spots on the screen. They were still over thirty-five kilometers away and there was no way they'd find this base. “Good. Keep an eye on them and let me know if anything changes.” Rin replied. “Got it.” “Oye! Rin! He did it!” Severn yelled from across the small room. Rin looked up. “What'd who do?” “That message you gave away a couple months ago. Whoever you gave it to, found a way to sneak it into the city and play it.” Rin rushed over to Severn and looked down at the screen. A grin crept over her face as the long hair she'd pulled back fell around her shoulder. “That son of a bitch” She laughed. “He actually managed to pull it off. Guess I'm going to have to pay him that fifty after all.” Severn laughed. “You bet against your own source? Serves you right then.” Rin smiled and nodded. As soon as Tenner had gotten together that card she'd taken one of their recycled Sharks over to the base located closest to the city and talked to Max and they'd both agreed the person to give it to was Sine. Looks like it paid off in the end. “Shhh!” Hex pushed his headphones closer to his ears. “I broke the code to the sharks intercoms. They've just received orders to relocate. They're headed in the direction of one of our bases- I assume the one responsible for getting that broadcast out. They're saying something about a rogue government official posting false propaganda to the public.” “False my eye.” Severn growled. Rin didn't pay him any mind. “Did they say the officials name?” She asked. “Yea its-” Suddenly the lights overhead flickered, then burst as a powerful energy surged through all the systems, sending the room in complete darkness. “What the hell was that?” Rin yelled flicking a piece of glass off her arm. “I don't know.” Hex snapped, trying to get his computer to respond. When it finally did respond he kit the keys more forcefully due to his frustrations. “Well get the emergency lights on would ya?” She snapped back. “I got it.” Tenner replied from his little corner. A moment later red lights flickered on. “Good, now somebody tell me what that surge was!” She insisted. Tenner ran a finger through his curly hair. “It came from the eleventh room on the east side.” Rin growled just as the door opened and two coughing figures walked into the room. “Sulis... Fhina... you had better have a good explanation for this!” Sulis took off his glasses and began cleaning them with his grey shirt. “Relax, it was just a simple miscalculation in the notes.” He replied in a deep English accent. Fhina pushed up her own glasses and looked over at Rin meekly. “We used too much Slick in the trial run.” “We'll get it right next time. Rest assured.” Sulis added as he put his glasses back on and retied his long blond hair behind his ear before sticking his hands in his lab coat pockets. “We just need a little more Slick is all. Do be a doll and get us some more as soon as possible.” Rin glared at him, putting her hand on her hip. “Do you have any idea where it is we get Slick?” “Of course I do. They're one of the major components Sharks run off of- its a very unstable substance.” “Dammit!” Hex growled, slamming his fist against the desk. Sulis raised an eyebrow and looked curiously at him. “What's you're problem?” Rin shoved past him and rushed over to Hex. “The problem is, Sulis, you two just gave away our position.” Hex glared at Sulis. “The shark has changed direction and is headed straight our way. Their instruments caught our energy spike. They know where we are!” Sulis smiled and crossed his arms. “Well then that works out perfectly see. It as a special delivery. You won't have to go far to get it this time around.” Rin shot him a glare. “What do you want us to do, Rin?” Severn asked. “Isn't it obvious? I'm issuing a code mouse. Everybody pack up and get out of here. Tenner,” “Yea Rin?” He asked. “You still got that anniversary gift your girl Ezera's got you?” “You mean the bombs?” Rin smiled and nodded. “Yea. What are you thinking?” “Set them to explode at the entrance fifteen minutes after you leave. Now that they know about this place we're going to have to get rid of it.” She said as she walked over to a chair and grabbed her dark blue scarf, wrapping it around her neck once before grabbing her light grey hooded sweater and sleeveless trench coat. “What are you planning?” Severn asked. Rin just looked up at him and grinned, sliding the jackets over the massive scar that ran all the way down her arm. “Me and you are staying behind for the Shark.” She put her foot up on the chair and stuck a large knife into her boot, then reached for her two guns, slinging the guns nearly as tall as her over her back. “As for the rest of you... ride around for a half an hour. By then I'll be able to send you the coordinates to our new base.” “Fine... just don't get yourself killed or captured. You're the only one out there who knows where all our bases and shelters are located.” Hex grumbled. The smile on her face got even bigger. “Now Hex, what do you take me for? When have I ever not been careful?” His only response was the rolling of his eyes. ... The four soldiers made their way into the empty space. “Looks like we just missed them.” One stated. Hiding in the shadows, Rin could see these men had recently been deployed- still freshly shaved and practically bald. Two of the men were smokers. She crinkled her nose at the repulsive smell. How someone would want to smell like a walking ash tray was beyond her. “Let's do a once around and see if we can catch their trail.” Another replied, lighting his own cigarette. Rin rolled her eyes and watched as he walked under her. She slid down the hidden corner of the wall and jumped on his back, sticking her knife into the mans throat. “What the?” Another behind her shouted. As the man she held onto made the sickening gurgling sound of someone dying, Rin kicking the soldier behind her in the stomach before spinning around and using the man in front of her as a shield as the remaining two opened fire. Ten shots sounded. Rin smiled and pulled out her knife, dropping the dead man and stepping over the others. Severn came out from the shadows, his own gun billowing a thin line of smoke. “Well that was easy. I didn't even have to use Hate and Malice.” She teased as she patted the guns on her back. Severn glared at her. “You and your damned guns. You're bleeding you know.” He hissed. Rin just smiled. “It's fine. Come on. We haven't got much time to pull out all the tracking devices in the shark they left us.” ... “We should go back.” Fhina whispered, clutching a large box full of her things. “Don't be ridiculous. Why would we do that?” Sulis asked, glanicing over at Cole who licked all the way up his face. Sulis went pale. “... bloody mutt...” He mumbled. “What if they've been captured?” “Would you two shut up. It's your fault we gotta do this in the first place.” Hex yelled from behind the wheel. “Oye, Severn to Hex- can you hear me or what? Is this thing even on?” Rin could be heard laughing. “Of course its on- see that light right there.” Hex accidentally jerked the Shark the the left. “Severn? Rin? You guys okay?” “Hey, watch it! This stuff is highly explosive!” Sulis snarled. Hex ignored him. Rin laughed again. “Yea, we're fine. Is that Sulis I hear in the background? Tell him I've got his stupid Slick!” Sulis chuckled and leaned over Hex. “Hey watch it!” Hex yelled. “Wonderful, Rin. You're amazing as usual. Now how about getting me another lab so Miss. Fhina and I can finish our work?” “Already one step ahead of you- I'm sending you the coordinates. We should be there by tomorrow night.” Rin replied cheerfully. Hex noted something in her voice. “What's wrong Rin?” “...Nothing.” “She let herself get shot again, that's what!” Rin slugged Severn in the arm. “Ouch! Look, they need to know. She's fucking driving and bleeding all over the damned place.” He said, leaning closer to the intercom. “Zip it!” She yelled back, gripping her leg with one hand and driving with the other. “He's being a pussy- the shot's not that big a deal. I've had worse. Now enough chatter- get to the designated location as soon as possible. If you get there before we do tell Max I sent you. If he's not around, tell Sine. He's my cousin.” Before anyone could respond Rin shut off the communications. Severn just glared at her. “Don't look at me like that, WHAT?” “You're bleeding. At least take care of the damned thing. I'm not gonna donate the next time you're fucking bleeding to death if you don't stop being so fucking selfish and pigheaded. You're twenty years old, Rin. Stop living so recklessly.” Rin laughed. “Why? So I can live to be as old as you?” “I'm only thirty four dammit! See that's exactly what I'm talking about! You act like you don't expect to live past twenty five!” The smile on Rin's face faded as she stared at the hell hole she'd lived in her whole life. If there was one thing she'd do it would be freeing her kind and making the sons of bitches who were responsible for all this pay. And she would too. Finally Rin looked over at Severn. Her usual cocky and carefree nature completely gone. “Who says I do?” The next thing she knew Severn smacked her upside the back of her head. “What the hell was that for?” She yelled. “Go take care of that.” He growled, crossing. “You gotta enough scars. You don't need one more.” Rin blinked and stared at him for a minute. “Yea... fine... but only cause I might need another transplant before our jobs are finished and we can retire like the lazy fucks we are.” She teased. “Take the wheel would ya?” She asked. “Yea, I got it.” Severn sighed, holding the wheel as she slid out of the seat and he took her spot behind the wheel. Rin went in back, taking off her jackets to get a little more comfortable. As she leaned down to rummage through the medical kit, Severn caught a glimpse of a few jagged scars on her lower back. He sighed again. “I remember when you got those...” He mumbled to himself. “What was that old timer?” Rin asked in a tease as she looked up at him. Severn just smirked. “Nothing Rin... nothing at all.” t.s. wood, the sleepy art kid My life has been kind of crazy. I cannot explain everything, but I am sorry that I've been inactive for so long. I also understand that a second CF was started for this one-- I'd appreciate it if that one was closed, but at the same time, I know a lot of work was put into those other additions. Therefore, this is just going to be a filler addition that doesn't affect the plot too much, in case you guys want to reuse what you wrote in the other one.It was now late in the afternoon, but below ground no one had much idea of how the light changed on the abandoned streets above them. There was a calm but regimented bustle in the underground rooms; Julie suspected that it was part of a usual routine, some aspect of life as an Undoc to which she would eventually habituate. Max strode into the room calmly, his face bored. Julie couldn’t help but remember it contorted in surprise and anger when he had seen her out on the open street. “Remus,” Max said, not even looking at the man whom he addressed. “You know your way around. We need to cover more ground, to watch for more people running. Just got confirmation of soldiers in the area.” There was a general stiffening in the room, but Max continued as if nothing of great importance had passed his lips. “I’m splitting you from Jez.” He turned to Jez. “Cover the northern borders, near the hospital area.” “Alone?” Jez asked, his face tilted with concern. “I’ve sent a message to the beta group. You’ll meet at the old high rise with one from their party.” Seeing Jez nod, Max turned back to Remus. “You’ll be taking the newbie.” Remus widened his eyes, glancing back and forth between his leader and his new charge. “Max, she’s just gotten here—“ And I thought you said I’m not supposed to be above the ground, Julie indignantly thought to herself. “Now’s as good a time as any to learn how to get around. Cover your normal area. Sunset’s soon.” Taking that as a cue to leave, Remus shrugged and turned immediately to the new Undoc, grabbing his gun from the table. “You’re going scouting tonight, then.” “Scouting for what?” Julie asked apprehensively, still annoyed with Max’s wanton decision to send her onto the streets that he had just chastised her about visiting. At least her arm was not in pain at the moment. She cast a glance at Sine standing in the opposite corner, his green eyes also flickering behind Max, probably also thinking about the ridiculous timing of the leader’s demand for Julie to go scouting. She wanted to thank him for the painkiller he had given her. Maybe ask for another for later. As comfortable as her arm felt now, she knew it would not last. Remus’s voice interrupted her thoughts “We ‘scout’ for anything. People, animals... pigeons are actually pretty good grilled,” he said cheerfully, motioning for her to follow him as he turned down the hallway where she remembered discarding her government uniform. In the corner where some old pipes interrupted the space between ceiling and floor rested several canvas bags. Remus bent down and deliberately pulled up the one on top, briefly rummaging though it and contenting himself that it was complete before handing it to Julie. “This is your pack,” he said, bending over and picking one up for himself. It was much heavier than it had seemed when he casually lifted it as if it held nothing more than a pair of socks. “Take a look through it, make sure you’re familiar with what’s supposed to be there.” Julie followed his instructions. She at least had a good mind for memorizing lists. Here she saw a flashlight, a pathetically ancient radio device, a black, long-sleeved shirt that presumably she was to wear under the cover of darkness, a knife, a lighter, a couple rags, and an ominously unlabeled brown bottle, easily able to fit in her palm, that contained a single pill capsule. “Is that some sort of medicine we’ll need?” Julie asked Remus, holding up the tiny brown bottle. “You take it if you get caught,” were his only words. A heaviness crept across his face for an instant. Julie understood, and immediately endeavored to move away from the grim possibility that they carried with them in their bags. “You have a gun there...” she remarked. “Am I supposed to, as well?” At this, Remus cheered considerably. “Not yet,” he smiled. “You’ll get one in time. But Max doesn’t trust you. And that’s fine. He didn’t trust me, either.” Remus fastened his jacket. “Did the same to me as well. Been here... oh... five months now? Still fresh.” Julie was surprised by this. She thought that he must have been there for at least a couple years, such was his calm demeanor. Would she also learn to live like this so quickly? She supposed so... “We’ve got a bit of a ways to go. Luckily much of our route can be made through tunnels and other buildings... Even though he’s prone to throwing new Runners out into the fire like this, I was a little surprised,” Remus mused, “that Max would allow you to go out an’ all. Must be desperate to keep as wide a perimeter as he can...” Julie followed Remus up the ladder in silence, a worried buzzing filling the back of her head. She knew that her treason would not lead to the typical circumstances faced by new Runners. She knew that something was brewing. -------------------------------------- It was now dark out. Unobstructed by the glow of the city, stars filled the sky, clear and prickling with the residual chill of a retreating winter. Teeth chattering, Julie slumped against the wall of the building that Remus had singled out. “It’s so damn cold,” she muttered, rummaging in her pack for the black shirt. Her arm was sore again, both from carrying the pack and the painkiller wearing off. Now she truly wished she had asked Sine for more. “I was just going to say,” echoed Remus, reaching around the old door and dragging out a pair of quilted, ripped, and faded blankets. He dropped one in a heap in order to clutch at the other with both hands, flapping it up and down to rid it of any dust it had accumulated during the day. “Always so much colder out in the open, and at night here, the temperature just plummets.” He gave a slower, much more deliberate shake of the dull blue blanket, spreading it over the gravel in front of him. “It’s not the city. Not enough lights, machines, bodies to keep it from freezing…” “But it’s mid-March, it’ll be warming up soon,” said Julie hopefully, pulling the musty-smelling black shirt over her head. “Nighttime is still a bitch until the end of April, I hate to say.” Remus had dropped his pack on the side of the blanket farthest from the alley. “Here,” he said, motioning to her. “It’ll stop your shivering, eventually.” Julie looked up at him and saw that he had lain down on the blanket and was pulling the other over him. Immediately she felt a nagging impropriety in the situation. “Can’t we just use the blankets separately?” Remus didn’t even seem flustered at her question. “Not nearly as efficient. Body heat, remember. I’ll take the first half awake, to watch and listen for anything. You need the sleep more than me right now.” She fidgeted. “I feel a little awkward, to be honest,” she explained, befuddled as to why he seemed so nonchalant regarding such an obvious and understandable discomfort. “Yeah, but at least you won’t feel frozen.” He was on his back now, the blanket covering him, his hands behind his head. When she didn’t move from her spot, he let out a very obvious sigh and rolled his eyes at her. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not a spooner or touchy-feely or anything like that.” Feeling the color rising in her cheeks, Julie turned her head away quickly. Remus made another attempt at coercion, this time thinking that a bit of light humor would make a dent in her coldness. “Now, Jez... Jez is a spooner. We had to lie together like this before. But you know how some people move in their sleep—“ “Oh, shut up.” “I’m nothing like Jez, I swear.” “I don’t care.” “Yes, you do. You care enough that you’ve got the crazy notion in your head that somehow I’m interested in more than staying warm. I assure you,” he said with mock grandeur, “that the nature of our work is too serious to allow a lapse into anything more salacious, ma’am. Now get under the blanket before you lose your nose, it’s bright red. And you probably can’t feel your fingertips. Besides, without someone else under here, I’m just as cold as you. Poor Jez is off on his own in this cold.” Julie rubbed her nose, but it only met with the equally frigid touch of her fingers. Sighing reluctantly, her breath visible against the dark backdrop of night, she heaved herself up from the wall and dragged her feet all the way to the blanket. Remus was still there, looking up at her with a bemused smirk. “Well?” “Scoot over.” He did so with a smug smile as she pulled herself hesitantly under the blanket and reclined, lying as straight and stiff as a plank of wood and flinching when her arm brushed his side. As of yet, there was no change in warmth, and there was a rock pushing into her back from under the blanket, so she rolled onto her side, unintentionally pressing her front against Remus. She stiffened, but then she understood. There was definitely a detectable warmth from his body, much more preferable to the airy, shapeless chill of the world around them. “So,” he said, “you’ve come ‘round to it, then?” Julie didn’t answer. “If you don’t mind...” he grunted, turning on his side to face her and putting an arm around her torso, which caused her to push away a few inches, the rock scraping her back again. “I’m not—no. I’m not. I’m not doing anything like that. I swear, it’s all just to keep warm,” he said in exasperation, his teeth chattering slightly; hers were, too. “Look, I’ll let you do the same to me, and I don’t care.” He grabbed Julie’s arm and dropped it against his side. “After months of sleeping with Jez, I couldn’t care less. I did the same with him. We had to. It’s necessity, simple as that.” “You promise?” “I absolutely swear.” It was so much warmer already, Julie had to admit. She let him put his arm around her again, but her stomach still twisted itself into knots. She was sleeping with a stranger, an Undoc (and she was one, too, she had to remind herself) in the open outskirts where they risked being spotted by a drone— though to be covered by the blanket and Remus’s arm in the shadows did at least obstruct her a bit. And if they were discovered, then what? Would they simply be killed, as the majority of the documented populace believed would happen? Or would they be kept alive and used for other purposes, like those who harvested raw materials in the article she had mistakenly released to the public? And which would be preferable? What were they even hoping to do out here… save lives? Build an army? All she had seen were some explosions and a group of ragged, armed people living below the streets. It seemed so futile. Despite these swimming, thrashing thoughts, Julie felt herself drifting away into sleep. She needed it, after staying up with Sine. His tired, bright eyes glowed from the back of her mind as they had in the dark room last night. Sine... She knew part of Max’s reasoning had been to separate her from what he saw as a more vulnerable member of their group. Her newness brought along with it so many other susceptibilities that could put even more of a strain on the gaunt man. Perhaps Max was also worried Sine could do the same to her. The need for sleep and warmth overpowered her discomfort. She was only barely aware of pulling herself closer against Remus, so that his breath tickled her forehead. He was keeping his word; his hands did not wander, her body meant nothing to him other than warmth for the evening, and oddly enough, that was the most reassuring thought she’d had for a long time. She’d slept with a man only once before, a technician in the same building who was constantly flitting between the different offices, updating encryptions and data storage. It was because she knew he was to die the next day—they’d slipped her the information beforehand in order to give her time to write a proper letter of condolences, to be delivered to his aging parents by the very people who had secretly ordered his death. And she had known for so long that he had watched her on the train to and from their work, she had known that he was in his late thirties while she had been 18 at the time. She went home with him that evening, out of pity and guilt, returning his searching stare with a coy, beckoning glance. No words were exchanged. It was all understood. She had left at 2 AM. He was found dead eight hours later, a faked suicide, and her letter was finished another hour after that. But with Remus, there were no expectations, no hopes for the unattainable, no sense of obligation. All she had to do was satisfy was a simple, platonic need. And it satisfied one in her, as well. Not even a sore arm could keep her from falling asleep that evening. --------------------------------------- A quick movement by her side woke her in the dead of night. Then there was a cold rush of air as the blanket was pulled down, causing Julie to briefly shudder before instinctively grabbing at the fabric with fumbling hands to pull it back up. But Remus held it tight. She grumbled to him incoherently, but he didn’t answer, and he didn’t return the blanket. With an immense effort she opened her eyes and found him sitting straight up, looking off into the distance. The darkness obscured his features, hiding whatever expression he bore. “What are you—“ “Shh.” He motioned to her to keep quiet without looking at her. “It can’t be my turn already…” “There’s someone over here.” He leaned forward a bit, his broad shoulders pulling the rest of his body. “Just outside of the alley.” Now Julie sat up as well, her eyes focusing and refocusing in the dark. Leaning towards the scouter’s face, she whispered, “Where?” to which he responded with a silent gesture to some dubious location in front of them, at the mouth of the alleyway. “I don’t see…” But then something inched. Or breathed. Or crawled. Whatever it was, and whatever it was doing, it was low to the ground. A shoulder appeared, and then an arm. It was pushing itself up; it failed and sank back down. Remus was already on his feet with surprising speed and agility. Julie made to get up as well, but he stopped her. “If it’s dangerous, we have to have someone as far from it as possible. To be able to get back if something happens. I’ll signal to you if it’s safe.” Julie crunched the blanket between her fists— did she even know how to get back? With that, he left her crouching by the rumpled blanket. All she saw was his large silhouette retreat into the distance, barely outlined by the moonlight outside the alley. He stopped by the entrance where the form was spotted and knelt down. Immediately he thrust out his hand and jerked it towards him a few times. Julie pulled herself up and began walking as quickly and quietly as possible, but she had risen and awoken so fast that the blood rushed through her head and momentarily blurred her vision into a lacework of greens and purples, eliminating the memory of what the walls of the abandoned buildings looked like as she passed between them. Her eyes adjusted once again and she saw Remus crouched down by a curled, pitiful figure. “He’s not going to make it.” Remus’s voice was soft and constrained, hiding itself from the ears of the body at his feet. Julie knelt down beside him. There was a boy sprawled on his side. No more than perhaps fourteen, gangly with the pinched look of puberty’s first growth spurt. His eyes were half-open with fluttering lids, his breathing shallow and insignificant as his body shivered. Tufts of light brown hair were mussed and plastered around his bloodless face with cold sweat. As Remus lifted one of the trembling arms, the boy gave a slight whimper—faint, short, and utterly pathetic. Julie’s breath stopped in her chest and twisted around her ribs when she heard it. There was a huge black stain down the boy’s side, beginning at his upper arm. A patch of dark, mangled flesh gleamed there. “Cut the artery… I’m surprised he made it this far,” murmured Remus as he examined the limb. “Must have run and then done it—dangerous. But it looks like he got it out…” Julie’s mouth struggled to form words. “What do we do if—when he dies?” she whispered. Remus sighed. “We leave him here.” The absurdity struck her forcefully. “Leave his body? So anyone could just stumble across it? “Yes.” “Just a rotting corpse out in the open.” He turned briskly to her and said over his shoulder, “Maybe that’s what Max should have done with you, made you an undertaker. We’d just need to find you a shovel—“ There was another murmur from the boy, this time slightly louder. Remus bent back down. “Can you hear me?” The boy’s dark eyes stalled in their fluttering for a moment, just long enough for him to focus them on the man crouching by his side. “Can you? Yes or no?” A few seconds passed in stillness, so absolute that Julie thought the boy had died right then and there; she jumped a bit when his blue lips moved and he croaked out a few words, as soft and rasping as the chilling wind that washed over the three of them. “Did I make it?” “Yes, you made it,” Julie said, her voice awakened seemingly of its own accord, sounding as if it came from somewhere outside of herself. Remus looked at her once again over his shoulder before turning back to the boy, whose shivers were slowing with his breathing. With a large hand gently cradling the cold, young face, he smiled. “You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine tomorrow. Don’t you worry.” The darkness made the youth’s features hard to decipher, and Julie was unsure whether or not the slight shift in the boy’s face had been an unconscious movement or the ghost of a smile. His lids were growing heavier now, but behind them his eyes shone bright—like Sine’s in the darkness, she couldn’t help but think. What was left of the shivers stopped. His breathing stopped. Remus took his hand away. Julie turned from the corpse. Exhaling slowly, Remus stood, but he did not turn to face Julie, and she did not turn to look at him. “This is what happens sometimes,” he said. “Not everyone is as lucky as we were.” “It’s my fault…” Julie’s words slurred together. Now Remus faced her, genuinely perplexed. “Your fault?” She couldn’t hold in the guilty tremble in her voice. “Like Max said. A psychological weapon. Something to spark a wave of… of this. To get a message out.” “But you didn’t create it.” “But I activated it.” “And it worked.” “And a child has died because of it.” Remus was silent, and now Julie finally turned her face to him, revealing the streaks of tears down her nose and cheeks. “A child is dead because of me.” He didn’t move or answer. “It’s my fault.” Again, no answer. A wave of helpless anger washed over her, and she shouted at him. “Damn you, I killed a child! I killed a fucking child! How many more will die like him? How many will die because of me?” she cried, her voice cracking before the sobs racked her body. With a shameful gasp, she put her back toward the scouter and buried her face in her hands, hot tears settling between her fingers and wetting her palms. His footsteps dragged and shuffled behind her, until she could feel that inexplicable pull of another person’s presence that all humans are susceptible to. With one arm around her shoulders—but not a single word—he guided her back through the alley, leaving the tragic corpse behind them. Again she did not see the buildings between which she passed, though this time it was because of the stinging tears. They reached the blanket and their rolled-up packs, and he used the grip he had on her shoulders to turn her so that she was facing him. “This isn’t your fault,” he said. “It was an accident. It can’t be blamed on anyone.” No answer from Julie to confirm that his words had penetrated her cloud of guilt. She had heard him, but the hollowness that now pierced her insides and throbbed in her brain kept her from responding with more than a stammering sniff. Firmly, but gradually to avoid startling her, he put both arms around her shoulders and hugged her against his chest. “I don’t know what else to do,” he said in a worn, hoarse voice as she momentarily wriggled before relaxing, remembering that he was still relatively new to this world as well. She was becoming quite used to his physical contact, albeit as a source of warmth and not one of comfort as he offered it now. Before she knew it, they were sandwiched between the blankets again. Her tears left a wet patch on the fabric on which her head rested. This time there was no struggle. “Though... it is your turn to stay awake now,” Remus muttered reluctantly. He fumbled under the blanket to his side and produced the pistol. “Ever shoot one of these?” Julie turned the cold metal over in her hands. “A few times, as part of basic security training when I first started working... I’m not a great shot, but I know how to fire and reload properly.” This was even better than Remus had expected from a willowy stick of a girl who looked like she’d sooner be blown off her feet by the blast of a gun than be able to hold one for multiple shots, and he sleepily commended her with a pat on her shoulder. Nothing else occurred during the night for them, no occasion to use the gun; at least in this area, Max’s expectations of increased activity seemed to fall short. As Remus slept by her side, Julie groggily sat hunched over with the gun in her lap until the first rosy paling of the skies at sunrise, watching the pink rays of dust shift and cause the shadows of the boy’s corpse, so far away yet so vivid, to change from hour to hour. The longer she stared at it, the less she was distraught by it, because it began to stop looking like the dying boy from last night and more like an anonymous lump of flesh and clothing. She realized, with a sad smirk, that she would indeed become used to this. She had to, if she wanted to survive. Remus roused himself and found Julie still sitting with his gun, which he took back without words. And still without words, they both stood, grabbed their packs, stuffed the blanket away, and prepared to head back. Julie turned herself in the direction they had originally come, but Remus was heading out towards the alley. “We can’t use the same path,” he explained. “One thing you learn out here is how important it is to leave and arrive by different ways.” “Is it any longer a walk?” “Only by about a mile or so,” he said, but seeing her tired face fall a bit quickly added, “And it’s often the more fun walk, since we’ll pass nearby a dead drop site. It’s about time we got another package of ammo dropped off. Always brightens everyone’s spirits.” He clapped her gently on the shoulder. “You’re going to be all right here.” © Copyright 2008 t.s. wood, the sleepy art kid, Quaddy, Matt le Couteau, LdyPhoenix, Zephyr Shenkiken, Stilavon-BackFromTheAshes, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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