Spoiler! :
PART II
Lim Lempida loved nothing more than the sight of his bespectacled assistant hunched over the smaller desk in the corner of the room, tallying up the taxes from the outlying Sectors. Except perhaps his daughter, but that went without saying. Money, and plenty of it, made Lim very, very happy, and in his gray eyed outlook, a man could want nothing more than wealth, especially in the volatile, manipulative world that was the Infrastructure.
As the appointed mayor of Sector 9, the second most distinguished city of the 78th level precisely because of Mayor Lempida's many notable improvements and mandates, the willowy, graying man had every right to bask in his wealth and status. And he did thus as his assistant of nearly a decade, Remington Fox, poured over charts of numbers behind a pair of round, wire-rimmed glasses.
"Mr. Fox," Mayor Lempida drawled as he leaned back in his desk chair, his white uniform glowing softly in the light from the bay window. "Did you know Sector 1 is sending in their inter-level soldiers to come observe the military training this week? They are scheduled to arrive this evening."
Remington Fox replied, "Yes sir. I arranged their housing myself."
Lim either ignored or didn't notice Remington's apparent disdain and annoyance at being interrupted for something so trivial, but he said, "Yes, well, one particular young man, a certain Lieutenant Iocossus, will be reported in the group, and I hear he is not only a decorated soldier but a bachelor."
Remington huffed, pushing his glasses up the narrow bridge of his nose with a dark, skeletal finger. He didn't let his disquietude show, or much else in his narrow spectrum of emotions for that matter, but his discomfort was certainly present beneath his quiet, cold exterior. The name Iocossus had sent tiny tremors up his spine.
"Why is the arrival of Lieutenant Iocossus anything of report?" he asked, making a few quick calculations in his head, transcribing them onto the logs, as he waited for his superior's reply.
Lim answered with a jovial chuckle. "Oh, Mr. Fox, don't play stupid. You know my dear daughter is of ripe, marriageable age. It would be only right to hand her over to a distinguished military officer, don't you agree?"
Remington nodded as if in agreement, but really he had stopped paying attention to the mayor's ramblings. Oddly enough, the idea of Lim marrying off his only child to Iocossus gave him a grim sort of satisfaction, a feeling that comes with closure. He soon finished his calculations, and as the mayor noticed him straightening his belongings to leave, the all too cheery man invited him along for a stroll out onto the observation decks.
>>
"Well, you're certainly the last person I expected to see here," Lim commented slyly as he and his dour assistant strode up to a tall young brunette sitting at a little round glass table on the platform overlooking the training grounds. She glanced up at the two men, then neatly folded her gloved hands in the lap of her white pants.
"Pleasure to see you, Father. Mr. Fox," she replied in her stiff, polite fashion, a sign of her displeasure. Lim smiled artificially as he placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder, disturbing some of her thick curls. Remington stood off to the side, silently observing the uncomfortable exchange.
Miss Lempida's beauty never ceased to unnerve Remington Fox, not for all the years he had known her, worked by her father's side, and in the warm daylight with her hair let down and her pale, keen eyes focused piercingly forward, she appeared especially surreal. Swallowing hard, he looked away from her and out over the field where regiments of gray-suited men moved simultaneously in uniform lines to the barked orders of their drill sergeants.
"Darling," Lim said. "Today I would like you to meet someone, someone distinguished."
"And who might that be?" she asked, pretending to be interested in her father's political dealings. Intelligent and cynical, while Miss Lempida remained updated in the ebb and flow of politics, she could never really bring herself to care much more than she had to in order appear like she cared.
"A man named Lieutenant Iocossus. He is the commander of the inter-level soldiers stationed in Sector 1. He has had many adventures--or so I've heard tell--down below in level 77. Perhaps you two could share thoughts on the subject."
Miss Lempida flashed her father a sharp upward glare. She might have bared her teeth had that not been incredibly unladylike.
"I would hope you will be on your best behavior when he arrives with his men," Lim Lempida purred, pointedly ignoring his daughter's distaste.
The young woman did not fail to hear the subtle threat in her father's words, but she replied as apathetically as she could muster. "I'll see what I can manage."
With a not so gentle squeeze of her shoulder, the mayor's already wide smile stretched. "That's my girl."
Remington glanced over at the young woman to find her staring sidelong at him, and a drop of sweat tricked down the back of his neck. With a gruff throat clearing, he straightened his impeccably ironed collar and looked away once more, still hyperaware of the electric blue eyes focused on the side of his face.
"Remington," came the voice. Low and sweet and heated...he always hated to hear her say his name--it felt like she was cursing him somehow--but when the mayor's daughter called, one answered. Swallowing to wet his parched throat, he turned and walked toward the seated girl, unable to meet her eyes. Standing before her, he had the advantage of height, but even when sitting, she had a looming presence which worsened as she chose to stand gracefully to her feet. Nearly as tall as her father with the same willowy build, Miss Lempida glared down at the man of average stature, though she only bested him by an inch or two. She blinked lazily, a slow fluttering of thick black lashes before she spoke again:
"I would enjoy a stroll around the market, Remington. Surely you could serve as my escort."
A bird twittered somewhere outside the silent, tense atmosphere of the observation platform. Unnecessarily straightening his collar once more, Remington unwillingly replied, "Of course, Miss Lempida."
>>
Lieutenant Iocossus and his men arrived late in the morning, ahead of schedule, unloading their things from the loaned auto-piloted vehicles and into their rooms on the military campus. Free until later in the day when formal introductions were to be made with the mayor, the soldiers sat around in their posh barracks smoking, laughing, cursing. Only Lieutenant Iocossus seemed anxious.
"Iocossus," one man yelled from where he sat crouched at a table set up for a game of cards. "Come join us!"
Lieutenant Iocossus sent him a bored glance then sighed, "Not now, Garrett. I think I'll go for a walk." The subordinate Garrett shrugged then went to his game, just another back turned to the tall, golden haired man as he gathered his things and strolled out the gray metal door, the heels of his heavy black boots clicking all the way.
Once out in the fresh, cool air, he felt much less jittery, more like himself. He took pleasure in exercise and in the feel of the man-made daylight warming his classically handsome face as he made his way from the isolated barracks into the outer reaches of the city where the brightly painted townhomes, the shimmering glass of storefronts, the general colorful bustle of the market greeted him. And like the light streaming down from the infinite sky, Iocossus could feel the heat of the stares he received from the citizens of Sector 9. He smiled at his audience whenever he had the chance.
Ahead, his dark eyes spotted a figure dressed in pristine white, her ebony curls catching golden rays of light as she twisted her head back and forth to take in the sights and smells and sounds of the market. A stiff, dark skinned man dressed in a cream uniform shadowed her movements, and as they turned around toward a stand at which tricolored kittens were being sold in bulk, Iocossus immediately recognized the man, despite the graying hair.
"Remington Fox," he hummed to himself with a smirk, quickening his leisured pace to approach the man he hadn't seen in ten years. At the stand, the young woman bent to lift up a tiny striped kitten, but Remington placed a hand on her shoulder, muttering something to her that caused her to snap her posture upright. With quick, curt movements, she removed her white leather gloves and defiantly set them on the grimy table at which the cat-seller sat slumped and sleeping in her chair.
Iocossus sidled up to Remington who all too late looked up to find the soldier striding toward them. Behind the circular rims of his glasses, Remington's black eyes bugged, but he held his tongue and merely nodded in acknowledgement as the man grinned ceaselessly. Miss Lempida, cradling the mewing kitten to her chest, didn't even look to see their visitor until he spoke:
"Lovely day, isn't it, Remington?"
She looked up then from under her eyelashes, and shock registered on her porcelain features. Taking in the pressed, gray attire adorned with multicolored ribbons and cords, the gleaming buckles and impeccably shined boots, her quick mind put the facts together to deduce that this was one of the visiting inter-level men her father had mentioned. She held back a grimace.
"Yes, Lieutenant," Remington replied, readjusting his glasses. "It is certainly a pleasant morning for a walk in the market. But pray tell: I did not expect your regiment to arrive so early today."
Lieutenant Iocossus' eyes slid from Remington's sharp face to the girl's carefully bored expression as he answered, "We had allotted for quite a bit more inter-sector traffic, you see. My men are currently resting in the barracks until this evening, so it all worked out for the best I suppose. I simply decided to get some fresh air."
Remington nodded in an unnecessarily enthusiastic manner, recalling their last encounter as the blonde man spoke with his eyes trained on his silent mistress...
"Remington, who is this man?" Miss Lempida demanded, absentmindedly stroking the kitten's head as she glared at the smiling soldier.
Before her escort could reply, the man in question chuckled and responded with an outstretched hand, "How rude of me. I am Lieutenant Gregory Iocossus, commanding officer for the inter-level forces. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Qil Lempida."
She had nearly placed her slender, ungloved hand in his until he said her name. At this, she jerked back her hand, startling both Remington and the cat who began to whine. Despite her rude reaction and the unmistakable look of apprehensive hatred, the lieutenant laughed good naturedly.
"My dear, are you really so surprised that I know your name?" he asked, tilting his head as he looked at her like a wild civet hungrily appraising an abandoned child. "You and your father are quite famous among the other Sectors, I'll have you know."
"Is that so?" Qil Lempida hissed, lowering the kitten from her bosom, an action painstakingly controlled. Her hands trembled slightly as she replaced the cat in the cage among its mewing, sleeping brood of brothers and sisters.
Iocussus nodded pleasantly, pleased with himself that he could incite such a reaction from the woman he knew the mayor wished to make his. It had been years since he first encountered the mayor's daughter, and while surprising to find her matured into a lovely young lady, he couldn't say he was terribly shocked by her exceptional beauty or her feisty nature. Not much had changed over the years.
"Yes, my dear," Iocossus smiled, relaxing his posture and kicking up small swirls of red dust from the clay walkways of the market place. "And I of all people should know your real name, besides."
The trio fell quiet, and a pair of laughing working class children in issued navy shorts and jackets ran by as they played, disturbing a low fog of red dirt. Qil's chest clenched, and with a flip of her long hair, she turned to Remington and barked, "I wish to find refreshments. I'm very hungry."
Remington nodded once, and Qil Lempida hooked her arm through his again, pointedly turning her back on the lieutenant who stood alone by the kitten stall with a secretive smile on his thick lips. Just as he turned to head back through the market, pleased with the turn of events, his eyes fell upon the white gloves folded neatly on the rickety table in front of him. Taking the gloves into his hands, he messaged the soft leather beneath his thumb before stuffing the accessories into the large pocket on his jacket. After all, it was only a matter of time before he would see her again.
Despite his awareness of the many eyes of the citizens trailing after him as he wound his way through the market, Lieutenant Iocossus was oblivious to one particular pair, hidden in the shadow beneath a black hood. The cloaked figure, an androgynous being of small stature, moved through the market place, keeping a safe distance from the Lieutenant while keeping him in sight. Iocossus eventually rounded a corner, and apparently satisfied with the amount of time spent trailing the dominating man, the shrouded being hung back, turning about face with a rustle of durable fabric and kicking up a fair amount of loose clay dust.
The figure ignored the nervous glances cast by the stall keepers and shoppers, the rich women dripping with jewels above the plunging collars of their crisp white uniforms, the occasional distracted police officer. Coming to the stall in which the woman selling cats still slept, chin resting on her wrinkled chest, two navy-clad arms emerged from the cloak, gloved, to scoop up a striped kitten from the cage. The black gloved hands held the animal up from under its arms as if inspecting the creature. After a moment, the figure held the vulnerable animal to the folds of its thick cloak, and without a backward glance, vacated the area, the kitten purring softly in the shadow's gentle arms.
From under the hood, a soft voice cooed as if to an infant as the figure shifted the weight of the animal into the crook of one elbow in order to submerge a hand into a jacket pocket. Out of the pocket, the hand withdrew a tiny black device roughly the size of a pill bottle but rectangular in shape. The device disappeared under the hood as it was held to the figure's left ear, a button being pressed with a quiet beep.
"Hello, Commander," a masculine voice crackled through the speakers on the object. "Have you located the targets?"
The eyes beneath the hood looked forward, and surely enough, ahead at a stand selling bottles of fermented fruit juices and bread stood the second target, radiant in her white uniform and delicately pale flesh.
The figure nodded then replied in a voice feminine and sweet, "Yes. I have found them both. Unfortunately the lieutenant is outside his barracks, but I can dispose of him myself. Prepare the nitroglycerin."
~*~
The morning swiftly melted into afternoon, afternoon into evening. It was at the time of day when the shadows darken and stretch as the mechanical sky worked its daily magic, and the city ignited into an island of twinkling lights. Inside Mayor Lempida's humble abode, servants ghosted down the long halls gleaming with white marble and crystal, flicking on lamps and sconces and overhead bulbs like a horde of manic fairies, casting little light spells where ever they flew. It irritated Qil Lempida to no end, seeing those drones run about, turning on lights. Sometimes she just wanted darkness.
But at the long, wooden dining table, clothed in white and warmed with sparkling glass candelabras and quenched with crystal goblets of burgundy wine and amber whiskey, there could be no escape from the illumination. Qil sat to the right of her father, the man seated proudly at the head of the table, and across their recently filled plates of rich, steaming food from Lieutenant Iocossus. To her right, Remington Fox sat with a straight back, his fingers folding and smoothing his napkin in his lap. The coffee-colored skin of his face was dewy with a cold sweat, and Qil made a mental note of this. Since Remington had been appointed her father's assistant by the man himself, she had taken keen delight in seeing him squirm because of her. And the poor imbecile couldn't have been aware of what she knew...
"So, my dear," her father's voice interrupted her sadistic train of thought. He shot her an upwards glance before lifting a silver fork to his rare steak. "How was the market today? Pleasant I hope."
Qil prodded her own slab of bloody muscle, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone. "Yes. Perfectly pleasant, father. Remington and I very much enjoyed ourselves, didn't we?"
Remington swallowed and nodded but said nothing. Across from Qil, Lieutenant Iocossus forced his features into composure, lifting a sizeable segment of steak into his mouth. Qil glanced up then and accidentally caught his eyes. He stared at her unblinkingly, jaw working against the food between his molars, and a sharp shiver shot up her spine. She dabbed at her throat with the napkin folded in her lap, feeling overheated and nervous, though from Iocossus' unapologetic stare or something else she wasn't certain.
Before Lieutenant Iocossus had arrived, Qil's father had called her into the bright, impersonal space of his office with the pretense of discussing the evening's events. He had spent the majority of their time alone threatening Qil should she misbehave, should she turn away the lieutenant in any fashion. Of course, she kept silent about her encounter with her suitor in the market as her father ranted, his voice and gestures so much louder than they would ever be in the criticizing eye of the public. His harsh words had echoed off the walls, and Qil felt the impact of each reverberating syllable like a slap. Had she been younger, less prone to retaliation, strikes they may have been.
When he had finished instructing her over her expected behavior at the dinner, he had smoothed down his silver hair with a backwards sweep of his hand then yanked open a drawer in his desk, shuffling through papers and various small objects until he had found what he needed: a small syringe, a hermetically sealed needle, and a vial of an opaque liquid the color of Qil's eyes which he set in a neat line on top of his desk.
Looking back up to his daughter, the poor girl trembling in rage and hopelessness, he had gestured broadly to the instruments.
"Do not neglect your medication again; it spoils your temper. I will see you at dinner, Qil. Do freshen up for our company. You reek of that market." Without another word, a familial gesture, a smile, Lim Lempida had marched out of his office, passing his daughter without a glance.
At the dining table, in the present, Qil averted her gaze, a deep feeling of dread burrowing its black claws into the lining of her stomach. She tried to focus on the chatter of the happy men at the other end of the table, but in the bubble of silent tension that encompassed her and the three men nearest, she felt like she was suffocating.
With an abrupt clang of silverware and china, she shoved her plate from in front of her and began to push back her chair, the legs screaming against the ebony wood floors as she sprung up. Lim looked at her with a put-on fatherly concern, and Remington heaved a nearly audible sigh of relief.
"Excuse me father," she choked out. "I'm feeling rather unwell. May I excuse myself?"
Iocossus calmly observed her, already planning his next move. Her gloves felt heavy in his pocket. The mayor frowned sadly, but his eyes were skeptical.
"Of course, dear. Do return once you feel like yourself again."
With that, Qil left the dining room as quickly as she could manage without running entirely. Smartly dressed butlers with expressionless faces opened the doors into the rest of the manor and closed them with a hollow bang as she exited. Only moments later, Lieutenant Iocossus piped up, "Mayor Lempida?"
"Yes, Iocossus?" Lim answered eagerly.
The man smiled a wolf's grin. "Could I excuse myself to check on your daughter. I would hate for her to fall ill without someone there to aide her."
"Oh yes! By all means," Lim cried, practically shooing the tall blonde from the dinner table. "Do tend to the girl."
As Iocossus left in the same manner as his prey, Remington looked down at his partially touched food with a slight pursing of his lips. Shoving aside his apprehensions and the lingering feeling of unease left by his mistress, he resumed eating with his lord.
>>
Qil ran her hands through her deflated curls, fine strands of black falling from her scalp as she paced in the middle of her father's office. The massive window behind his desk faced the central city of Sector 9, and as the light faded into the pitch darkness common to the inner levels of the Infrastructure, the glittering city lights shone through the night like thousands of tiny fires. Suddenly infuriated by all the conflicting sources of light, she stormed to the door where beside a row of switches were mounted. She switched them all off with a vicious swipe of her hand, and the office went black, the only light the dim illumination of Sector 9.
Her heart pounded violently in her skull, and she tried to take deep, even breaths, but each exhale sounded suspiciously like a sob. Nearly her entire life had she spent in this glittery, white hell, the last decade of which had been lodged somewhere right above the seventh circle. Now, she faced an unavoidable fate suspiciously similar to imprisonment: wife to a soulless inter-level soldier.
The creaking of a door caused Qil's stomach to flip. She willed herself to turn, to face the intruder, but she couldn't move, as defenseless as the kittens in the market.
"Miss Lempida, I'm glad I finally found you," came the smooth, deep voice of Lieutenant Iocossus. "We were all very worried when you excused yourself so abruptly."
Qil found her upper lip pull back against her will, and after a seething moment, she smoothed out her features into her pretty blank mask, and faced the golden-haired devil bent on disturbing her privacy. When she turned, he was much closer than she expected, and she flinched noticeably.
Iocossus laughed heartily. "Oh, no need to be so jumpy, my dear. Here, I have something you seem to have forgotten." Out he pulled the white gloves, offering them to the younger woman with a politely expectant gaze. Qil stared from the gloves to the man and back again, her pulse still throbbing almost painfully. Then, with a swift upward tilt of her head, she looked straight into the man's eyes.
"Who are you?"
As if speaking to a dumb animal, Iocossus grinned and answered, "I'm Lieutenant Iocossus, commander of the inter-level forces. I believe we had this conversation earlier today."
Qil's angled eyes narrowed fiercely. "Cut the bull-shit, Iocossus. I've seen the looks Remington gives you. I've heard about your promotion within the last ten years. What do you have to do with Sector 7?"
His handsome face donned a tauntingly innocent expression. "Whatever do you mean, darling? I have little to do with Sector 7. It is mostly an agricultural facility, and my jurisdiction--"
"Sector 7...of level 77, you decorated political whore," Qil snarled. In response to her cutting words, Iocossus did as he was prone to do. He answered with a smile:
"Ah, that Sector 7," his lips fell over his white teeth, smile disappearing. "Well, Miss Qil, Sector 7 is a disgusting hole where only the foulest things breed and survive, and it is my job as an inter-level soldier to assure that the communication and travel between level 77 and elsewhere is restricted. Terrible people do terrible things down below, especially in Sector 7."
Qil waited, listened as the man prattled on, calculating how to get out of this situation. Her eyes darted toward the door behind the solider, the only exit, blocked. A cold regret washed over her as she wondered why she hadn't left the lights on.
"Prostitution, extensive gambling, drug use," he continued. "Any organ you desire you can find on the market, or if a full person is what you want, then the marketing of human beings is extensive as well. Hardly a single 'entertainer' in those vile brothels is entirely one sex or the other."
Curling her slim fingers against the cool pearlescent fabric of her dress, Qil willed herself to hold eye contact with Iocossus, to be patient and await the truth she knew he held. But it was difficult. She wanted very much to lash out and fight him off, to wound him in some way, but his strength exceeded hers. The room felt hot.
"It is a dumping ground of physical and mental refuse, and my position allows me to assure that none of that taints this pristine society your father and the other officials of level 78 have worked so long and hard to create." He lifted the hand free of Qil's forgotten gloves to trail his fingers down Qil's jaw line, eliciting a shiver from the girl. "But I don't need to preach to you about all that, do I, Qil?"
Her blue eyes flashing, she jerked her head away from his touch, suddenly feeling very vulnerable while in her flimsy white dress, while alone with the soldier. She felt, somewhere in her core, somewhere in the darkness of her mind beneath where knowledge was suppressed by perception, that she should avoid him, that maybe she should just...keep--
The door flew open with a startling bang! Breathless, a female servant ran in through the bright rectangle of light to shout, "Miss Lempida! Lieutenant! Something has happened to the barracks, and the mayor needs you both."
With a keen displeasure, Iocossus withdrew from Qil, and the girl stormed past him, curious and wary as to what could cause such a commotion. Out in the echoing halls of the manner, the servants emerged from the woodwork to pour through the glaringly bright corridors in a rush of navy and white and a dull roar of clacking heels all in one direction--toward the opposite side of the house, toward the observation deck. In order to leave Iocossus as far behind as her long legs could carry her, Qil kicked off her impractical shoes, abandoning them in the middle of the hall, and ran like a fleeing devil in the direction of the flow of servants.
"Qil! Qil!" Iocossus yelled after her, sounding like a volatile protestor provoking a crowd to violence. His voice carried to Qil's ears as her bare feet pounded against the marble, an endless, reverberating plea to return to the darkness from her personal demon. She pressed forward, ignored the occasional slip of her feet against the glassy floor, and soon her legs had carried her to the great glass doors at the back of the manor through which people rushed out into the night chill as in rushed an icy breeze. A shiver prickled Qil's white flesh as she slowed her swift pace to a hesitant walk, toed toward the towering doorway leading out onto the smooth concrete surface of the observation platform, froze in stunned silence. On the far right edge of the training field, a howling wall of flame belched thick, green smoke and dancing red sparks into the evening air, and the great beast of fire devoured what had once been the military barracks.
Servants continued to flood down the stairs on either side of the observation deck leading down to the green, some carrying pots and bowls of water as if their trifling attempts at taming the savage fire would have any effect on the irreversible damage. Qil wondered how many men were dead inside those barracks, choking on smoke, being burned alive. She sighed.
"Hey!" she cried as a claw clenched around her upper arm, dragging her out of the orange glow of the flames and down the left staircase, into the deepest shadows. She struggled against the grip, against Iocossus who handled her like some sort of escaping prisoner, taking no care to the way his fingers bruised her flesh or the swift pace at which he stormed down the wide concrete steps.
"Let--let go of me!" she screeched, struggling. Her feet scraped against the steps as she pulled back, but his strength overwhelmed her, and as they neared the last few steps, he let loose his grip so that Qil stumbled and fell into the dewy grass at the foot of the stairs, her dress and hair swirling about her in disarray. She whipped her head around to yell at the soldier over her shoulder, "You...asshole! What the hell are you--"
The look Iocossus cast her silenced Qil's rage and unearthed that familiar sensation of dread. He reached a hand into jacket and pulled out a glass cylinder, a syringe with the needle detached, and inside, half a vial of blue liquid sloshed. His eyes glinted like a cat's, his body silhouetted by the distant glow of the still raging fire, as he purred, "Now, that isn't very lady-like language, is it Qil? Though I suppose I shouldn't expect much less from--"
Blam!
Blood splattered across Qil's astonished face and stained her pure white dress with droplets of red. Her mouth hung slack as Lieutenant Iocossus pitched forward, dropping to his knees then slumping lifeless onto the grass, a dark stain blooming like a rose around a hole pierced through his back. In the dim, flickering light, a figure stood stoic, obscure as every other shadow warring with the deepening night and outlined with an aura of carmillion. With pale smoke dancing up from the hot red lip of the gun that felled Iocossus, the figure walked forward from the foot of the steps, pausing by Iocossus' leaking body and flipping him over with a violent kick. A hollow thud of dead weight, and there lied the golden-haired soldier on his back, open eyes staring lifelessly into the cloud cover of smoke.
The hooded head of Qil's savior lifted, and thought Qil could see nothing of the black hole that was its face, she could feel eyes on her, waiting. She closed her mouth and lifted a hand to wipe blood off her cheeks. A vague, far off explosion filled the silence.
"I'm sorry to do that in front of you," came a childlike voice from beneath the hood, a voice like twinkling wind chimes, a voice that conjured melancholy memories. Qil's eyes widened as the hood fell back around the shadow's neck, and a pale, delicate face appeared, darkened with eyes that shone black and orange, framed by short dark locks tousled by the ashen evening breeze. Those massive eyes softened, thin lips curled into the slightest smile that showed a charming gap between her front teeth.
Thin fingers tucked a jagged lock of hair behind her ear, and the once intimidating, murderous shadow now appeared innocent, young, embarrassed. She crouched down beside Iocossus' slowly chilling body, picking up his hand that still clenched about the syringe even in death. Peeling back his fingers, she palmed the vial and stood again.
From where she crouched still motionless with shock in the grass, Qil tried to form words, try to form sense out of this mad turn of events but the only word she managed to verbalize was:
"Lamb?"
Black eyes snapped up from the syringe to the young blood-splattered woman on the ground.
"Liquid hormone suplements. I thought they only came in pill form," the girl mused.
Qil could not bring herself to reply. They stewed in silence, aware of the acrid smoke roiling through the air, of the screaming in the background, of the tangible tension between them, but inside Qil's head, cogs whirred and spun. She never did like silence; it allowed her too much time to think.
>>
Lim Lempida stood beside his assistant on the training field among other nervous servants and citizens come to observe the destruction; the recently arrived fire brigade did little except create massive clouds of steam with their water hoses. Lim's metallic eyes were narrowed, angry, his good-natured grin long gone. It would take much time and even more money to restore the barracks, not to mention to train new recruits to replace the soldiers smoldering in their own ashes inside the burning buildings. And Sector 1 would be incredibly displeased to hear that their inter-sector soldiers had been charred to a crisp. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut, and groaned.
"Mr. Fox," the mayor sighed. "Will you go find Lieutenant Iocossus and my daughter? I sent a servant to retrieve them, but the help is so incompetent..."
Remington bowed his head and silently retreated across the damp grass toward the radiant structure of the manor. Behind his glasses, his eyes scoured the area of harshly contrasting light and shadow for any sign of his mistress and the lieutenant. No soul was to be found. He ascended the stairs up to the platform, swept a general glance, and finding no one, he treaded over to the opposite side, the area eerily silent save for the tapping of his shoes, the rumble of crumbling buildings behind him. He coughed a bit, for the smoke irritated his lungs, brought water to his eyes. Try as he might, he could not make sense of the arson that managed to kill the majority of Sector 9's armed forces in one evening--he didn't place any hope that survivors would emerge from that blazing torrent--and as his analytical mind sought reason in this inexplicable madness, he came to the top of the steps.
Down below, a dark mass lied in a growing puddle of oil, and Remington descended to investigate. Halfway down, an unmistakable organic scent assaulted Remington's nose, and he paused, swallowed, then ran down the rest of the way after the moment of indecision. He huffed and readjusted his glasses as he loped toward the unidentifiable mass, and recognition hit him like a punch to the chest.
"Oh--oh, no," he gasped, gulping down great breaths of toxic air in an attempt to keep his dinner down. He stared down at Lieutenant Iocossus, and for a while he could only make faint squeaking sounds like the grind and stretch of an old elevator gate over the threshold .
"Remington Fox, I presume."
The assistant spun around in fright at the voice from the darkness, and like a demon glowing with the flames of the underworld, a cloaked woman stood before him with a sword in her hand--a military issued saber.
She tilted her head to the right, angling the left side of her face towards him as her owl-eyes bored into his own. Sweat beaded and trickled behind his collar.
"You," he started. "You're the one who set the barracks on fire, aren't you?"
The girl blinked. "With some help, naturally. Though whose actual fault it is, I would say otherwise." As she fondled the sheathed sword in her hands, Remington glanced down at the dead soldier at his feet in whose blood he stood. He choked down bile.
He looked back at the girl, and pointed behind him. "Did you do this too?" he cried.
She smiled softly, enjoying the look of fear and nausea on the man's face, delighting in the way sweat pearled on his flesh like tiny diamonds. "Of course I did. Why should any of you survive after hurting my friend?"
Remington tried to inch toward the stairs, but the girl kept him in her sights, adjusted her relaxed posture to the offensive. "Run if you want," she said. "But I've waited ten years to kill you, Fox. My patience is growing thin."
Remington froze. "Kill...me?"
She nodded once. "But not here. Walk," he ordered, and with a flick of her arm and the hiss of metal on metal, she unsheathed the military saber and pointed toward the steps. "Go on. We don't have all night."
>>
"You should do the honors," Lamb said, offering the saber to Qil who sat with her legs crossed on the edge of her father's desk, her dress ruined with an erratic pattern of dark stains while smears of blood marred her lovely face like war paint. Qil looked from Remington Fox, bound to his desk chair that had been pulled to the center of the room, to Lamb, to the saber, and back to Remington.
"Remington," she said. "You do know why you're in this position, correct?"
His head hung, and he couldn't will himself to look into the eyes of the girl that wished his death, the person he knew desired to exterminate him since his promotion to Lim Lempida's assistant a decade since. Since her arrival home once more. "Yes, Miss Lempida," he rasped.
Qil nodded absently then said, "And you understand that I have known from the moment we met, the moment I heard your name--'Fox'--that you were the reason I was dragged back to my disgusting excuse for a father, am I right?"
Remington felt his heart pick up speed, his pulse rush like steam through tiny, fissuring pipes. "I'm sorry, Miss Lempida. Please," he pleaded. "Please don't do this. I...Your father, he promised promotion to whomever could find his daughter and bring her home. I only wished for your safe--" He jolted back as a sharp point poked him in the jugular, the tip of the saber Qil held. "--return."
"I ran away to get out of this place, not to have my brains nearly bashed out by a soldier and certainly not to be brought back here so my father could gift me off to the same man!" Qil howled, and Remington fumbled for a response. She continued with furious tears pricking at her crystalline eyes: "Was the promotion really worth it, Remington? Does it seem worth it now?"
She lowered the saber and stepped back, looking down her straight nose at the defeated man. She wanted to feel sympathy for someone who had only done as his mayor requested. But the devil could care, for Qil did not.
"I never imagined such difficulty finding you," Remington spoke to his shoes. "I never thought you could have made it down to level 77, and to do the things you did to yourself...Why? Your life was beautiful, Qil. You father loves you dearly--"
He was cut off by the bubbling sound of girlish laughter. The saber quivered at her side as Qil giggled, her laughter sounding mildly deranged as it leapt from her throat, and tears of some confusing mixture of grief and amusement and fury streaked her face and striated the dried blood there. She shook her head as if chiding a small child and said between outbursts, "Oh, you simple fool. Have I always been the only one in which you've seen darkness? I'm hurt, Remington."
The man's glasses were askew on his nose, so he could not clearly see the girl's face as she spoke, but he felt that if he had, he would see something akin to madness.
"Shannon?" said the girl standing off to the side. Her large eyes spoke concern as she looked upon the crying young woman. "Would it be better if I took care of this?" Remington glanced back and forth between the two female blurs, his flight response kicking in; he knew his life would soon end if he didn't find a way to escape. Qil bowed her head, rolled her gaze over to Lamb who stood patient and kind just as she had nearly ten years ago in the grim florescent light of the hotel foyer, only this time she was older, fiercer, deaf in one ear from the crack of a long ago fired gun. This Lamb hungered for vengeance.
"No," Qil said. "You've done enough taking care of me. I'll finish this."
Lamb nodded in understanding then readjusted her hood atop her cropped hair just as Qil swung around the saber to lop of Remington's head with a fresh shower of hot blood.
As Remington's head bounced and rolled across the dark wooden floors, blood sputtering from the butchered stump of his neck, Qil staggered back, her chest heaving as she took in great inhalations of air. Her entire body shook with released anger and excitement. She felt like she could have breathed fire.
Lamb walked to her side, the smaller girl wrapping her thin arms about the elder's waist. She pressed her cheek to the warm skin of Qil's arm, showered the bare flesh with butterfly kisses.
"We can go now if you like," she murmured hesitantly, not sure how Qil would react, if she would respond at all. The saber dropped to the floor with a clang, and Qil lifted the now freed hand to stroke Lamb's hair.
She took in one last deep, shaky breath, then exhaled in a gust, seeming to have calmed. Her eyes remained locked on Remington's mutilated body. "Lamb," she said. "Tell me a story. I need a distraction."
With eyes glittering in gentle reverence--like the eyes of a long dead civet gazing upon a single kind soul--Lamb looked up into the face of her dearest friend whose hair had grown so much, who had gotten taller, who wore a gown befitting a noble woman, who had filled out and grown up and become even more the beautiful dark angel she remembered.
"Alright," she said as the pool of blood grew toward their toes, as Qil shivered lightly like a feather. "Shannon, I never did tell you the story of the swan prince, did I?"
>>
When the fire had burned itself out, when the night had outstayed its welcome and the hazy morning crept to the stage, Lim Lempida found himself in his office, alone save for the decapitated body of his former assistant. Running his fingers through his disheveled gray hair, he chewed on the inside of his mouth, a nervous habit, and traipsed around the body, circumventing the pool of blood, to walk to his desk. Sitting on top of the desk like a macabre shrine to Lim's sins, Remington's gray, oozing head was propped up by a heavy glass paperweight beside a neat row made of a busted open vial, a needle, a syringe.
He traced a finger through the gore on the white surface of his desk, inspected the not yet dried blood on the tip of his finger, and wiped his hand on the front of his uniform.
Scratching the stubble on his chin, he muttered to himself, "I'm going to need a new desk."
~*~
In the bed of an auto-piloted vehicle--the machine no longer able to pilot itself after a tampering with its innards--two young women lied under the cover of thick black cloaks and the watchful eyes of Lamb's fierce, loyal men. They held guns in their hands and on their laps, their eyes and head turned, they were silent as the three separate vehicles they occupied rumbled farther and farther away from the borders of Sector 9, their destination the wall of the Infrastructure. Sooty but pleased with the success of the night, they guarded over their sleeping wards beneath a manufactured cloud cover in a false sky.
Lamb stirred in her place curled against Qil's side, slowly beginning to wake, as the gray light infiltrated her eyelids. Groggily, she propped herself up on her elbows, gave a look about her at the men who acknowledged their commander with nods or quick smiles, gazed up to the front of the car before which rose the wall that appeared more flora than metal. Amidst the cascading ferns and vines a large glowing red sign announced ELEVATOR above the only visible portion of the wall, the iron gates of the elevator itself.
The car ahead of their own turned off the clay road into the tall grasses found on either side so that Lamb's car could reach the door first. The driver in the seat at the forward right of the vehicle stopped theirs, the driver trailing behind them doing the same. Stopped and awaiting orders from Lamb, the men dressed in navy and cloaked in black climbed from the cars to stand on the road. Lamb watched this all blearily through an exhausted mind, and after rubbing her fists against her eyes, yawned. She looked back down at Qil, still sleeping soundly, and wished she could allow her friend to slumber; it had been a strenuous night after all.
While she watched Qil sleep, curls a wild wreath about her face, the shimmering white of her dress glowing faintly
"Shannon," she murmured, jostling the girl's bare shoulder. "We're at the elevator. We need to go."
Her eyelids fluttered against sleep, and responding to Lamb's sweet voice, she awoke, looking up into the face of her little savior through eyes bright and clear. She stretched like a cat beneath the makeshift blankets then grunted into an upright position. She looked about the desolate space, the whisper of the tall grasses softening the silence, and then her eyes caught the red of the sign.
Qil swallowed, remembering back to the last time she had seen such a sign, the last time she had seen Lamb. Unconsciously, her hand reached out to find Lamb's, and her fingers twined with the younger girl's.
"Why did you do this, Lamb?" she asked, her voice a faint, fluttering whisper. "How did you find me?"
Lamb's gaze swiveled away from Qil, down to their clasped hands, up to the elevator gate, back into the dank shadows of the past. She thought of the best way to simplify the time since they were separated, thought of a combination of words to describe her struggle in the political prison of level 76, thought of her nightmares in which hooded soldiers felled fleeing swans, thought of the assistance these men aorund her had provided in reentering level 77 and tracking down one former Sector 7 surgeon, Dr. Fox, thought of the single image of Shannon slumped in the corner beside the desk of Uncle's hotel, the single image that kept Lamb going for the past ten years. It all seemed like too much. It all seemed too late.
But her Shannon was here now--her swan prince a bit changed, but still the person she loved most. "Does it really matter?" Lamb replied coyly, slowly rising to her feet and leading Qil along with her. The girls stepped down from the vehicle, both feeling a little shaky on their legs like newly birthed animals. It seemed fitting though; a new life did await them.
In the gray morning light, they walked toward the gates of the elevator at which two men stood like sentries, one swiftly moving to pull open the iron gate. Neither looked behind them, neither looked away as they entered the elevator together, but once inside Lamb looked out at the political prisoners that had assisted her thus far and said, "Thank you, my friends. For everything." Some nodded, some smiled.
She looked to the man that had opened the gate, and with the simple look, he understood the order and slid it shut withe the whine and hiss of sliding hinges. With a clang, the gate closed Lamb and Qil off from the manicured nightmare of level 78.
"Where to, ladies?" the other sentry asked, placing a large hand on the lever that would decide the elevator's rise or fall. They looked ar each other, questioning.
Qil spoke first, an anticipation of the unknown and thus marvelous future bubbling in her stomach, and she slipped her hand from Lamb's. "I don't know Lamb. We're fugitives again, murderers, arsons. Criminals. So where can we go?"
Lamb held Qil's wondering gaze for a moment before replying, "Anywhere, Shannon. We can go anywhere."
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