Fledgling, p.15
Fledgling, page 15
But then her heart broke as she heard the occasional quiet sobbing from behind her that accompanied their journey to Salwe.
Part Three
An Update for the General Public No. 4443:
Apprehension of Accomplice in Downing of Air Carrier
From: ALIGN Council of Guardians
To: Residents of the Bridge and Lower Earth
Guardian forces, working in conjunction with palace guards, have apprehended an individual who facilitated the override leading to the crash landing and kidnapping of Crown Prince Lein Verg’s fiancée yesterday.
Chief Guardian Aeon has permitted interrogations of the individual, now in custody on Lower Earth, to proceed with the full extent of powers granted under the Treason Act.
Under the act, passed this past spring by the Council of Guardians to ensure the complete elimination of brute cells operating on Lower Earth, it is no longer necessary for an apprehended suspect to surrender their will to be knitted for mental probing. Any and all information gathered by methods of extraction of information via the Treason Act is admissible to further the aims of the War on Brutality.
Due to evidentiary intelligence, it is known that the apprehended individual worked with a suspected brute to kidnap Raisa Freelund in an attempt to stall the continued rollout of the Enlightenment Project.
Crown Prince Lein, sworn to the Council of Guardians early this morning, without ceremony under the current state of emergency, will oversee the investigations. It is his first assignment, and the council has full confidence in his ability to deliver to justice those involved in this most heinous disruption of the right of movement—with full peace and security—between the three realms of ALIGN.
Again, the Enlightenment Ceremony, to be overseen by Chief Guardian Aeon and Guardian Lein, will continue as scheduled next week.
Again, rest assured, no force will be considered exorbitant to deal with those who continually attempt to upend the peace of our universe.
As ever, our motto:
A people aligned in the highest of human values—compassion, equality, freedom, innovation—will never be defeated by any force.
10th Day of the Month of Graze
Lower Earth
Lunar Year 1579
Musaid of Underground:
Mind Games
Dark.
Light.
Dark.
Lights flooded on suddenly, many at once, revealing a series of menacing scenes.
Tools of torture—sharp pincers, slicers, scrapers, stabbers, peelers. Arrayed. Ready.
Figures with no heads, hanging from the ceiling by their arms.
Someone completely covered in blood, so close to Musaid’s face, he felt as though he could taste the metallic scent emanating from them.
Then darkness.
Then light.
Again and again in sequence with no discernible pattern to assess how long each would last.
The dark—blanketing, muffling dark—appeared so long sometimes, he longed for the light again, even though it only promised nightmares.
Then floodlights turned on, spotlighting the horrific—mangled people, kids writhing in pain, injuries, anguished faces—without pause, for ages, for so long that he sobbed for the dark again.
His eyes could never close.
No matter how hard he tried, they wouldn’t close.
Neither for the dark nor the light.
It was as if his lids were glued open. Like his arms and legs fixed tight to his body, fixed tight to the wall.
There were no binds.
But he was bound.
* * *
Finally, after what felt like days, Musaid tried again to repeat the things he’d said when—after he had been picked up from the hangar, after he’d been rescued from Tiller and the Guardian soldiers—Lein had the guards dump him in the middle of the desert, nothing around for miles except dunes and sky. “I had nothing to do with it, Lein. I swear, I swear on my parents, on Amir Gauis, on everything mighty, I swear! I didn’t do anything to the air carrier!”
They had sped away, and Musaid had felt a deep sense of shame and regret.
And then a resolution to correct the situation.
This had lasted approximately thirty seconds before the sand underfoot had suddenly given way and he’d felt himself sinking.
On the heels of the initial shock, his mind had activated with the procedures to follow in cases of sinkholes—cover your head and face with your arms to allow a pocket of air for breathing, squeeze legs together, and tuck in…
He had dropped into a room.
Dark walls, faint light coming from a lightbulb affixed in one corner.
It was empty except for him.
There was no visible door.
When the sole light went out, he knew he was in the worst danger on earth.
Now that he had irked Lein, he was considered an enemy of Amir Gauis.
* * *
“I had nothing to do with it, Lein. I swear, I swear on my parents, on Amir Gauis, on everything mighty, I swear!” He repeated this refrain again and again.
The dark stayed.
Until the lights suddenly flipped on again, and figures approached him, finally, the ones he’d seen on and off, in all white—white coveralls that extended into seamless gloves and boots and a mask and head covering that hid their faces, their identities.
They held nothing in their hands, but in one swipe, his clothes were sliced off from the front, and cold air rushed at his body.
After a moment, he felt intense stinging over his entire torso.
When he moved his eyes down, he saw that he was bleeding onto the floor.
Whatever they’d sliced him with had penetrated his skin.
Then another slash. And another. A fourth? Fifth?
This time it went beyond stinging—he was being gouged.
Gouged into an existing wound.
His body was being mauled, and his brain was heaving in response.
Such intense waves of pain engulfed every part of him that he couldn’t move—anything—to respond in any way.
The lights went out, but the torture didn’t stop. He felt the dripping blood warming his skin on its way down from under his ribs, down his hips.
“I swear, I swear.” Musaid sobbed at the realization that this was simply the beginning.
He’d heard about the unidentifiable bodies thrown into incinerators at the palace.
By Amir Gauis. In his underground dungeons.
But not Lein.
Lein wasn’t in charge. He wasn’t like his father.
Musaid knew this with certainty. He would always serve Lein.
“Prove it.” It was Lein’s voice.
In the room with him.
At a distance.
Did I just speak the words I’d thought?
It didn’t matter—the only thing that mattered was it was the truth.
“Anything, Lein! I swear I would never hurt you!” Raising his voice caused echoes of pain to reverberate through his chest.
Did they open up a cavity? He took a deep breath to test his lungs, and such intense fire ran through them that he gasped.
They had cut him open.
“Prove your loyalty.”
“I’ll do anything!”
“Anything doesn’t sound reliable.” The light went on, and a sole figure in white stood there, directly three feet across from Musaid, its white-gloved hands covered in blood. “And vague. Vague isn’t efficient.”
Lein?
But the person ahead hadn’t opened its mouth and had a woman’s figure.
“You think I’m the one hurting you? You think those are my hands covered in your blood?” It was Lein’s voice again, coming from somewhere in the room, close by. “You Underground ones are a simple people; that’s why you’re excused from so many things; that’s why we don’t hold your type to account completely. That’s why I trusted you to be my pilot. Simple Underground Musaid. UM. But is your brain so stalled that you don’t know who’s hurting you?”
The pain soared, and Musaid screamed as a sharpness twisted in his stomach, such sharpness that he flailed in his attempts to buckle over, to fold in half to stop its spread.
But he wasn’t flailing. He was paralyzed.
Fixed against the wall, for some macabre enjoyment.
“Who do you think is really hurting you, UM?”
He tried to clamp down on the thought of who he really laid the blame on for everything cruel in Lower Earth—it seemed Lein could see into his thoughts somehow—but like the slippery tadpoles he’d spent hours trying to catch with Lein and Nayf growing up, his thought escaped his hold: Amir Gauis is the cruel one.
The one who mires his nation through conspiracies and coups.
Whose narcissism stalls progress.
I hate Amir Gauis.
When this last thought slithered from his grasp, Musaid immediately sobbed.
Lein, through whatever means he was using to probe Musaid’s thoughts, had seen the extent of his contempt for Lein’s father, the king, the one still in charge.
Musaid flinched, ready for more pain to pummel him.
“My father is not the one torturing you. He’s a bastard, true, but he’s been out of commission for a long while now; he’ll be gone soon; his liver is shot. His only occupation is visiting the bride markets for new whores and drenching himself with alcohol. Truth be told, he doesn’t even run his own personal prison well anymore. Criminals forgotten and rotting, such a stink.” Lein’s voice changed. Became chattier. “That’s why I’ve taken over. Because he can’t even torture correctly now, I’ve been given the go-ahead to transform interrogations, make them more sophisticated.”
The lights went on, and the same figure stood there across from him, this time with blood that went up her arms to her shoulders, standing in a pool of dark red liquid that reached her ankles. Her hands held what looked like—entrails.
Musaid was afraid to lower his eyes to check his body.
The pain spreading throughout his frame was not the only thing making his senses go numb along with his body.
Seeing the faceless one’s handiwork was furthering his torment.
“All this will stop, and it needs to stop soon, UM, as you’re close to death now. We can still fix you up so you’re healed completely. That’s what I’m working toward—healing our citizens completely. Like everyone has access to in Upper Earth, the gift of optimal health always. After the Enlightenment, there will be better days for us.”
Musaid nodded, a weariness settling into him. And I will do everything to make sure you take over, Lein. I, too, want Lower Earth to become like Upper Earth. Everyone is happy there. I’ve seen it.
It felt like his mind was closing now. He was getting tired, like he was drifting into the most comfortable sleep he’d ever have in his life.
He welcomed it.
“You know who’s hurting you? It’s whoever gave you those coordinates.”
His mind flipped open. Nada.
The figure across from him dropped the entrails.
She reached up slowly, extended her hand behind her, tilted her head, and began unsnapping buttons behind it.
Her face covering came away.
Nada stared at him victoriously.
The lights went out.
“Perfect. You’ve earned yourself a second chance. You’ve proven your loyalty. But it will be your last chance if you can’t execute the mission I give you, UM.” Lein’s voice. Lights on. Nada was gone, and he stood there in her place, white coverall arms still soaked in blood, feet still standing in a pool of it. “How can she be so disloyal? As soon as she’s released, she turns against me. Now it’s up to you to prove your loyalty. Go capture Nada.”
I’d rather die.
“If that’s your choice, then when Guardian forces find her, we’ll get her to take your place.” Lein stared at Musaid’s torso. “She won’t last the number of days you have. But, if you bring her to me willingly, I promise you, once we probe her mind gently with your help for information on the brutes, for the name of their leader, we’ll release you both. You can live your life wherever you want to settle.”
Musaid’s mind lit up with the image of Nada and him strolling through the beautiful courtyards in Upper Earth.
The nation in the sky was efficiently and effectively built, like a huge charcoal-gray fortress on the outside, soldiers and Guardian elite forces living in the apartments that faced out onto the carrier landing ports called the Rim, while citizens lived in the inner apartments facing the green landscapes and orderly markets and amusements designed for walking and running errands and optimally socializing with each other.
When Musaid had visited Thé le Monde, a tea shop in one of the courtyard neighborhoods that provided a mindscape journey through the history of tea, where patrons chose and tasted the different blends that appealed to them during the narrative, he’d immediately wanted to take Nada there, have her fit into the crook of his arm, to taste each other’s tea selections.
His mind jumped to the vision of tasting her lips, which he’d never done.
I have longed for that first kiss for so long.
Lein laughed. “Ah, dirty UM, never saw that side of you. Let’s sweeten the deal, then. If she’s game, you’ll be granted a wedding before you hand her over. That’s the only way you’d be allowed to taste the lips of a princess, Underground boy.”
A luminous vision of Nada in her pink dress turning to him in the palace kitchen took command of his brain and his body.
We are already linked by vows. Murrabi Hasuf joined us before he went missing, asking if we really were sure.
We both said yes. He vowed us to each other. But told us to wait to join.
I have waited for too long. And now I am going to die without ever having kissed her.
“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll accept it. You’re married. By a holy man. Then have your night with her before we talk to her.”
In Musaid’s mind, she turned to him, laughing again in pink.
They could have kissed in the kitchen that day their bond was blessed.
But he’d waited. What have I been waiting for?
The lights went out.
“Once you agree, it will be embedded in you, the mission to get her to us. You won’t be able to change your mind. Upper Earth links need free will to activate them. But once you do, they become who you are. They’re woven into you optogenetically.” Lein’s voice filled the room and entered his brain, flooding everything out. “For example, your torture has been sponsored by ALIGN. Aeon has been livid that Raisa is missing. So I’ve been granted the technology I’ve salivated over—perfection, because it’s clean, efficient, bloodless but takes place in the worst place possible: your mind. I’m not even in the room with you, but I can see everything you are thinking. Though you feel ripped apart, your body is intact. You haven’t been here for days, just minutes since you thought I left you in the desert. It’s only been an hour since we left the hangar. It’s all in your head, UM.”
Musaid’s brain scrambled at hearing this.
Lein’s voice in his head again: “What do you say?”
Lights on.
Nada stood there in the pink dress, a smile on her face, joy in her eyes.
She was so beautiful, his heart ached.
From that summer day when he was eleven years old, he’d promised himself to always choose everything for her happiness.
The tadpoles. The tadpoles.
Though he was thrumming with pain, Musaid plunged into the memory of the day he and Nada became a team…the bright day of the tadpoles.
15th Day of the Month of Arid
Lower Earth
Lunar Year 1569
Musaid of Underground:
Lord of the Frogs
The early morning sun shone on the stillness of the Yaalta River. The yellow of the sunrise reflected on the water’s surface and was echoed by the patches of dried grass on the bank. Other than a cluster of droopy trees standing as weak sentries nearby, the land abutting the water on either side was wide open and clear of brush for several yards, after which the forest began.
Lein, in green waders held up with black suspenders over a camouflage-print T-shirt, led the way with soft footfalls, his bucket held still with a firm grip. Nayf was in the middle, his bucket striking his bare calf sticking out of loose shorts, his lanky legs flinging out in a relaxed, sauntering walk. He was shirtless, his torso evenly tanned from living his summer days almost completely outside except when he holed up in the library reading.
Musaid wore castoffs—one of Nayf’s white T-shirts, in pristine condition because he hadn’t worn it much, and Lein’s old blue waders. He brought up the rear, holding four nets along with two additional buckets.
Lein had laughed when he saw the extra bucket and net. “She’s not coming. She doesn’t like bugs, and she doesn’t like fish. And she calls tadpoles ‘fishy bugs.’ ”
That was true. Nada didn’t like slithery, slippery things.
The three boys had been coming every day for the last couple of weeks to catch tadpoles. It was Lein’s idea: a competition to see who could build the best frog army. He said he’d seen a miniature neighborhood for frogs in one of the parks in Upper Earth and had learned that frogs were trainable.
“We start them young. Capture tadpoles and sort the strongest ones. Release the others. Then we take care of the soldiers until they become frogs. We oversee their metamorphosis.” In the palace library, sitting at the big desk with Nayf and Musaid both leaning on the table, flanking him, Lein had diagrammed the process like it was a scientific experiment. “We organize our armies, and then, on the day of the battle, we see who did the best job.”
