The Fadian Escape Read online

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” the woman sat up straight and unlatched the child from her breast. She took in the cut of his suit and eyed his shoes. “The Matron gave me permission.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Egoly reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a writ of arrest. The document was a tad dramatic for a newborn, but it would have to suffice. He handed the decree to her, “but I’m certain she did not mean for you to bring ruin to her house.”

  “Ruin?” The woman’s voice came out in a whisper as she shook open the folded piece of paper. Her eyes scanned the document twice before she took a deep breath and read it in full.

  “Do you understand?” Egoly asked once her eyes stopped moving. “There was no way for you or the Matron to know, but this child will only hurt your chances at living a complete life and will diminish the prestige of the people that employ you.”

  Cytha shook her head and handed the paper back to him.

  “That’s no way to repay the family that took you in,” Egoly continued when the woman did not reply.

  “I was born here,” Cytha met his eyes, “as were my parents and grandparents. I am as much a member of House Sales as the Matron above.”

  “Then you understand the predicament,” Egoly honed in on what he hoped were her traditionalist views. “You know that this house stands so strong because it adheres to the proven paths of kindness and light.”

  At the sound of the Sales House words, she looked away.

  “It was the Matron’s kindness that allowed you to have this child and remain under her protection. It was the light in her heart that did not judge you for burdening this house with a bastard child.”

  This statement causes Cytha great stress and she began to rock back and forth. It dawned on Egoly that the child’s father might reside further up in the tower.

  “Do yourself a kindness. Let the child go and start over. Go back to living in the light.”

  Egoly watched the woman before him tremble and fret, then brush a hand over her infant’s wispy curls. This was definitely a highborn bastard. He wondered if the Matron knew or if the head of House Sales thought she was doing a favor to the family of her loyal employees.

  There were strict rules guiding the lives of tower servants and Cytha’s child was enough to get their entire family bounced out into the street.

  Jim gave a faint knock on the wall outside. It was his way of letting Egoly know they were running out of time.

  “It’s an abomination,” Egoly switched tactics. “A flaw in the Method that will bring annihilation to your family and possibly the house you serve.”

  This made the woman gasp. She felt fear, shame, and just a bit of wonder knowing she held the fate of ones so great in her hands.

  That wasn’t entirely true.

  The house she served rested high in the ranks and its tower stood next to the Union’s. It would take more than a misbegotten child of a servant woman to bring them to their knees. At any rate, Felder would not allow one of his closest allies to fail.

  “What say you,” Egoly held out his hands and tried to appear harmless, “Hand the baby over. You’re young enough to try again.”

  “No!” His words broke something in the mother. She rose to her feet, no longer trembling, and retreated to the kitchen.

  “You can’t have Micha. If you have any issue with his…his…being, then you have to go through the proper channels.”

  “Here’s the thing about folks like me,” Egoly eased his way to the door of the apartment.

  The woman looked relieved but frowned when he didn’t leave.

  “We don’t believe in the proper channels,” Egoly opened the apartment door to allow Jim to slip inside.

  “If they were going to use the proper channels,’’ Jim snarled as cornered the woman and snatched the baby from her arms, “they wouldn’t have sent us at all.”

  The woman hit the floor with a sickening thud that made Egoly’s stomach lurch.

  Some days, the job was easy. Most parents were happy to comply with the fake writs he presented. No one in Obeh City wanted to run afoul of the Method and its enforcers.

  Occasionally, mothers tried to bargain for more time with their babies, but very few outright refused to hand over their flesh and blood.

  “Let’s go Fadian,” Jim brushed by him with the child tucked beneath his tradesman jacket. Jim played the part of a good Union man well, but Egoly was starting to see a side of Jim that he usually saw in the inhabitants of the upper towers. He shuddered to think of what might have brought about Jim’s downfall.

  Egoly gave a final sweeping glance of the apartment before closing the door and taking off after Jim.

  They walked without haste through the busy halls of Sales tower and out to the service dock where an ambulance was waiting to take the child to Felder.

  “Are you up for one more?” Jim asked as he all but tossed the sleeping baby to the medic, who emerged from the rear doors.

  Everything in Egoly wanted to say ‘NO!’ but fear kept him quiet. He didn’t need Jim reporting his poor performance to Felder and end up like Kaleigha. Entombed for all time or until Felder decided otherwise.

  “Don’t like taking down your own kind?” Jim grinned, his cruel streak showing again. “This isn’t even the real work. “

  Egoly looked away.

  The heat rose in his face and he was dangerously close to…

  To what? Ilma mocked him. More compliance? More…

  “What ‘s next?” Egoly held Jim’s gaze.

  This pleased the large man.

  “That’s the spirit!” Jim clapped him on the back and set off towards the main thoroughfare. “By this time next year, you’ll be doing the real work!”

  Egoly scoffed to cover an involuntary whimper.

  The real work, as Jim called it, was much crueler than prying children from their parents’ arms. The real work was beyond Egoly’s capacity to comply.

  “And you’ll be right there with lil’ Kaleigha,” Jim mused, giving him the side-eye.

  “Are they testing her too?” A bolt of fear shot through Egoly. If Kaleigha was subject to any of the Union’s ‘treatments.’ he’d have to..

  To what? Ilma asked. To take up torture just to save one person?

  “No,” Jim grunted, “she went through that a year ago.”

  “Oh.”

  Jim stopped in front of a short, older tower located close to the riverfront. “They zap her now and then to make sure she’s asleep and not shifting the paradigm or trying to escape.”

  A shrug was all Egoly could manage. He felt guilty for the relief coursing through his body.

  They entered the brightly lit vestibule and rang a bell. After a few moments, a uniformed woman appeared from a side door and bowed.

  “This way,” she murmured, and led them to an office near the rear of the empty lobby. Like the building, it was old-fashioned and rendered in wood and marble instead of glass and metal. Light from a small, but intricate chandelier danced with the shadows on a large, round table.

  A child sat on the far side of the table, arms folded in his lap, waiting for them.

  “How old is he?” Egoly blurted out, gaping at the boy.

  “My name is…was…Corbin,” the child’s accent was crisp and educated, “and I’ll be eight years old next Thursday.”

  “This is no Fadian,” Jim growled, apparently just as shocked as Egoly at the child’s advanced age. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The woman looked past them and did not answer.

  “You may address your questions to me.” the boy commanded. “I am…was… the heir to this house. I can speak for myself.”

  Egoly and Jim stared at him.

  “I know that most fadian are wild animals that tear themselves apart before they are of any use,” Corbin spouted propaganda passed on to him by the Method. “But I had to marshal myself to ensure that I could learn what I needed to take my father’s place when he died or until a mor
e suitable heir was born.”

  The boy looked away, but not before Egoly saw tears well up in his eyes.

  Egoly squeezed his eyes shut as the boy’s resignation and sorrow rose up in a giant wave and crashed over him. The intensity and depth were unmistakable, the former heir of this house was a fadian.

  Egoly looked at Jim and nodded.

  “Well, no use in sticking around where you aren’t wanted,” Jim said with a gruff teasing tone, “Come on up to the Union’s tower and maybe you can teach these Fadian some manners.”

  Corbin grinned at them and picked up his backpack.

  “Leave it,’ Jim ordered.

  Corban opened his mouth to protest, but Jim cut him off.

  “Leave it all behind,” he repeated, tapping a finger on his own temple, “Make a clean break.”

  A dark knowing clouded the boy’s eyes, but he did not protest any further.

  He gave the men a solemn nod and walked past them into the tower’s lobby.

  Egoly closed his eyes against the visions of Corbin’s lifeless body being carted out with tomorrow’s waste.

  They made it halfway to the entrance, before they met resistance.

  “Please,” a thin and melodic voice called to them from the shadows beside the elevator bank. “Please let my grandson stay.”

  The sound issued from the frill covered throat of an elderly woman bedecked in elaborate garments and glittering jewels. While this outfit would look out of place on the street, such attire was the norm in the oldest houses.

  The woman did not step forward to block them so they could have kept going, but the boy stopped to address his elder.

  “Gran,” Corbin was in physical pain. Egoly felt the boy’s determination wilt. “I don’t want to leave, but you know I can’t stay.”

  “You don’t have to leave,” the woman threw the men a haughty look from her hiding place. “This disgrace of a man and his trained hound cannot make you. I may not be a Matron, but I still have clout.”

  “That’s me, Gran,” Corbin looked at Egoly.

  “Never,” the woman hissed, on the verge of tears, “You are and always will be a firstborn of this house.”

  “Not a hound,” the boy winced, “but an heir. Trained to do and say all the right things. To hide who I truly am and for the sake of those who want nothing more than to replace me after I served my purpose.”

  “No,” the woman cried,’ You are more than that. I love you-”

  Egoly felt the shift a moment too late.

  “-and if you must die it will be by my hand.”

  The tiny pistol fit perfectly behind the lacey cuffs of the woman’s stately dress.

  “Lady Edilla!” Jim jerked the boy out of the line of fire and scrambled to find cover.

  The shot rang out missing them by a hair’s breadth and spurring Egoly into action. He grabbed Lady Edilla’s wrist then placed a palm on her forehead. The woman struggled in the graceful way that only a highborn woman could before going limp and crumpling into Egoly’s arms. He grabbed the gun before it fell out of her sleeve and stuffed it into his suit jacket.

  “What is this?” the uniformed woman rushed from the rear of the lobby and wedged herself between Egoly and Edilla. “What happened? What have you done?”

  Egoly opened his mouth to lie, but Jim cleared his throat.

  “Do it!” He said, pulling Corbin to the door. “Take care of it all.”

  Egoly sighed and closed his eyes. He reached out to every person in the building and latched on to their memories of Corbin and any of his actions. The boy was well-loved and many harbored the same sentiments as Lady Edilla including the boy’s father. But fear of their standing made it easy for the family to let go. Many of the lower-ranking family and even the servants wanted the boy to remain hidden, of course, in the tower no matter the cost.

  It was Egoly’s duty to report such treasonous thoughts, but there was no need. In a few moments, Corbin would be a blank spot in their minds. The family had already done the hardest part. Their shared memories revealed that all images and documents relating to the boy either no longer existed or were altered to excise his presence. No one, not even Lady Edilla or Corbin’s mother held on to even the tiniest memento.

  Egoly took a deep breath and gently pulled at the memories, starting at the firing of Lady Edille’s pistol all the way back through the last eight years and down to the moment Corbin’s mother realized she was with child.

  These sweet, warm memories spooled out into the aether and dissolved into nothing. When it was done, Egoly was alone in the lobby with the two women on the ground before him.

  “Who are you?” the lobby attendant looked up from Lady Edille and squinted

  “No one,” Egoly snatched one more memory on the way out the door.

  Chapter Two

  “You’re getting better,” Jim complimented Egoly once they regrouped on the street. Jim held Corbin in a vice grip, but the child neither winced nor complained. “But you hesitated and that nearly sent everything to shit.”

  “I didn’t know there were any guns registered to the tower,” Egoly made an excuse. “I knew nothing about this case.”

  “That’s the point,” Jim began the short walk back to the Union’s tower. “If you’re just going to sit there and wait for things to be laid out for you before you respond, then you might as well ask Felder to put you in a crystal casket next to your lil’ girlfriend. Either get with the plan or get out of the way. No one has time to beg and coerce you into doing the basics. If this is too hard for you, then be mature enough to admit it and face the consequences. Otherwise, you’re putting all of us, including Kaleigha, in danger.”

  The men walked in silence, side by side. As the thin mid-morning crowds parted to let them through, Egoly practiced extracting the memory of their presence to anyone who reacted to their sight with fear. This was easy to do on a sunny day in the middle of a calm city. He was far less reliable on the battlefield.

  Too bad Kaleigha found that out the hard way.

  Ilma was back.

  I never went away.

  Her barb broke Egoly’s concentration and someone nearby yelped in pain as his powers tugged at the wrong part of their brain.

  Egoly’s eyes flicked to Jim to see if he was caught, but it was Corbin who leveled an accusatory gaze at him.

  He knows what you’re doing and he hasn’t ratted you out. He just met you and has more loyalty than you gave Kaleigha.

  Egoly looked away, face hot with shame. He reached back with his powers to mend the person still sobbing in pain, but they were just out of his reach. He cringed internally and kept his eyes on the ground for the rest of the walk back.

  “You’re going to handle this case,” Jim stated as they entered the lobby of the Union’s tower.

  Pricks of sweat popped up on Egoly’s face and a swirling fog narrowed his line of sight to Jim’s mouth.

  “What?” the word dropped, uninflected from his mouth.

  Jim did not respond as they entered one of the main elevators. The enforcer opened a panel beneath the usual set of buttons and tapped on what appeared to be a blank touchscreen.

  “He wants you to kill me,” Corbin responded once the doors closed, “To prove you’re worthy of the position they’re grooming you to hold.”

  “The real work,” Egoly whispered, letting his breath out in a hiss through his teeth.

  The boy nodded.

  “Now you’re getting it,” Jim sneered. The elevator rose without pause to an upper floor before opening to the corridor leading to Kaleigha’s resting place. “You have everything to lose.”

  “I choose how it ends,” Egoly stated with false determination. If either the child or Jim were impressed, they did not indicate it.

  They stepped out into the crystal-encrusted hallway and Corbin gasped at the deep quiet that enveloped his mind.

  “Nice place for a nap?” Egoly gave the boy a wan smile.

  “A moment of peace before
death,” Corbin responded.

  “There may be a chance,” Egoly offered. “We don’t know how you tamed your powers and made it this far without an incident. Without guidance.”

  “It is already decided,” Jim said as they approached the door to the room that Kaleigha occupied.

  “I prefer it this way,” Corbin added as he watched Jim key in a code to open the door.

  It slid open with a hiss and the fadians followed the enforcer inside.

  Egoly cringed at the two crystal caskets elevated in the center of the sterile lab. Ilma’s casket looked out of place with its pulsing purple spikes. Her body flopped as it struggled to mirror the actions of her ghostly form out in the woods. It was a sharp contrast to the clear crystals of Kaleigha’s prison. Kaleigha was motionless in her beautiful casket.

  Felder stood at the rear of the room, just out of the regular line of sight, but watching their every move.

  Sweat poured down Egoly’s back. This was definitely a test and he was certain he’d fail it. He was certain the others knew it too.

  Egoly and Corbin watched Kaleigha sleep in the casket. Neither of them dared reach out to see if she was anywhere near the world they knew.

  Egoly was just beginning to ponder his fate when Felder’s voice hooked him like a fish in the Salkon river.

  “Separate his physical body from his ghost form.”

  Egoly gaped, opening and closing his mouth. Shocked, in part, because the child might live and two, because he had no idea how to do this.

  Jim cracked his knuckles.

  “Ah, ok. Um…” Egoly beckoned for Corbin to follow him into one of the testing cubicles, where the crystals had no effect. “Step over here.”

  The boy moved closer and held Egoly’s eyes in an anticipatory gaze.

  Egoly moved intuitively, placing a hand over the boy’s chest and willing there to be two of him.

  “Good!” Jim gave him a real smile.

  Egoly tried to not look confused, as the body before him remained unchanged.

  “This is so weird,” Corbin’s voice came from beside Egoly, just at his elbow. The ghost of the boy glimmered with a pearly sheen and he was nearly translucent.

  Egoly smiled at the boy and then up at Jim who seemed truly impressed.