Arrested.
The textbook slid out of
Kevin's numb fingers to land face up on the mattress as he stared at
Jacobs wordlessly.
"Are you feeling unwell,
Halls?" Jacobs said. "You've gone very white."
Kevin swallowed, his throat
so dry that the action was physically painful.
"Arrested?" he managed, his
voice sounding like it came from a long way off.
"Yes. I think that's what
Andersen wanted; to let you know. I told him I'd pass on the message
when you got back, since he couldn't come into this part of the
Monastery."
Kevin didn't answer. His
brain seemed to have shut down. He vaguely remembered DuPont saying
something about corrupting a member of the Council, but he hadn't paid
any real attention to it. He supposed it was because he was so used to
the idea of Barrett being a sense offender that he tended to forget
that other people didn't or weren't supposed to know.
I should have warned him. He must have had contacts in
the Resistance to shelter him.
Yeah. But you didn't stop to think about that, did you?
You were so caught up in showing off, in playing your little games with
DuPont, that you never stopped to wonder why he was there in the first
place. You could have done something. You could have helped him.
"What's the sentence?" Kevin
said hoarsely.
Jacobs eyed him suspiciously
before answering, "Clinical interrogation. They might let him off with
a bullet in the head, if he cooperates with the technicians."
Kevin looked away, his gaze
coming to rest on the book. It was a standard history text, one which
reminded him painfully of the time when he'd told Barrett that the
forty seventh president had been Abraham Lincoln.
Oh shit, please not him. Not Barrett. Not like this.
"Are you sure you're feeling
alright?" Jacobs repeated.
"I don't feel anything,"
Kevin lied. His voice shook ever so slightly and he hoped like hell
that Jacobs wouldn't pick up on it, then hoped that the other acolyte
wouldn't pick up on his hoping.
Get a grip, genius, and
face the facts; you're on your own again. You've got complacent,
relying on Barrett to get you out of whatever shit that too-large mouth
of yours gets you into...well, now you're not going to have that
option, are you? So what are you going to do?
I don't know, Kevin
admitted to himself. I don't know.
"Halls!"
Kevin jerked and looked over
at his roommate.
"What?"
"What are you thinking?"
Thinking? Well, Jacobs,
I'm currently wondering what the odds are of me getting into wherever
Barrett is right now and - more importantly - what the odds are of him
and me getting out again without the help of an urn. I'm also
wondering why the bloody hell this happened now and whether the old
man's likely to finger me under CI.
"Not much," Kevin answered
matter-of-factly. "You just...said something unexpected, that's all."
Jacobs eyed him suspiciously
and slightly strangely for a good few minutes, then shrugged it off and
opened his book in an attempt to revise.
Kevin let his own text lie
untouched. He wasn't in the mood for history right now. He didn't think
he'd ever be again.
"Sir!"
DuPont turned smoothly to
come face to face with Kevin.
"Yes, acolyte?"
"Is it true about
Vice-Council Barrett being remanded in custody?"
DuPont continued to stare at
him before saying, "No, acolyte."
Kevin let out a breath he
hadn't realised he'd been holding, wondering what had possessed Jacobs
to make such an outlandish claim.
"The panel at Barrett's
disciplinary hearing found him guilty of sense offence, and he was
subsequently sentenced to incineration."
Kevin felt the blood drain
from his face.
"What?"
DuPont narrowed his eyes
almost imperceptibly.
"He always spoke very highly
of your progress, acolyte. I hope that his faith in you was
not...misplaced."
"When is the execution to go
through, sir?"
"Go and join your yearmates,
Halls," DuPont answered frostily. "That does not concern you."
Wrong. It did
concern Kevin, very much, although not as much as the prospect of his
own execution if DuPont smelled a rat.
Alright. On the gym
floor, Kevin let his body take him through the kata, mind occupied
elsewhere. So you don't know. What did he always say to you? You
don't need to know anything. You just need to be able to think.
Kevin pivoted smoothly on
one foot, bringing his hands forward as if he was holding a gun. Kata
396.
Okay. Let's think. If the execution had gone through,
DuPont would have said. So he's still alive.
He stepped forward, half
turning to snap one foot up in a high kick.
Right. And where might he be right now? Let's see...in
the Palace of Justice, perhaps?
Step. Slide. Pivot.
I could break him out.
Turn. Thrust.
Yeah, right, Kev. And where were you planning to hide
him, under your bed? The Resistance is completely out of the question,
as we both know, and you don't know any sense offenders, at least, not
well enough to ask them to shelter a member of the Council. No, I think
you better stop worrying about the old man - after all, his problems
will soon be over - and start worrying about yourself. If he talks...if
he fingers you...
That idea wasn't a pleasant
one and before he could stop himself, Kevin shivered.
"Acolyte Halls!"
Kevin dropped smoothly out
of the kata and turned to face DuPont.
"Yes sir?"
DuPont regarded him coolly.
"Are you unwell, acolyte?"
"Unwell, sir?"
"Don't play with me, Halls.
You know very well what I was referring to."
Kevin briefly - very
briefly - entertained the idea of attempting to bluff it out, then
dismissed it.
"Sudden cold blast, sir."
"Indeed? Odd that none of
your yearmates appeared to notice it."
"Very odd, sir." The answer
was out of Kevin's mouth before he could stop it. DuPont narrowed his
eyes.
"You were friends with
Vice-Council Barrett?"
"Friends, sir? I'm sorry. I
don't fully understand."
"It must have been hard for
you," DuPont said in silver tones. "Being raised in the Monastery, I
mean."
"I never really thought
about it, sir," Kevin answered, which was, by and large, the truth. On
or off Prozium, life was what it was as far as he was concerned.
Whether it was hard or easy didn't really come into it.
"No? I imagine you felt a
certain attachment to the Vice-Council. He would have been,
after all, the closest thing to a father you had."
In spite of the numbness
running through him, Kevin almost laughed. Was this the best DuPont
could do? So much for ingenious questioning.
"You're mistaken, sir."
"Am I?" DuPont circled
slowly, reminding the acolyte of a vulture drawing near the carcass.
The hairs on the back of Kevin's neck stood up; he would have given
anything to be able to turn around, to keep DuPont in his field of
vision.
But then, such a thing was
impossible.
"Would you care to explain
that, acolyte?" DuPont persisted, re-entering Kevin's field of vision
and stopping just in front of him.
"Gladly, sir," Kevin said
calmly, gaze fixed on a point some six inches above the Vice-Council's
head. "By your own reasoning, if I did look on Barrett as such, then
logic dictates that I would now begin to look upon you in a
similar manner. And I can say with one hundred percent conviction, sir,
that such a thing will never, ever come to pass."
"Hm." DuPont shot him a
sharp look. Something in the acolyte's manner...was he joking
with him?
"If you believe me to be off
the dose, sir, I will willingly undergo any blood or Prozium test you
wish."
"That will not be necessary,
acolyte."
"Sir." It was probably for
the best, Kevin thought. He didn't need the hassle of another test. Not
on top of this.
DuPont continued to
scrutinise him keenly before saying, "Get back in formation."
Kevin obeyed, only too glad
at that moment to have something to occupy his attention.
Alright. So the old man's still alive. He must have some
kind of plan; hell, he's got me out of situations like this enough
times!
Roundhouse kick. Standard
block.
Fine. Tomorrow's Sunday, which means a free afternoon
after extra-credit classes. I'll try and get in to see him then.
Complete pivot. Thrust.
Tomorrow afternoon? You
really think the Council's going to wait on your pleasure? No, he'll
either be in the hands of the technicians or in the furnace by then;
they're not gonna want to hang around when it comes to Barrett. They're
going to clamp down as hard and as fast as possible, before word leaks
out that the Council was ever compromised.
Kevin snorted inwardly.
Based on his encounters with both Barrett and DuPont, he was starting
to wonder if there was anyone on the Council who wasn't
'compromised'.
"I didn't think you'd be the
one to interrogate me," Barrett remarked.
"Why not?" It took every
iota of willpower Kevin could summon to keep his voice even, but
somehow he managed. Of course, willpower also had its own supply of
self-preservation to draw on.
"They didn't hand out
interrogation assignments to raw recruits in my day." Barrett leaned
back. "Look, I'm tired and I feel like shit, so ask your questions and
get out, boy."
You're tired? Kevin
wanted to say. It's five past five in the goddamned morning; how do
you think I feel?!
He'd made it into the Palace
of Justice unquestioned. Apparently, nobody thought anything of an
acolyte doing a little interrogation on the side, a fact which was
still worrying Kevin, who still wasn't convinced that he had any right
to be there.
Then don't hang around, dickhead! Do what the old man
suggested; ask your questions and get the hell out!
Acutely aware of the camera
and microphone in the interrogation cell, he racked his brains trying
to think of a way to phrase what he really wanted to ask.
"Well, that's up to you," he
said impassively. "How do you want to play this? You can go easy or
hard, but if you don't cooperate, they'll-"
Barrett cut him off with a
wave of his hand.
"Send me for processing,
yeah, I know. You're forgetting I used to work here. Look, kid, if you
expect me to just hand you more offenders on a plate, you're in for a
disappointment. I don't know any others."
"Really? I heard from the
Vice-Council that at least one offender was planning to break you out,"
Kevin answered smoothly, inwardly thanking Barrett for giving him the
opening he so desperately needed.
A half-hidden and quickly
snuffed glint in the older man's eyes told him that he understood.
"Then I hope that offender
comes to his senses before it's too late. There's nothing he can do to
stop this."
"From what I heard, that's
not what he thinks." Kevin paused, then took a calculated risk. "I
believe he may have contacts inside the Tetra Grammaton. That's why I'm
here, to find out who they are."
"All the contacts in Libria
couldn't change facts," Barrett answered calmly. "Since I've already
been arrested and have approximately eleven hours and forty minutes to
live, let me try and broaden your mind, acolyte. An EC-10 novelist once
wrote these words. 'What is, is what must be'."
"Don't give me that
philosophical crap," Kevin said, no longer entirely acting. "I don't
think that offender, if he could hear you, would take too kindly to it
either. Unless something drastic happens to stop it, I believe he will
attempt to break you out regardless of how many quotations you spout at
him. Or me," he added, somewhat confusedly.
Barrett caught the acolyte's
eyes and held them firmly.
"Then if any of his contacts
happens to be watching and listening to this right now, they can pass
this message on: forget it. I do not want him to even think
about such an insane action. I'm sixty eight years old. There's not a
lot more I could offer the Resistance. I don't know if he's a member or
not, or if he's planning to join in the near future, but whichever he
is I believe his time could be better served in successfully
saving the lives of other sense offenders rather than getting himself
killed on a fool's errand to rescue an old man who'll probably be dead
of old age in another ten or fifteen years."
There was a silence.
"I don't think he's going to
like that," Kevin remarked. "I...I heard he...uh..." He broke off,
unable to finish the sentence, extremely grateful just then for the
dark glasses that hid his eyes.
"I know," Barrett said very
quietly. "I know how he feels about me."
Another silence, one which
Kevin broke as soon as he trusted his voice not to crack.
"Be sensible, sir. Why throw
your life away?"
"What life?" Barrett said
calmly. "A life without emotion is only half lived, acolyte. Remember
that."
Kevin drew in a breath, one
which quivered very slightly, then reached up, intending to cover the
camera with one hand. Barrett kicked him hard, the action concealed
under the table. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head, a clear
warning in his eyes.
Kevin tightened his lips
very slightly. Fine; let the old man burn, if that was what he wanted
so badly! Maybe he'd finally be able to study in peace now!
"What are you planning to
do, sir?" he said, after a few minutes had gone past without either of
them speaking.
Barrett met his gaze calmly.
"That's a little redundant,
isn't it, acolyte? I suppose you could say I'm planning to die."
Kevin jerked to his feet,
knocking the chair over.
"You're fucking insane."
"Even insanity's better than
Prozium," Barrett said matter-of-factly. "Leaving so soon?" he added as
Kevin reached out for the door.
The acolyte whirled.
"Yes, I'm leaving! You said
yourself there's nothing that can be done and that you're not gonna
talk. You want to die, you go ahead and fucking die, old man! I hope
the experience is everything you want it to be!"
He stalked out, going so far
as to slam the door behind him so hard that it shook in its frame and
ignoring the startled exclamations from the guards stationed either
side. They were only sweepers, and therefore subordinate to him.
"Morning Halls," someone
said from behind him. Kevin took a deep breath.
"Andersen, believe me when I
say I am really, really not in the mood for our usual routine.
Piss off!"
"Temper, temper," Andersen
drawled. "Been saying your goodbyes to Barrett, have you?"
Kevin stopped and turned to
stare at him, realisation dawning.
"You? You got
him arrested?"
Andersen smirked.
"Yeah." He shrugged. "I
warned you not to piss me off, Halls. I spoke to Vice-Council DuPont
yesterday. He was very interested in my account of Barrett's actions."
It was unfortunate for
Andersen that he picked that particular moment to taunt Kevin; the
other acolyte was actively looking for a scapegoat and would probably
have picked a fight with Father himself if he'd happened to be walking
past.
"You bastard." The words
were low, almost inaudible, and dripping venom. They were also the last
words that the older acolyte heard before Kevin slammed into him,
crashing him through a door and into an empty classroom. Andersen was
no pushover by anyone's standards, but he'd been unprepared for the
ferocity of the attack and went down hard. Before he had time to
recover, one hand was around his throat while the muzzle of a pistol
ground into his forehead, and he froze. Something told him that this
was no bravado or attempt at intimidation, that if he said or did the
wrong thing, he would die.
"Give me one good reason not
to shoot you right now," Kevin said icily.
"That would be murder."
Kevin clicked the safety off
his gun.
"I said a good
reason."
"DuPont knows where I am. If
I don't come back in-"
"Liar," Kevin cut across.
"And besides, do you honestly think I give a shit what DuPont thinks or
does?"
"You will." Andersen
attempted to break Kevin's grip. It was like trying to move the arm of
a statue. "You'll care when you're arrested. You'll get to join your
precious Barrett then, I guess, at least if you believe all that
archaic crap about an afterlife."
"You think that matters
now?" Kevin sneered. "Let me remind you that I could have betrayed
Vice-Council Barrett with a snap of my fingers if I'd wanted. I'm
hardly going to think twice about a couple of miserable fucks like you
and DuPont, am I?" He lowered his voice until it was little more than a
venomous snarl. "And Andersen, if I sink, you sink with
me. I might not be able to get any more for DuPont than a series of
tests, but I'll make damn sure to take you down."
Andersen swallowed. For the
first time in his life, he seriously believed he was about to die, and
was just debating with himself whether or not reasoning was likely to
have much effect when Kevin suddenly snapped the safety back on,
holstered his weapon and stepped away, releasing him.
The words "I knew you were
too chicken to do it," materialised in Andersen's throat, but for once
he swallowed them. The thought occurred to him that in this current
frame of mind, Halls might well put a bullet in his face just to prove
him wrong.
"What's going on?" DuPont
demanded, striding into the room and looking from one acolyte to the
other, causing Kevin to wonder if there was a section in the Monastery
curriculum that covered instant teleportation. Certainly DuPont seemed
to share Barrett's ability to show up just before a crisis reached
explosion point.
"Nothing's going on, sir,"
Kevin said flatly.
"Acolyte, when I first
entered this room, you were holding your yearmate by the throat and
apparently trying to strangle him with one hand and blow his brains out
with the other. You may say I'm overreacting or jumping to conclusions
if you wish, but that seems to me to be far from 'nothing'."
"Training exercise, sir."
"Fuck it was!" Andersen
protested. DuPont raised a hand, looking at him coolly.
"You are dismissed, acolyte."
Kevin had to admit, it was
almost worth the frustration of having to let Andersen go to see the
expression on his yearmate's face.
"Excuse me, sir?" Andersen
managed, when he'd regained the power of speech.
"You heard me, Andersen. I
said dismissed."
Andersen moistened his lips
and tried again.
"Sir, if you-"
"Which part of the word
'dismissed' was too complicated for you to grasp, acolyte?" DuPont
said, a clear warning in his tones.
Andersen took a deep breath.
"Yes sir," he said, biting
the words off at the end, turned and stalked out.
Kevin and DuPont continued
to eye each other like snakes, neither speaking. Eventually, Kevin
started towards the door; anything was better than the Vice-Council's
silent scrutiny.
"Acolyte Halls."
Kevin stopped mid stride,
swivelling on his heel to face DuPont.
"Sir."
"You asked me for the time
and date of Barrett's execution, didn't you?"
"Sir." Even hearing those
two words together was painful.
"And I was somewhat short
with you. I must apologise for that, acolyte."
"There's...nothing to
apologise for, sir," Kevin answered with difficulty, while struggling
to control a rapidly increasing desire to wipe that almost smug
expression off the Vice-Council's face. Terminally. He had a sudden
urge to rip, tear, kill, to inflict as much pain on as many people as
he could in a desperate attempt to alleviate some of his own, but
suppressed it.
DuPont waved a hand.
"No, acolyte, I was remiss.
It must have been a shock to you, to know your mentor was to be
processed."
Kevin hesitated for the
barest fraction of an instant.
"I...admit it was a shock,
sir, to discover that a member of the Council was capable of sense
crimes."
"And naturally you will want
to be present, to show your faith."
"I...what?" Kevin
stared, feeling as though he'd just been strangled. He didn't...surely
he couldn't mean...
"Did I not make myself
clear, acolyte? Allow me to elaborate. You are currently ranked the
highest among your yearmates and as such are entitled to privileges not
available to your lower ranking compatriots, and your year is the last
that Barrett will ever have taught. I have heard rumours of sense
offenders in the Tetra Grammaton. For this reason, you will be present
this evening to witness the combustion of Vice-Council Barrett, to show
him and the rest of Libria that any attempt on the part of the
Resistance to subvert the Tetra Grammaton to their cause will fail
miserably."
It was on the tip of Kevin's
tongue to say that Vice-Council Barrett himself probably qualified as
subverted, but he bit it. Hard.
"Sir," he said instead, and
was privately amazed when his voice came out sounding almost completely
normal.
"And acolyte?"
"Sir?"
"I expect proper attire. Do
you understand?"
Kevin blinked.
"Um. Sorry, sir, but no."
"Those dark glasses are not
regulation. I believe I've mentioned this to you before."
"Medical reasons, sir."
"However, they are not
common in Libria, and I don't want you receiving any undue attention at
this combustion. Everything must appear perfectly normal. Understand?"
"Yes sir," Kevin said, while
privately thinking that his going around without the dark glasses he'd
worn every day of his life would probably generate far more attention
than if he kept them on.
"Good. Dismissed."
Even in the years to come,
Kevin was never sure how he made it through the rest of that day. He
entertained various thoughts of a jailbreak, ones which lasted for as
long as it took his survival instinct to kick in...an instinct that was
usually followed up hard by self-loathing. Barrett had risked his life
to help him on more than one occasion; in fact, Kevin was honest enough
to admit that if it hadn't been for Barrett, he wouldn't have even
lived to be a teenager. So why the fuck couldn't he bring
himself to try and return the favour?
Sod that. You could have
warned him DuPont was on the warpath following the incident with that
damned book. It still might not have been enough, I'll admit, but at
least your conscience would be clear. You could have told him DuPont
mentioned that shit about 'corrupting a member of the Council'. You
could have told him that you caught two sense offenders trading that
book and that you were flipping through it for a letter or document
hidden in the pages; that's not unknown. And let's be honest; if you
hadn't been so fucking stupid as to read that book in your room
- you could have done it in the bathroom, that has a locking door -
Barrett wouldn't be in this shit. I don't know what evidence they
arrested him with in the end; that book thing was a good while ago
after all. But it's bloody obvious that if DuPont hadn't caught you
like he did, he'd probably never have fixated on Barrett in the first
place. Instead, not only is it your fault he got arrested, but you're
too chicken to do anything.
"Shut up," Kevin
muttered angrily, drawing startled glances from the patrol which was
passing. He looked at his chronometer. Five to six. He'd have to run if
he wanted to make it to the furnace on time.
The acolyte wished that
DuPont hadn't insisted on his wearing contact lenses instead of dark
glasses. At least if he'd had his shades he could have closed his eyes.
Yeah, and don't you think
that might have been the general idea? a nasty little voice
whispered inside him as he skidded to a stop outside the furnace
entrance, paused to smooth down his hair and walked in to take his
place. DuPont wants proof of your sense offending, something that
wouldn't just come down to your word against his. There are at least
ten independent witnesses here. You're gonna have to watch them burn
the old man, and if you react in any way they'll just toss you in there
with him.
Kevin paled slightly, the
full implications of DuPont's plan becoming clear to him as the
opposite doors whirred open and Barrett entered, flanked by four
sweepers and two Clerics. Clearly nobody fancied taking any chances.
Council members might not work as Clerics anymore, but you never forgot
Gun-Kata and if there had just been the customary sweeper escort, Kevin
had no doubt that Barrett could have put them all down if the fancy
took him.
The sweeper on duty opened
the doors, waiting as the flames inside died.
Barrett stared into the
furnace. He wasn't afraid for himself anymore; he'd had a long life,
and he had few complaints. Most sense offenders, particularly those in
the Tetra Grammaton, accepted the risks of burning when they skipped
the dose.
Kevin. Jesus, why did they have to make the lad watch
this?
It had been in the
Vice-Council's mind to say or do something just before entering, the
typical Famous Last Words, but Kevin's presence put a dampener on that
idea. He didn't want the lad getting any crazy thoughts of staging some
kind of rescue, and he knew full well that Kevin was headstrong enough
to do just that if he thought he could get away with it. It would be
better to make it as quick as possible.
Barrett walked forward into
the furnace without hesitating, then turned and nodded at the sweeper,
who closed and sealed the doors.
"Firing in ten seconds. Nine
seconds. Eight seconds."
Through the narrow T-shaped
window, Barrett could see Kevin's chest starting to rise and fall
slightly more rapidly than was normal for a Prozium junkie at an
execution.
"Seven seconds." The
computerised female voice continued counting down the seconds
impersonally.
I can't warn him. They're waiting for just that; some
kind of communication between the two of us.
"Six seconds."
Kevin stared into Barrett's
eyes. Forget closing his eyes; now he couldn't tear his gaze away, no
matter how hard he tried.
"Five seconds."
Barrett took a deep breath.
You're on your own now, lad. I did what I could for you.
I just hope it was enough.
"Four seconds."
Kevin stared, his last words
to Barrett coming back to haunt him.
"You go ahead and fucking die, old man! I hope the
experience is everything you want it to be!"
Oh Jesus, I didn't mean that. Not really. I'm sorry. I'm
so, so sorry.
He became aware of a sudden
pricking behind his eyes and in the bridge of his nose and held his
breath in an attempt to regain control.
"Three seconds."
Barrett's hands clenched
convulsively into fists. There was no way in Libria he could have
stopped them, even if he'd wanted them to.
"Two seconds."
Everything I want it to be, lad? Maybe it is at that;
they didn't get any names out of me, least of all yours.
"One second."
Jesus, where had the time
gone? Ten seconds didn't seem to last as long as it used to, especially
when he'd been teaching a class. A random memory of Kevin's quoting Silence
of the Lambs at him just before a Gun-Kata session started flashed
through the Vice-Council's mind and, despite the fact that he had less
than one second to live, he grinned suddenly.
"Machine turbines priming."
Barrett continued to hold
Kevin's gaze.
You never did tell me why you hate the Resistance so
much, did you, lad?
The flames shot up, catching
hold of his flesh and flickering around it hungrily before Barrett's
skin grew hot enough for the fire to catch there as well. His system
reacted, flooding his body with enough adrenalin to briefly numb the
pain before the neurogenic shock kicked in and he collapsed, a single
thought reverberating over and over again in his skull.
It's not so bad really
not so bad really not so bad.
Then his world dissolved
into a warm and not entirely unwelcome darkness.
Outside, the witnesses
drifted off in ones and twos, some talking among themselves. Kevin
stood there in the middle of the dispersing group, chalk white and
shaking from head to foot. He didn't know how long he stood, still
staring into the furnace where Barrett had died, only coming back to
earth when he heard someone calling his name.
Kevin shook his head in a
futile attempt to clear it, then whirled and came face to face with
Vice-Council DuPont.
"What do you want?"
he spat.
The Vice-Council eyed him
coldly.
"I don't like your tone,
acolyte."
Kevin didn't care. He wasn't
about to listen to anything DuPont had to say to him, not after what
had just happened.
"Excuse me, sir," he
said, equally coldly. "I'm tired. I need to return to my room, to
sleep."
DuPont took hold of Kevin's
shoulder, preventing his movement.
"You owe me, acolyte."
Kevin gritted his teeth so
hard they hurt before trusting himself to speak without screaming at
the Vice-Council to get the fuck off him.
"Owe you what, sir?"
DuPont withdrew his hand and
moved in front of Kevin, looking him up and down steadily.
"When I caught you with that
text, most people would have shot you on sight. I chose not to, since I
think you could be far more useful to me alive than dead."
"You want me to cover your
ass, Vice-Council? Lie for you? Risk my life so you can sit up in your
cosy little apartment and indulge in more EC-10?"
DuPont held his gaze
squarely.
"You did it for Barrett."
Kevin took a deep breath.
"May I speak frankly, sir?"
DuPont glanced up at the
camera, checking that it was off. It would never do to have Halls
incriminated now, not before the Vice-Council had worked out exactly
how he could turn the youth to his own advantage.
"You may, acolyte."
"Good." Kevin took another
deep breath, trying to hang onto his temper. Screaming wouldn't put his
point across any better than stating it calmly, or as calmly as he
could under the circumstances. "DuPont, you are an underhanded,
conniving, manipulative, lying piece of rebel shit. Barrett's-" Kevin
broke off, swallowed hard once or twice and then went on. "Barrett was
worth fifty of you. If you think for one minute I'm so shallow and
selfish that I'll switch my allegiance to the sick fuck who murdered
him - ie, you - and make nice with Andersen, you are in for one
big fucking surprise."
"Be very careful, Halls,"
DuPont warned icily.
"Of what?" Kevin shot back,
flinging caution to the winds. "What are you gonna do to me, sir?
Shoot me? Yeah, well, you go right ahead because a bullet in the face
is looking pretty fucking good to me right about now."
"Don't be absurd," DuPont
said briskly. "I just did what had to be done. What about your
behaviour with Turner, if we're pointing fingers?"
Kevin stared at him
wordlessly.
"That has nothing to
do with what happened to Barrett! He wouldn't have betrayed you,
firstly because he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to do it
and secondly because he told me more than once that he didn't believe
you were a sense offender, since he seemed to have the somewhat quaint
idea that all offenders were friends-"
"Friends," DuPont echoed,
savouring the word. He glanced up at Kevin. "You'll find out that I can
be a very good friend, acolyte, to those intelligent enough to
accept my offer."
Kevin's jaw dropped.
"That's what this is
all about?" he managed, as soon as he could speak. "You murder one of
my best friends, then turn around and expect me to be eager to join
your team? Andersen's your pet, not me. I don't want anything more to
do with you than I absolutely have to."
DuPont closed the gap
between them until their faces were almost touching. The Vice-Council
wasn't an excessively tall man and Kevin, in the way of most teenaged
boys, had shot up in the last couple of years, resulting in them being
almost on an eye level.
"You don't want me as your
enemy, either," DuPont said very softly.
Kevin's sense of opportunism
kicked in at this point and he said, "What's in it for me?"
DuPont raised his eyebrows
very slightly.
"What do you want, acolyte?"
"I want to finish what I
started with your pet acolyte. Give me five minutes alone with
Andersen; no interference, no patrols, no nothing. Just him, me and an
empty room."
DuPont paused, and Kevin was
somewhat shocked to find the Vice-Council actually considering the
outrageous request. If this was how he treated his allies, Kevin didn't
want to find out what he did to his enemies.
"I want him left alive at
the end, Halls, and coherent."
Kevin was so stunned he
actually fell back a couple of steps.
"You're agreeing?
Just like that?"
"Why shouldn't I?" DuPont's
voice abruptly became lower, more threatening. "If you break either of
those conditions, though, I'll see to it personally that you
wind up in the Palace of Justice before you can say, 'sorry'."
Kevin continued to stare at
him, slack-jawed.
You must really like the
taste of your foot, Kev, given the number of times it's been stuffed in
your mouth lately, something inside him whispered.
I can handle DuPont,
Kevin thought back irritably, wondering for the first time as he did so
if these almost continuous inner arguments were normal for someone off
the dose.
That's what you thought last time, genius. Face it,
Halls; you bluffed, he called it. Now what are you going to do?
Kevin took a deep breath.
There was really only one thing he could do.
"Agreed."
A slight smile touched the
corners of the Vice-Council's mouth.
"He's waiting for me in room
3A. I'll keep the patrols from interfering, but remember what I said.
Alive, and coherent."
That suited Kevin fine; he
didn't think he could torture Andersen into insanity in five minutes
anyway.
"Agreed," he said again.
"Good. Do it, then, before I
change my mind."
Habit caused Kevin to come
to attention before turning and walking away, his brain kicked back
into gear.
Well...might as well go
along to room 3A, just to see if DuPont was telling the truth,
Kevin thought, picking up the pace slightly. He wasn't sure what he'd
do if the Vice-Council had been honest, but it couldn't hurt to
check. Only for future reference, of course.
Kevin slowed to a halt as he
approached. Room 3A wasn't that far from the furnaces, and the trip
hadn't taken longer than a couple of minutes.
No going back.
He took a deep breath and
pushed the door open.
DuPont had been telling the
truth. Andersen was standing looking out of the window, his back to the
door.
"About time you showed up,"
he said acidly, turning around, then caught sight of Kevin and froze.
There was a long, long
silence.
"Halls?" Kevin thought he
detected a faint wariness in the other acolyte's tone. "What are you
doing here?"
Kevin racked his brains.
What was the best response? Barrett was - had been - fond of
constantly quoting EC-10 books and movies. What would he say in this
kind of situation?
Probably something along
the lines of, "Lad, have you lost your bloody mind?" Kevin thought
with dark humour, then bit his lip. He'd even welcome that if it could
turn back the clock, bring the old man back.
"Halls...?" There was a
definite note of suspicion in Andersen's voice now.
Speaking of clocks, he was
wasting time. Kevin took half a step forward and kicked Andersen
squarely in the thigh, hard, only too glad to finally have someone to
vent his pain on with no prospect of arrest or interference. Andersen's
leg spasmed and he dropped to the floor, helpless.
"Murderer!" Kevin spat. "I
had to do what I did to Turner because he could have fucked things up
for me big time. What did Barrett ever do to you except stop me from
doing this-" another sharp blow, this one in the ribs "-years
ago?"
For once, Andersen wisely
kept his mouth shut. Sometimes, anything you say is going to be
the wrong thing.
"You just did it to get to
me, didn't you?" Kevin said. He was breathing rapidly, not solely
because of the exertion. "You just wanted to get me upset, or angry."
He kicked Andersen again, this time in the face and the other acolyte
felt blackness whirl through his head.
"Well, guess what?" Kevin
said. He drew his foot back a fourth time and had the immense
satisfaction of seeing Andersen cower away from him. "You got your
wish. Right now the only thing keeping me from beating you to death is
that it would be too fucking quick for you. You murdered one of my
closest friends, attempted to kill or blackmail me on more than one
occasion and you think I'm just gonna roll over and take it?"
"DuPont..."
"DuPont knows we're here and
he knows what's going on. The only instructions he gave me were not to
kill you, and frankly that's not going to be hard since I want to see
you burn in the furnaces after extensive CI, because nothing
the technicians can do to you is too harsh as far as I'm concerned, not
after what you did." Kevin paused. "He also said I was to leave you
coherent at the end of it, but given it's you I don't think anyone's
going to notice the difference."
Andersen spat blood onto the
floor.
"If you kill me-"
Kevin shook his head,
clicking his tongue pityingly.
"Andersen, Andersen,
Andersen. You don't listen very well, do you? I already told you I'm
not going to kill you. Time's almost up, anyway; DuPont only promised
me five minutes with you. Any longer and he's probably going to send
the Clerics in, or maybe he'll even come himself. He strikes me as the
kind who likes the hands-on approach."
He stepped back - even when
the other acolyte was injured almost to the point of unconsciousness,
Kevin still wasn't about to turn his back on him - and smiled, an
expression that belied the emptiness inside. He'd got his revenge, but
instead of the satisfaction he'd been expecting, there was
just...nothing. Call it a void, call it a vacuum, call it what you damn
well liked, but it was there and Kevin didn't much like it.
As he reached the doorway,
the EC-10 quote he'd been searching for came to him and his smile
became more genuine as he turned around to face the other acolyte.
"Andersen?"
Andersen lifted his head to
look at him, caught sight of that unnerving smile and tried to back
into the wall.
Still smiling, Kevin raised
his eyebrows.
"Of course you realise this
means war."
He left, closing the door on
Andersen's stunned expression. Before he had a chance to make for the
dormitories, DuPont had stepped out of the opposite doorway and into
his path. Deep behind the rage, something twinged in Kevin's mind; had
the Vice-Council not only betrayed Andersen but stayed around to watch
the fun?
"Well?" DuPont said calmly.
"Well what?" Kevin demanded
roughly, striving to get past.
"We had a deal, acolyte."
Kevin rounded on him, so
drunk with rage and pain that he didn't fully realise what he was
saying.
"Listen, sucker, you were
dumb enough to give me that time alone with Andersen and I'm not
joining any fucking team, least of all yours. Get out of my
way."
DuPont looked at him calmly,
impassively.
"You're certain about that,
are you?"
Kevin's lip curled.
"I'm sure, Vice-Council. Get
out of my way before I do to you what I did to your pet."
DuPont caught hold of his
arm just above the elbow, arresting the acolyte's movement.
"And how would you plan to
do that, Halls? I'm not some pathetic little boy like Andersen."
Kevin jerked involuntarily,
the Vice-Council's words acting like a dash of cold water in the face.
That was true; fighting with Andersen was one thing, but taking on the
likes of DuPont was something else entirely. The man was, in Kevin's
humble opinion, a piece of arrogant shit, but he'd been dead right
about one thing; the acolyte did not want him for an enemy.
"We had an agreement."
"You had an
agreement," Kevin shot back, although the thought of a pissed off
DuPont was rapidly calming him down. "You didn't ask if I'd join your
little gang after I beat the crap out of Andersen. It's not my
fault if you fail to go into details."
"Acolyte, you're doing
yourself no favours." DuPont lowered his voice, turned more
confidential. "What do you have to lose?"
"That's funny, sir," Kevin
said, now completely impassive. "I'd lay odds that's exactly what
Andersen thought as well, and look what happened to him."
"Andersen is useful in his
own way, but not a great one for thinking. I want someone who can use
his mind as well as his muscles."
No you don't; you want
your own little legion, Kevin thought. You tossed Andersen to
me to try and get me on your side, and if another sense offender wants
ten minutes alone with me you'll throw me to him in a heartbeat, just
to get one more person in your gang. You slimy little tapeworm.
"I'll take that chance,
Vice-Council," he said coolly, and was proud of how composed he
sounded. He was sure none of his thoughts had showed in his voice.
DuPont narrowed his eyes.
"Don't test me, acolyte.
You'll lose."
"Lose?" The look Kevin
turned on him was so venomous that even DuPont was momentarily
silenced. "What the fuck can you do to me that's worse than anything
I've already been through? No, don't tell me; if I try, I get to find
out, right?" He shook his head. "I'm through. I don't give a shit
anymore. You want candidates for your little power games, take
Andersen. I think I left enough of him for you to make use of. I'm done
playing."
He shoved DuPont to one side
and strode away down the corridor.
"Are you, acolyte?" DuPont
murmured very softly. "Pity. I'm not."
Ahead and unaware of this,
Kevin increased his pace, finally breaking into a run, past caring if
anyone saw him. He vaguely remembered barreling through people, leaving
a growing number of sprawled out bodies in his wake, and he thought he
heard someone shout his name at one point, but ignored them. Running
was all that mattered. If he could run fast enough, maybe he could
leave the pain behind.
Kevin didn't stop until he
reached the relative safety of his room, and even then only because his
momentum had carried him straight into the far wall before he could
stop himself, the force of impact knocking him to the floor, winded.
For long moments he lay there, not even aware that he was crying.
Acting on an instinct he
didn't fully understand, Kevin pulled himself slowly to his feet, every
move seeming three times as hard as normal, before crossing into the
small bathroom he and Jacobs shared and turning on the tap, splashing
cold water on his face. Almost against his will, he raised his head to
stare at his own reflection in the mirror. The strangeness of seeing
himself without his normal dark glasses jolted him, snapping into
something roughly resembling reality.
He continued staring for a
few minutes longer, then abruptly reached up and pulled the mirror off,
hurling it to the floor where it shattered. Jacobs or whoever
discovered it would most likely throw a Prozium-dulled shit fit, but
Kevin didn't plan for that to be his problem.
The acolyte turned off the
tap and returned to his bed before allowing his legs to give out and
dump him on top of the mattress. He supposed dully that he was in
shock. It wasn't a word he'd ever thought of applying to himself, but
he hadn't studied extra-credit medical science all these years without
learning a thing or two.
Kevin didn't feel upset
about what had happened anymore. He didn't feel anything except an
aching numbness inside. Was this what it was like to be on Prozium?
He didn't know how long he
sat there, just staring into space. It must have been at least an hour,
since the light was rapidly fading by the time he came back to himself.
Moving slowly, yet with a definite sense of purpose, Kevin pulled out
his gun, almost caressing the cool metal, resting his forehead along
the barrel. What had he said to DuPont? A bullet in the head was
looking pretty good?
He'd lost his nerve before.
Well. He wouldn't do that a second time, not after what had just
happened.
Kevin checked the gun was
loaded, then closed his eyes, took a deep breath and placed it to the
side of his head.
