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“Our enemy is in many number, but at heart, our enemy is alone, vulnerable, frightened and very dangerous. His physical suffering takes little course in relation to the infant puppet master pulling at the casualty strings of his meta-physical being” he said, pausing to catch his breath and turning his stare at first to the table, then lifting his head to direct his stare about the room.
Father and Son were no different in how they looked upon their leader at this moment. Both gazed in apprehensive wonder, fending off their clouded emotion and the weakened vice of pride. They looked on more so, in astute certainty; a state of which their conscious minds had been trained to conform instinctively, like the rattle of a snake’s tail, the burying of an ostrich’s head, the bearing of a dog’s teeth or the suckling of a new born baby. No rationale entered their minds. They listened and accepted truths.
“You, my Sons are different to your brothers and sisters. You are the future will of our family. In time, you will be learned. In time, you will be strong. In time, you will be a Father. It is with an open hand that we raise a Forever New Dawn and it is with a clenched fist that we radiate the light of our hearts upon this new world” he spoke in great volume to the room.
His voice carried through the complex and the jeers and chants of The Sons fell upon the ears of those in the neighbouring rooms and in the courtyard just beyond the walls. The Sons; young boys and girls aged from four to seventeen, all stood on their feet with their concrete eyes cutting straight through the stare of their enemy and holding their right fist over their heart. As their fists clenched harder, their veins started to colour and then bulge, their faces turned red, their teeth started to grind and then a hideous snarl begat all of their faces.
A thunderous deafening roar bludgeoned the silence as The Sons all vented as one, in one state, At War. Marcos’ eyes lit up as he absorbed all of this. The Fathers in the background simply stood with their arms folded over their heaving chests, knowing every word of this honest truth.
At the half passing of the sun, an army of men stood gathered and respondent, eager for instruction, in the courtyard of The Nest. They stood shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, their hulking masses stealing the light about them.
From shoulder to toe, they dressed in the shade of night; long black sleeves, black combat pants and black reinforced steel capped boots. On their chests, the great white heart of The Collective.
Their sheer size was inspiring, their arms; mastodonic, like two great serpent-like freight trains, their heaving chests; planetary, like some volcano splitting from the earth creating a new land, and their faces; glacial, frozen in an unflinching stare; showing little of what tremendous chaos most certainly wreaked havoc beneath.
Their number was terrifying; hundreds of men and women stood in line with directed stares like savage dogs in the moments before a fight. Their fingers curled around their cruel instruments; an extension of the war in their souls. A sheath of metal covered their free arms; their manner of defence and their free fists; studded and barbed, were clenched, ready to fight.
At Father, Marcos and his captains conspired in the office of strategy. They looked upon a series of blueprints and maps that wrere drawn by hand; most of which had been inked by Marcos himself as he sat high above the world overlooking the lines of streets and blocks of towers.
His men were invisibly shaken, silently taken aback somewhat by the size of the operation and the last minute planning. Something of this scale needed months to prepare, not the light of one day. And where they intended to go, no man should ever need to comprehend. Marcos stared down each one before finally lowering his head to a blueprint that lay on the table before him.
“This is the only way; let that be patently clear in your minds. Our team will cross the bridge in three. We push west until we find our objective. Gentlemen, today, we walk into zero, as one. Never again shall a foul hand take from our plate. In the day that has been, they came and took one of us. She has a name. Her name is Safrine. And on this day, we take back what is ours. We are the ruling law. We are the only ideal. We are the idol. We are the open heart. We are the clenched fist. We are the chosen ones. We are humanity. This is our home. This is our right. Let us take our message to their black hearts, we are one. We will find Safrine and we will bring her home” he screamed; veins bulging from his neck, his face swelling, his eyes bloodshot and unnerving, his voice visceral carrying like a cannonball through glass, not a tremor in his presence, not a doubt in his words.
The men all returned their stare to the images spread out on the table before them. There was a large blueprint of an industrial zone to the lower east of The City. The pictures detailed a sprawling desolate suburbia with its weaving maze of avenues and streets, hundreds of rows of stacked buildings, apartments and houses; large industrial warehouses, low hanging bridges and a network of what were thought to be a matrix of underground tunnels; the remains of an abandoned subway system.
The collection would play to three movements; the looking of children, the finding of a girl and the mapping of extremity.
One division would split into teams of three and occupy the concrete maze downtown, turning over every broken board, every blade of grass and breaking down every door in the desperate rescue of child; saving these vulnerable and mouldable minds from the derelict tenure of their aged despondent brethren and confiscating for destruction; any items of distraction obtained during their searches and the blackening of all reflective surfaces and materials.
Their role was one of peace, offering provisions for the saving of the children; always maintaining a venerable firm hand.
The second division would move in smaller number, consisting only of White Hearts. They would move in teams of two, feeding off of Intel and sweeping through the underbelly of The City; their objective, recover the girl; Safrine, at any cost.
The third division of only five White Hearts, Marcos and the Behemoth would take the winding cobble road to the bridge at the edge of town and they would cross it. Each team would return before the completion of the fall of the sun.
The generals and colonels took note of their direction studying the maps laid out by Marcos, burning the image deep in their conscious mindsets. One colonel each, stood at the head of a fifty men and women, looking long down the line of grim faces.
In the distance, around the courtyard other Children of other states too looked on, magnetised by the force of their focus, hypnotised by the sound of clanking metal as the warriors struck their instruments against their metalled arms in a droning rhythm.
As the Sons prepared to collect, Marcos wandered off through the courtyard, his focus broken by passing thoughts of The Woman. No reason commanded his step but still one foot moved in front of the other; away from where he should have been. He reached to his left pocket, patting as if he had forgotten something. He reached in; the papers were there, folded and pressed against his leg.
His focus slipped and in his mind The Woman was in another room. She was frightened, he could tell. He had been frightened before and knew all the markings. He walked to the door and turned the handle gently but it wouldn’t open, she had locked it from inside.
He could hear The Woman vomiting in the other room through the door and something inside willed him to knock it down and hold her, wrap his arms around her and be with her; at her touch, at her sight, at the mercy of her need and at the want of her weakness which compelled the irrationality of his heart. He pressed his ear to the door and caught every sunken breath that fell to the floor from her exhausted body. He breathed deeply, taking with it, the hurt that she exhaled.
He felt weak, exposed and ineffectual. He turned his back, resting against the door and slid down to the cool tiles throwing his face into his folded arms, the sense of care that warmed his blood now boiling, his uselessness engorging his ferocity and at this fingertips, anger urged to speak.
The Woman fell silent to his calling.
Marcos jumped to his feet and pound
ed at the door until his fists were bruised and bloodied. Even then, he kept pounding until the wooden frames burst apart sending shards of wood and metal around the living room. Through the holes in the wood he could see The Woman standing over the basin, tears flooding her eyes.
Fury clawed at his stomach and poisoned his heart. His eyes glazed as he burst through the door, his hand clenched and high in the air ready to swing downwards; addressed to The Woman turning her eyes and flinching with fright.
He exited the eastern passage and came to the split in the road where left led to At War and right to At Love. He washed away the delusion in his mind and was still driven by some primal uncommon sense.
As he was about to enter the building, the corner of his sight was caught by a sudden lack of expectance. He pressed his body against the brick work and eased his sight past the corner; a sense, not of suspicion, but one of genuine intrigue cast a spell on him.
It was the Behemoth who by all accord should not be expected to be found where he was and of with whom that he was. Marcos fixed his sight and focused on the two shapes in the distance. He couldn’t hear the crux of their conversation, but he could make out the immediacy in the voice of the old man wearing a white coat.
The Behemoth stood towering over the man but seemed to take in every word that he said, nodding in concurrence and apparently taking some kind of direction. When the two moved from the shadows into the small courtyard that divided War and Love, Marcos slipped back behind the frame and waited until they passed his sight before this new sensation of intrigue silenced the call of The Woman and directed him upon the dusted footprints of the Behemoth and the old man of science walking in conspicuous tandem through the hallways of Love until they came across a young boy holding a white sheet, sitting alone, running loose gravel through the gaps in his fingers.
Marcos watched on in the distance as The Behemoth and The Elderly Scientist kneeled down to the boy’s height and The Behemoth laid a hand on his shoulder. They were speaking to the boy but were so far that Marcos could make out not even the intent usually masked in the tone of one’s speech.
He found it odd that The Behemoth should only moments before a grand collection, be far from the command of his generals and more so, for him to be abreast with strangeness and secrecy in the confidence of nameless number men.
And who exactly was this boy?
And what words did The Behemoth collect from this Child?
Marcos was startled by the sound of generals calling into the open air; aligning their Sons to march. The sound of cheering filled the mid-morning as the children of other states clapped their hands and danced about freely. Mothers ran about struggling to keep them under control and to return them to their proper states of Love, Work and Peace.
Marcos’ focus was broken by a line of Children who rushed down the passage, through the courtyard and past Marcos, into the main building towards their classes. Their Mother followed shortly behind with a stern look on her face apologising absently to Marcos, careful not to look him directly in the eyes. Marcos pulled his stomach in; backing against the wall, lifting his arms and allowing The Children to run past.
When silence returned, he looked to the distance again but the men and the child were gone. He didn’t know of their direction so instead he made his own, heading back through the small courtyard where in its centre, several Mothers fought to free a web of Children tangled in netting. He passed The Children and entered the passage through to the main courtyard where hundreds of readied soldiers awaited their instruction to march out into the cold grey August morning and fulfil their purpose; to kill and to collect.
A cumbersome hand slapped on his shoulder.
“A mind that ponders has feet that wander. What are you doing away from where I left you old friend?” said The Behemoth.
Marcos was stuck for a reason. His mind flashed with the image of the two men conspiring, or as he had thought.
“Finding my way back,” he said closing any curiosity.
The two men walked together down the line of Sons and stood at either side of the gated doors that led through the foyer and out into The City streets.
The War General commanded the colonels, who commanded their Sons, who commanded their focus, which commanded their feet and as one, they marched through the courtyard, out through the foyer and lined the great wall that divided The Collective, from The Famine, commanding attention, submission and awe.
Marcos and The Behemoth followed and out on the streets they divided their teams and sharpened their focus.
“Be war, always! There is no safe passage, there is no ginger threat. Never lessen your focus. One is war! Be always one! Be always war! Love as one!” screamed The Behemoth to the hundreds of Sons and White Hearts before him.
The men and women raised their cruel instruments into the air and cheered, “Live as you love, live as you love, live as you love” in constant recurrence with their instruments piercing the air as their boots stomped the loose earth and trembling concrete.
Marcos and The Behemoth joined The War General passing first the enormous outer structure of The Nest and then moving through the centre of town where the morning bustle was steadily gaining momentum.
People were emerging from crawl spaces beneath buildings, between the cracks in the sidewalk that every night swallowed the evening rains, from behind mounds of shrubbery and plastic netting, from within burnt out wrecks and from the dark winding alleys that even under the brightest sun; hidden by a cold grey August sky, cast a shadow so grand that one could not see their own palms clasping to their eyes as their fear enveloped their conscious senses and they collapsed into an insignificant heap at their feet.
They crawled then from the blackened windows that kept secrets of their residence leaving only the void visible to the morning light as thick metal gratings slid away from the frame allowing its contents to slip out into the day and make business of their absence. They spawned from the giant cathedral where stagnation made its bed with promise and the stains of abandon and disbelief bore mockingly into the last dregs of conscious sanity. They scurried from the outskirts of town where at night, the freezing cold blusters one’s living into death and even under a tower of fire, to close one’s eyes is a gamble as to whether they should open again in the morn. And they loomed from the cavernous wrecks of towers that aligned The City streets and from the nether of bridges and doorways where the wind and viscous packs of vagabonds would never reach.
They came from every side; from every up, from every down, weakened by the hunger in their stomach that scathed their skin and muscle but exhorted nefariously by the unrelenting famine in their minds.
The three men surrounded by a guard of White Hearts made their way through the traffic of scavenging humans. They learned in their environment; The Famined ones; like obedient pets, and always returned to their same grounds waiting attentively to receive their portion of information each day. With it, they scurried back to their domesticated holes and wished and wondered the rest of the hours in a day away, their minds doped on information, they festered in their dank dwellings nursing their cravings and willing the next half sun to arrive for their next fix.
Marcos was no stranger to this sight. He walked under the fall of every sun with The Woman by his side to his dwellings that overlooked the entire stretch of The City from the prodigious Nest whose immense walls cast high into the heavens, to the miscreant bridge; that in the night, shuffled devilry in and out of the darkest regions.
The Famined too were conditioned to The Collective. They moved and cowered out of harm’s way not wanting to draw upon any unfavourable affection; more than what they knew in their rancid degenerate states, they deserved.
They were conditioned to The Collective, yes, but they were hardened and savagely frightened of the White Hearts, the men and women who wore atrocity on their chests. And just as sugar disappeared in water, so too did courage in The Famined at the sight of that vile symbol that perforated throug
h the cold grey August morning.
The three men under heavy guard came to a square where they were greeted by an old man with a thick grey beard that carried down to his sunken chest. His face was drawn, weighed by the carriage of every day that he had lived, but this old man; a revered collector, would not let go of a single second. He knew everything that seemed so unimportant and his trade was in everything that was.
The Behemoth approached the Old Drunk Bastard and shook his hand vigorously almost lifting him off his feet in the process. The old man looked to Marcos and pulled on his long white beard and nodded his head in a show of welcome and respect.
The three men walked with the Old Drunk Bastard brushing open a tarpaulin cover that dressed an open doorway that led through to the Child Market.
The entrance was long and there was little room to wiggle one’s self passed the traffic coming from the counter way. The path was lit by candles that sat high on the walls flickering under the gusts of wind that snuck through the covering. As they neared the opening, their ears narrowed on what at first travelled as a faint whisper and upon the further creeping of tiny steps, unravelled into a raucous banter of laughing, conversing, orating, lamenting and bartering at every corner of the floor.
“Welcome, tis a grand day indeed ta deal in fairy tales. Come on in a grab a seat. Can I offer you some Poitin? Tis lethal stuff it is. Till strip, da worry right outta ya. Celia brewed it before she died, bless her soul. Sure she’s with me in spirit now, she is” said the Old Drunk Bastard laughing and tripping over the exhilaration that caught at his feet as a matted old dog named Ruff sent him stumbling forward into a pile of boxes leaning against a brick wall.
“Watch yourselves gentlemen. Gravity works a little funny in dese walls. Now, take a seat. Hold a sec. Seamus; would ya get rid of dat feckin mongrel, I almost gave me arse a fuckin sun shower. Now, what can I do for you giant fuckers dis morning?” asked The Old Drunk Bastard kicking the dog along.
“Children,” said Macros bluntly.
“I like your boss man here. He wouldn’t fuck a monkey on a Sunday” he said.
Marcos looked to The Behemoth who just shook his head in a pay no mind kind of tribute to the ramblings of The Old Drunk Bastard. The old man reached to his pocket and pulled out a metal canister, unwound the lid and poured a yellowish white liquid into a small cap sitting on the table at his front. The old man returned the canister to his jacket pocket slowly, pulled a yellow cloth from the pockets of his pants, pulled the cloth to his bulbous nose blowing furiously then scrunched up the cloth and returned it to his pocket, wheezed several times before retching a sickly cough, reached for the cloth again before shaking his head, lowering both hands, gently pressing his two index fingers against each side of the cap, pressing firm, pulling the cap to his mouth, grinning chesherly and throwing the liquid down his throat; gasping for air as his throat flamed and the oxygen extinguished from his lungs. He threw himself forward as he threw the cap back on the table slapping his right leg with an open palm and stamping his left foot swimmingly on the floor.
“Alright, me pipes are clean. Now, if it’s children ya want then it’s children ya get; for children, of dem, I have many. Now can I offer you, gentlemen, a story at all? I have in my tidings a grand one. I tink you might like it. Will serve you well it will” said The Old Drunk Bastard.
“What have you heard?” asked The Behemoth.
“Sure twere just whisperings in passing, what one man had said to anudder. Might be nutin, could be anyting. Who knows? Not I. But, tis wurt a listen it is. Excuse me a sec would ya? Seamus!! I told ya to clear those fuckin tinkers outta my house” screamed The Old Drunk Bastard jumping from his seat and waving his cane around stumbling over to where a group of four men lay on the floor passing an opium pipe and listening to the echoes of stories being told around the room. The old man kicked them all with his plastic shoe, stubbing his toe in the process and hopping about in pain.
“Feckin gobshites. You don’t pay, you don’t play. Now, fuck off and don’t come back without a feckin child, and not this adolescent shite, a feckin baby. You bring me an infant and I’ll consider settlin your debt. But you even tink about fuckin me widout so much as a feckin cuddle, I’ll sell yer arses to those mean looking cunts over there” he said pointing to the five White Hearts standing behind Marcos, The Behemoth and The War General.
The old man took the canister from his pocket and held it to his mouth, spluttering liquid all over his mangy beard as he drank heartedly.
“Come ere. Come on. Over ere. Move yer gargantuan arses. Let’s take a wee look at da tings I got” said The Old Drunk Bastard waving his arm and calling over the three men to the far side of the room where guarding a tiny entrance protected by a rusted chain, there stood three towering triplets.
“Dere brothers ya know. From da Baltics. Mad as feckin hell dey are, but fuckin loyal. Dey want notin more dan ta watch a door. Give em a door to watch, dey watch it. It’s fuckin grand. I like yours dough. I’m sucker for irony. Now, bow your heads here gentlemen. Not for religious reasons. We drink ta dem. It’s just a low roof is all” he said ushering the men past the giant triplets and into the store.
The men entered and inside the room were several cribs, each nursing several young infants, some sleeping on their backs with their legs flush like a frog, others swinging their heads to the left and right trying to see past the old lady who whispered quietly into their waking ears.
In the back of the room was a caged cell where inside slept four young children, maybe five or six years old, one could never really know in this age. They lay together on a mattress on the floor stretched across one another in laxed slumber.
On the far end of the room was an iron door with a sliding panel. The door was bolted shut.
“Business gentlemen. Take a seat. Now, I know what I ave for you. But what surprise ya got for me?” The Old Drunk Bastard asked rubbing his fingers insidiously through his thick beard.
The Behemoth took from a pouch on his belt a piece of cloth which he opened on the table. The old man smiled.
“Ok den, what can I do for you?” he said folding the cloth over and passing it to the old lady who was still whispering to the infant children in the cots.
“We’ve had complaints. The last children…”
“No returns gentlemen. You know da rules” interrupted The Old Drunk Bastard.
“As I was saying. The last children, the naturals; they didn’t condition well and the toddlers, they’re not remembering the dream” said Marcos.
“Are ya tellin it right? Ma here, she’s old as fuck, but all she’s ever done is tell stories. Look at er. It’s not what she says; it’s how she fuckin says it” exclaimed The Old Drunk Bastard.
“Maybe it’s the dream. Maybe it’s not clear enough. Maybe it’s not written right for children” said Marcos.
‘Deres notin wrong wit da dream. It’s a damn good dream. Da best I’ve ever written. Da problem is your fuckin Teller. I told ya before. That fuckin ghoul of yers, he can’t tell an apple from a feckin orange” said The Old Drunk Bastard.
“Well what do you suggest?” asked Marcos.
“Well, what do you want me to do, sell ye me Ma? Ya here dat Ma?” said The Old Drunk Bastard.
The old lady lifted her brow but didn’t break from her gentle whispering and the infants, turning their heads to and fro, settled into their skins and closed their tender eyes, resting their little minds. The old woman kept her whisper, sneaking into the sleep of the children and caressing the fragility of their souls with her venerable kindness.
“Listen, deres notin wrong with the product I gave ya. Ya can beat a stick all day long but unless ya got ridem, ya won’t be making music. You, my friend, you gotta find yer ridem and fast, before the comin storm sweeps ya off yer feet” he said.
“What have you heard the old man?” asked Marcos.
“De sound of tunder clappin hysterically in de subconscious o men and somewhere inside dat clou
d, de place of light and sound, singin to de eyes and ears of every man, sayin ‘come ere, be entertained; bring your ma, bring your son a well, we got TV and video games, we got sunshine and Wi-Fi; all the tingy-me-bobs and doov-i-lackys one could ever want, need and waste’. Oh, sure sounds terrific, da sound a tunder. Can you ere it? I’d get yer selves ta higher ground I would before da shite is washed from yer arses” said The Old Drunk Bastard.
“What do you have behind the door?” Marcos asked pointing to the far end of the room.
“Oh dat, dats nuthin,” said The Old Drunk Bastard hurriedly.
“Now what about poems, will ya be needin anymore. I’ve got new poems for marchin, I got a great one for bein alone, ya know, fendin off da fright. What is it, somethin like ‘when I am alone ta da ta da and return ta bein at day’ somethin like dat. Anyway, and I got some for yer lovin, some really great ones and I got some for focus, ya know stop dose nasty emotions distractin yer kids. Whatta ya tink?” asked The Old Drunk Bastard holding open a book to the three men.
“We’ll take two infants and the four toddlers there in the cage,” said The Behemoth cutting the two men off.
“What did you mean when you said, fast?” asked Marcos, his eyes cutting through the drunken canter’s stare.
“Aye? Oh dat. Twas nuthin. Just da ramblins of an old drunk” he said with worry under every word.
“Let me wrap up your purchases. Did ya want ta pick out da child or any will do?” he continued.
The Behemoth stood up and walked over and studied the infants lying in the cot. The old lady kept her whispering while The Behemoth tapped on the foreheads of two babies. The Old Drunk Bastard waved his hand and a servant in a corner shadow curtseyed when made present then organised the trade.
“Will der be anyting more?” said The Old Drunk Bastard.
“Zero,” said The Behemoth holding a steadfast eye on Marcos whose own waited on the locked door in the back of the room.
The three men; followed by the old man, left the room and made their way out into the open day where the rapid change in temperature chilled the centre of their bones. The old man shuddered and complained while the three Collectivists remained at their readied state of war; alert and responsive.
“Tis a lot o movement dis morning. A lot o important and big men for a wee shop. Sumtin goin on?” asked The Old Drunk Bastard.
“We’re looking for a girl; red hair, blue eyes. She responds to Safrine. I trust you’ll inform us if anyone tries to palm her off to you” said Marcos sternly.
“Aye. Wouldn’t want to piss in me own swill I wouldn’t. Ya can be sure, if I see or hear anytin, I’ll pass on da good word, for a good price o course” said the old man with a cunning smile holding back a nervous grin.
“Sure dis will be da last for a while. I’m shuttin da shop in the morn. Had enough o da city. I’m takin Ma out ta da country. Famine’s good business, but I tell ya, tis a funny business we’re in, the swapping o wee ones. Just cause it is, it don’t make it right, ya know?” he said.
They shook hands; the old drunk sliding his hand down his thick beard in a pensive state as the three men walked off surrounded by a guard of White Hearts. He rushed back into his building with a sense of hurry at his feet, the black tarpaulin falling off its hinges, no longer hiding the old man as he rushed down the hall waving his arms and cursing loudly.
The movement in the background went unnoticed as the three men followed by a guard of White Hearts took the east road from the centre of town past the old industrial buildings where large monolithic cranes hung their heavy heads high above the flight of birds; their long mechanical tongues reaching down to a heap of twisted metal and corrupted earth below and the pistons that extruded from their belly; rusted and immotile like the teats of a dead cow; preserved in a perpetual fustian state.
In the distance, a team of White Hearts sat preparative in a semi-circle; their ears trained inwards, their bodies and eyes inflected at every angle covering the colonel at their centre. Still under heavy guard, Marcos, The Behemoth and The War General halted their path and waited in observance of the team as they strategized their entry into a building near to their position.
“It’s one of several locations we think the girl may be kept. The team will enter through the grating there; below the side entrance, and access via the ducted air systems. Once the area is contained and threat neutralised, they will signal their position with a white flag in the upper right hand window just there, and with that we will make our entrance through the front of the building. Unless of course you wanted to participate in the initial push, I just assumed that uh…” said The War General trailing off to an incomprehensible mutter.
“It’s fine. My days of crawling through open sewers are behind me” said Marcos dulling The War General’s apparent self-discomfort.
The three men stood at arm’s length watching as in the near distance the small team of White Hearts fell to their bellies and dragged themselves along the crooked road holding tight to the shadows that lined the base of the building until they reached a large metal grating that consumed part of the path. One of the men pulled a tool from his belt and commenced the undoing of screws from the grating and the removal of the object closing their accessibility. The three men slid into the hole like water down a drain and they were gone.
“Shouldn’t take too long. We assess a low to medium threat level in this region; completely containable” said The War General in confident song.
He was right. In less than a minute, in the top right hand window a white flag appeared; the signal of pacification. Under a guard of White Hearts, the three men approached the front of the building and the smallest of the three; The War General threw his weight on his back foot and propelled forward, breaking the door open.
The three men entered the lobby where; next to the reception, five men sat whimpering; bound and gagged on the floor. Marcos looked around the room. Whoever these Famined were, they were not spending their days picking sores and begging for weather forecasts. There was something far more cunning and active happening within these walls and as he gazed out the newly broken window flooding light into the room; staring at the industrial might all about, he realised that this may not be an only occurrence.
“What do you know about this?” asked Marcos to The War General.
“Sir, this is a first. I never thought… We never thought that this was possible, not this close to The Nest. These crude mechanics sir, they couldn’t put them together, they’re just building blocks. Sir, I stand by the Intel we have, this is a low threat, no reason for concern; obviously a new famine, one that keeps the hands busy; nothing of concern sir, nothing at all” said The War General talking to none but himself as Marcos toiled through the shards of glass, springs, pulleys and metal shafts that lay strewn about on the floor.
“What are they constructing?” he asked The Behemoth.
“Could be anything; probably nothing, exactly as our general here just said. Seriously, Marcos, these Famined can hardly string together a complete sentence, do you really think they have the intellectual capacity to plan anything greater than their next bowel movement. Your mind is inventing tragedy old friend. That woman of yours, she is a burden, she keeps you At Distraction. You’ve not been yourself of late” said The Behemoth in a low voice to Marcos keeping The War General out of their honesty.
“Tell me you don’t see smoke. In ten years, we have suffered no greater threat than the violent scavenging of information junkies whose capacity to build only drew upon on their noxious hunger wanting more and more and more. And now this, this clandestine fashioning of tools, more than simple cutting and hitting weaponry, this is the account of a trade. You tell me you look at this and you don’t see smoke because I don’t see desperate addiction here, I see careful planning and that to me is proof of a fire somewhere down the line. Tell me you don’t see smoke” he screamed to The Behemoth.
“I don’t see smoke” The Behemoth replied simply.
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While the White Hearts, commanded by The War General, engaged in brutality against the five men bound and gagged on the floor, Marcos and The Behemoth exited the building and entered out into the daylight onto the street once again, being no closer to finding the girl.
Marcos looked over his shoulder but through the light of day he saw only darkness looking back at him. His nerves were shot, his blood boiled, his senses were less sharp and less defined and his face grimaced as The Behemoth took the road back to the west.
Marcos followed suit and the two men under heavy guard found a new path heading towards the outskirts of town on the north eastern road that bridged from the centre of town and would take the men far from perceived pacification to the link between zero and one; a bridge that crossed the fetid black river and fell upon the tracks the led to the old station and from there, perceived nothingness; the void, zero, fear.
Behind them, The War General and his men took to the blackening. They had in large metal tins a thick black tar that they smeared over metal finishing, removing any reflection whatsoever.
The Famined grew hungrier when they lingered upon their own reflection; this self-adulation made them unpredictable and dangerous so The Collective took to smashing all windows and blackening all surfaces that provided a point of admiration; a link to distraction and a fountain for The Famine.
The Collective administered the supply of endorphin and serotonin to The City’s Famined ensuring the levels were controlled and containable. Thus they had to remove anything that could heighten their mood or stimulate the pith of their Famine; that being, anything that could reflect their image, any items of outlandish colour which tweaked their subconscious emotive irrationalities and repressed memories, and print images from the post information age which made their way perpetually over the cobblestone bridge and into The City; smuggled in and traded in the underbelly markets, working outside the influence of The Collective heart and far from the grasp of its fist.
The War General and his men tore up every board looking for objects of distraction and when they found nothing of value, they took to torturing the men bound on the floor, beating them into submission; like disobedient dogs of an old age.
Marcos and The Behemoth maintained their focus as they walked along the line of industrial buildings. On the path in front, the ground became less fixed with loose gravel swimming under their feet and its sound abating their secrecy.
The road was littered with burnt out wrecks; piles of metal twisted upon itself, wrapped over and over until the beginning and the end met somewhere in the middle.
Marcos’ mind felt something like this.
He tried to focus on the path ahead of him but his concentration was slipped by the sound of The Behemoth’s boots crunching the loose gravel and as he started to consciously drift, his eyes fell on the mangled metal and they too stole his immediacy.
Before long he was back behind the wheel of his baby and beside him, The Woman screaming in joy to the heavens as the wind rushed through her lush black and lilac hair, taking with it the flower that dressed behind her ear; high up into the air, back over the top of the car and up along the winding mountain road.
She tried to reach for it with her free hand but the lift in the flower was too great and Marcos watched through his smiling eyes in the rear mirror as it took flight, dancing upon channels of warm and cold air, fluttering up to the height of the sun with the brilliance of the day magnified behind the colourful shape, creating a heavenly glow as it poised to and fro in the warm coastal air.
The road was thin and winding; the massive cliffs looking out over an endless horizon where the light blue sky met the deep blue ocean with pools of bright green luminescence spotted throughout the irenic sea.
The sound of the roaring engine thrilled him as he accelerated hard out of every corner, racing through the gears; over four hundred horsepower screaming to the heavens as The Woman beside him gripped one hand desperately to his right leg and the other still waving in the air for the travelling flower.
As the car weaved around every bend, he gazed quickly to the rear mirror, catching his own reflection. He was young and handsome, his face striking. White teeth, sun soaked complexion, piercing blue eyes, trimmed beard that curved to his features highlighting his masculine beauty, a smile that could close any deal and a stylish new haircut.
He looked back at the winding road and fixated on the tight curves; so like a woman’s body he thought, touching the pedals delicately, hugging the contours of the road, slowing for every bend and driving hard and deep into every straight.
The Woman to his side screamed in fear and delight as the roar of the engine deafened her ears and the power etched at her feet, vibrating her entire body. His cell rang and colours lit the dash. His eyes fell on it for a moment; work. He smiled and accelerated more, pushing the car further into the warm air.
The phone rang again.
The woman looked nervously at Marcos who was trapped in focus, his eyes barbarous and his veins pulsating. The phone continued to ring. He looked down to the cell that sat vibrating in the centre console. He leaned his right hand to follow his eye to silence the sound.
When he lifted his eye to the road, the road was gone.
The Woman beside him gripped his leg profusely and her right arm hung behind her head as her eyes jumped out of fright and her hair swished about in the mix of breeze and headlong descent as the car careened over the edge of the mountain; the sun reflecting off the ocean, onto his bowing bonnet and into his eyes filling him with warmth and eroding the fear from this mount of inevitability; the suddenness of death of whose embrace he found himself diving headstrong into.
As the subtle wash of wind wisped through his ears like a kettle coming to a boil, tranquillity attended his reign.
He sank into whatever was to come, the gentle blue flooding his eyes, the touch of The Woman’s hand on his leg, the fancy of momentary flight, the relief of leaving and no longer having to play this role, to wear this mask, to bed with this burden.
“I love you,” she said, as for the moment he felt completely alone.
A black hole descended upon their sight as dark red meet with dark blue, the two colours colliding to bring their sight, closer to black, closer to zero. Marcos touched The Woman’s hand with his own in a last grace and let his final breath fall upon the shrinking dash, following it into a cold and grey August morning.
At the end of his breath came calm, lucidity; he exhaled deeply; the charred air on this cold grey August morning and wiped the sweat that had formed on his brow, still at the heel of The Behemoth; his eyes drawn on the metallic monstrosities with his concentration morphing in and out of realism. He focused on the light that drank of his sight and less of The Famine that crept upon in his mind.
As they neared the end of the road, the carnage about them seemed to escalate. There was a haunting silence that echoed one’s breath loud and pervasively. Marcos focused on slowing his rapidly beating heart pulling long controlled breaths until both his body and mind found their centre.
They came to the foot of a long bridge that stepped up into the sky and carried out over a black raging torrent. The men neared the river and Marcos took a long stick from the ground and lowered it to the moving water. The stick fell in to the blackness as the violent currents ripped it from his unprepared hands.
“Is it always like this?” Marcos asked The Behemoth.
“I’ve never seen it in any other state. I respect its ferocity” replied the Behemoth.
“Let’s cross,” said Marcos focused yet impatient.
The two men backed away from the river onto the gravel path and made their way along the magnificent cobblestone bridge; their feet never holding flat; struggling to the maintain the slippery surface. The thin leather consoling their feet was easy to bend and contort to the uneven surface making coming unstuck a less probable result but still, the hands and eyes in their toes saw and felt their way over the long sky road.
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They couldn’t see the end in their sight; the horizon still dangling on massive wires that fed to gargantuan poles that shot from the centre of the earth, piercing through the soft white cirrus and onwards to where not even birds knew how to fly.
The men walked; still guarded, and they kept their sight firm and ready. As they neared the centre of the bridge they passed a pile of bodies burned and apparently ravaged; lying across the centre of the road. Pieces of them were missing, namely their faces; probably eaten and the smell from their scorched skin hung in the air making the men gag somewhat; except for The Behemoth who lowered to his knees and rested his hands on one of the corpses.
“Still very warm. They were left, no more than an hour ago. It could be a big pack, maybe fifteen to twenty; could be more. It’s not safe for us to go any further” said The Behemoth his hand still pressed against the charred open chest.
Marcos looked around. He could see nothing, but it was exactly that nothing which caused him uncertainty and his stomach twisted and turned; telling him to leave.
“No, we continue. I need to see for myself. If we are to pursue new grazing, then we need to cross this frontier” he said.
The men continued along the road keeping their eyes tuned to the horizon for any false shape at all; any shifting shadow that could alert them to trouble. Along the rest of the bridge, there was nothing more than the sight they had just passed lingering in the back of their thoughts.
“Why are they coming so close now?” asked Marcos.
“The same thing that’s drawing us out is drawing them in. There’s your fire old friend” he said.
“The Old Drunk Bastard, he knows more than his wits would let us have,” said Marcos running over the old man’s words in his head.
There was a likeness in the old man’s ramblings which struck a chord in Marcos; a string vibrating somewhere at his quantum centre, to a different tune. Maybe it was always singing but for the first time in a long time, he was starting to listen.
The men, surrounded by a guard of White Hearts, left the bridge and surveyed the surroundings. There was an open field of which nurtured black and repugnant earth. A horrid stench sat just under their noses and as they kicked the dirt from under their feet, the horrible smell worsened.
“Do not stray from the tracks. We get no closer to the madness than we need to” said The Behemoth.
The men continued onwards more alert than before, The White Hearts making a semi-circle around the backs of the two men, facing out into the distance, holding their cruel instruments sharply and one of the men; inside the circle; walking too in back step, his arms retracting a projectile in a small sling, moving left and right across the horizon, his sight acute, the tension in his fingers; primed.
It wasn’t long before, in the distance, they saw a blackened shadow develop from a microscopic dot to a colossal structure that grew out from the tracks and seemingly out of nowhere.
The station had a large shell shaped roof that pointed in different directions out into the sky. The colours were magnificent; bright reds, luscious greens and vivacious yellows, and the station itself, its walls were the colour of calm, tranquillity and gradual flow; a beautiful light blue that set the men’s minds at ease as they neared its position; still alert but becoming more at ease.
“Focus White Hearts. Be at war!” yelled The Behemoth sounding rattled.
The men continued; their senses under fight; an unsettling calm washing over them. Their training prepared them only for a physical threat. In the blandness of The Nest and under the blanket of every cold grey August morning, they had never imagined this.
As they came to the entrance of the station, one of The White Hearts collapsed to the black soil, his hands pressed against his temple, squeezing hard. His focus shuddered inside his mind’s eye; the bright colours perforating through the cold plain rationale that conditioned his state of one. His heart beat faster and his head flushed with warmth as his mind flooded with imagery; thoughts he couldn’t control, lashing at his sense of reason.
His head thumped. It felt like his brain was about to explode. He pressed his fingers deeper to his temple, but nothing was doing. His breath was both shallow and heavy. He sucked deep on the warm air, but his stomach felt in a state of constant emptiness while his chest expanded profusely, too much and never enough on the same side of the coin.
His fingertips started to tingle and his only response was to press harder until the red at his fingers and the white of his temple spoke of the stress on his mind that cast him into unconsciousness for a moment.
He fell back onto the dirt; his tongue sliding down the back of his throat as his body thrashed about on the filthy soil kicking black residue into the still air. His convulsions increased as his eyes rolled up and to the left; his limbs and the back of his head pounding in and out of the dirt.
The other men maintained their directive stare as they causally stepped over his body, willing; through mathematical logic, the return of simple white on black, dividing, subtracting and adding colours to return everything to one; back to white; adding blue to yellow, subtracting brown, dividing by green, equalling white; all things when they are everything, are one; and all things return to zero. This logic kept the men focused and their conscious minds at a state of readiness, at a state of one.
The four remaining White Hearts rushed through the entrance of the station and held a position inside, calling the two men through. Marcos and The Behemoth entered slowly and as they did, a sound of light whimpering called them to attention.
The White Hearts stood armed and primed where; sitting on a wooden bench near the edge of the platform, hunched over something small and wounded, the shape of a woman whimpered, louder now that the men had entered the station. The men engaged slowly, taking caution in every step, looking in every direction, analysing the threat and marginalising any negative outcome.
The platform was long. From where they stood at the foot of the entrance, it stretched to the west for over a hundred meters. What caught Marcos was how clean it was. The floors were sparkling white; patterned and cool tiles that caught not a speck of dirt. Even the filth from their boots that they carried with would fall upon the tiles and be picked up by the wind; taken off out over the tracks and back out into the black field where it settled under the contrast of the bright colours of the station’s shell roof.
The walls around them were littered with art and poetry; phrases in a scribe that none of them could read but their affectation had Marcos feeling lighter in his reason and thinking aside of the threat and instead, what would be at affect; of The Woman and how it pained to have her close and yet, how the thought of her wounded and alone almost brought him to tear.
There was an object in the distance. Marcos couldn’t make out what it was exactly, but its perplexing shape brought him closer to distraction. He fought hard to maintain his state of one; thinking hard of the orange hue of the Forever New Dawn, his rationale returning, his state of focus more refined.
They edged closer to the whimpering woman with the White Hearts moving like human crabs over the smooth tiles; their fingers gripping their weapons, their teeth clenched and the dryness of their unflinching, unblinking eyes lending them to bother.
They passed a grand piano that sat under a sign on the wall that said, “Your station, your art, your voice, your story to tell”.
It was an invitation of sorts.
Marcos ran his fingers lightly across the keys. The whites were so white and the blacks had not a finger print on them to muster their shade. It was so pretty that he didn’t think as he pressed down on a key and the sound jumped into the air, startling the men into a panicked readiness.
The Behemoth looked at Marcos angrily, pulling his finger to his lips to hush any cerebral disobedience. The woman to their front was still whimpering and hunched over something that lay confined under a brown blanket. As the men approached they could see that her eyes were flooded, tears running down her cheek
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Marcos and The Behemoth approached cautiously and slowly moved to the front of the woman, keeping their distance. The Behemoth held his weapon high ready to strike down on this unpredictable Famined beast should it attack or move in any manner. The woman’s arms were hidden under the blanket and her face too was looking at whatever was concealed inside.
The Behemoth looked at one of the White Hearts carrying a long machete and nodded his head towards the whimpering woman. The White Heart reached his cruel instrument close to the woman’s leg catching the brown blanket on the blade’s tip and swung his arm back tearing the blanket from her body.
“It’s killing an infant,” screamed The Behemoth, swinging his arm high and coming down viscously to strike the woman.
Marcos ripped at his arm, pulling it up and then back, sending The Behemoth crashing over himself with the force of his swing. He jumped to his feet and again moved to strike but Marcos struck him in the chest and he tumbled over onto the ground.
“What are you doing?” screamed The Behemoth, the pain from the blows carolling through his broken speech.
“Look,” said Marcos. “She’s not killing it. She’s feeding it. She’s feeding the infant” he said watching in awe as the child suckled at the woman’s breast while she wept benevolently in a moment of apparent love that shared between the woman and her child; her actual child.
The men stood still, shocked, in wonder. The Behemoth struck The Famined woman’s head with his cruel instrument sending her lifeless body crashing to the ground. The child fell with her mother; secured in her arms, still attached to her breast.
“Sequester the infant” ordered The Behemoth to a White Heart.
The soldier took the baby from the frozen clutches of its dead mother and ran out of the station back into the black field covered by another White Heart tracing their path back along from whence they came.
“What did you do?” screamed Marcos.
“She was killing it, look,” he said pointing to her exposed body.
“There’s no milk. She wasn’t lactating. The infant would have died within a day. We saved its life” he said.
Marcos looked close at the dead woman’s breasts and squeezed with his right hand, and he was right, her nipples were cut and bruised from the constant suckling, but they were dry.
“We need to go now. It’s a trap” screamed The Behemoth pointing to the west where now shadows danced upon the play of white as in the distance, a pack of wild humans scurried along the black dirt towards the pristine cool tiles where the men stood inanimate; almost unbelieving.
Gathering their focus, the men turned.
“Run!” screamed Marcos.
A White Heart fired off scores of projectiles in a matter of seconds; his hands moving like a blur as he emptied his pockets of sharp metallic balls and fragmented shards of glass bound in barb wire; aiming his weapon, pulling hard on the elastic and releasing at every target, missing none. The projectiles flew through the air and struck the coming shadows sending them scattering back into the distance.
The men ran, passing the White Heart who lay emotionally crippled with his head buried in the dirt. As they ran back along the track with the infant baby crying for its dead mother, their hearts flushed adrenaline to their legs willing them step after step, mound after mound, past the threat of shadows, onto the cobblestone bridge, past the line of charred bodies, back onto the loose gravel, past the array of wreckage, down to the centre of town until finally they collapsed in exhaustion near the great wall of The Nest, just beyond the centre square. As the baby cried, the men heaved over themselves sucking in air as hundreds of White Hearts rushed from the surrounding streets to encircle them; readied and alert.
“Take the infant to The Scientist,” said The Behemoth.
“What just happened?” asked Marcos, his question filled by silence.
The men stayed not long catching their breaths before they returned their focus and entered the complex, surrounded by hundreds of other White Hearts and about them, the pacified Famined, circling around the men, shuffled about and arguing amongst one another for their share of information. The sense of harrowing incident stung Marcos’ senses.