Chapter 19
Leaving Blackbrick
Dastou gave Saan and Nes some quick instructions after they all stepped out of the Diplomatic Center, including an order for them to keep an eye on the front and back exit points to make sure no one followed. While those two stayed behind, Dastou led Trenna around the building and headed directly east. The sun was up and behind him, casting his shadow forward to where he was stepping in this mid-afternoon light. It was still relatively quiet, the miasma of the earlier tragedy smothering the city. The echoes of whatever construction and cleanup the leftover worker bees were doing spread much further than it would have if Blackbrick’s busy downtown area, the Loudani District, wasn’t choked into this sad silence.
The street Dastou walked down was all two to three story structures, with curtains drawn almost everywhere. Apartment buildings, sometimes with shops of one kind or another in a corner at street level, took up a lot of the room. Manufacturing houses were sprinkled around here and there – places for sewing, metalwork, and more. He never understood why cities were made up like this, with bits and pieces of unnecessary charm. It was a pretense of freedom, of things being built up as needs changed. The truth was that cities were built in ostensibly pre-planned chunks, everything in some district or another coming together like an uncomplicated puzzle.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Trenna a block away from the embassy. “You look confused.”
“I’m wondering why cities are built to look like they grew naturally,” he admitted as he glanced at her, and she seemed about ready to ask a follow up question, then didn’t say anything. It was hard to respond to his occasional random thoughts and he knew it, so he went on of his own accord. “Do you know how the area for this city was discovered, how Saints knew about it long before it came together?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
The pair stopped at a crosswalk. There were no vehicles coming due to the emergency shut-down of duties, but Dastou needed a moment to rest. He was as low on energy as he could ever remember being.
“Sometimes Saints could see an area as something that would be used by the Social Cypher later on,” Dastou began before he continued walking slowly eastward. “A glimpse of what was to come, found by accident within the Null Bank during meditation. You know what the Null Bank is?”
“Um, kind of. I’ve read a few stories that mention it, talking about how Saints can go into the Null Bank during deep sleep and learn anything they want.”
“Huh,” Dastou murmured. “Well, that’s close enough for what I have to tell you. Anyway, a little over two-hundred years ago, Saint Avrazi Keymeign and her husband, Saint Breddis Gosch crossed the ocean from the continent of Davranis and arrived in this part of the world barely alive after the trip was derailed again and again by storms. They hadn’t eaten in at least a couple days by the time they reached land. It was their second honeymoon.”
Dastou could hear his words very mildly echoed, bouncing back at him from the walls on the other side of the street as teensy, undecipherable mutters. Peering naturally at the direction of the sound, he saw someone pull their curtains closed fast. Earlier, he wanted the people that were hurt by the bombing to see his people’s faces, a way to let them know that help was here and it had strange eyes. The closing curtain felt symbolic, a poetic way of saying “your efforts here were wasted, and it would have been smarter to leave immediately.”
“Their... second honeymoon?” Trenna asked, bewildered, and unknowingly cut off a self-loathing internal monologue building up inside the Saint. “And they sailed alone across an ocean with no idea what they’d run into?”
“Yeah, we’re an irrational bunch,” he said, ignoring his previous thought. “After they recovered from the long sea voyage, they went on to study the area. Keymeign studied the wildlife for a book she titled Anchor River of the West, Fauna. Gosch was doing a companion volume about the plant life in the area. Together, they also made maps. The strange thing is that on those maps was a bordered line, and it didn’t mean anything to any other Saints that saw the maps, not for a while.”
The pair reached another sidewalk and Dastou took a few seconds to rest before moving on. When he was still, the Saint realized how much he’d been running on adrenaline the last couple of hours. Being trapped by Tryst was the last time he was going to feel truly in danger anytime soon, he figured, and his body was draining itself of instinctive, protective energy. Every second that went by, he wanted to collapse onto the ground more and more. Standing at this intersection, he actually started to feel dizzy, a light-headedness coming over him in short but powerful intermittent waves. He took a few breaths, focused until his eyes saw clearly. They were almost there, he thought, and took the first step to cross the street.
“Then,” the Saint continued as he led the way, “about one-hundred-and-twenty years ago there was a mass exodus of hypnotized people from the city-states of Davranis.”
“The people that first came to populate this continent,” Trenna guessed.
“Exactly. Those people first organized a coastal town on Davranis’ shore under suggestion. That small town was where the Cypher made those people build a number of structures, manufacturing houses and more, all meant to support the creation of a fleet of ships capable of safely traversing the ocean. In three years, the boats were ready, and the town was abandoned from one day to the next as people took to the ocean and came to this continent, to Horebaxi.”
They were at another intersection, and this time Dastou didn’t plan to go on. Instead he surveyed north, along the trolley line, and didn’t see anyone coming. He wanted to sit down, plop his rear on some sidewalk, but was afraid of how much help he’d need to get back up; it was easier to stand and pretend that he wasn’t out of breath just from walking at a casual pace and talking at the same time.
“They’re a little late, but it’s fine,” he said after a few seconds of staring up the street.
“Who’s late?” Trenna asked.
“You’ll see in a bit,” Dastou said on an exhausted exhale. “Hmm, where was I? Right, the people of the exodus left their new town on their new boats. That group arrived perfectly intact after crossing the ocean from Davranis to Horebaxi. The first thing they were made to do was build another coastal town for themselves. After a few years of thriving there, they moved westward with half the population and began to build again. This time, they were putting together the skeletal beginnings of Blackbrick. When a few Saints crossed the ocean together to find out what was going on here, they they brought a copy of the long-dead Saint Keymeign’s book, which had the map with those dotted lines on it. Blackbrick’s first districts were built to the exact edge of those lines.”
“Which means the Social Cypher knew a long time ago, maybe from the beginning, where it was going to build its big cities,” Trenna determined.
“Seems like it. That’s what I think about when I see how a city-state grows, what you noticed me doing earlier. When a population reaches a certain point, expansion happens via mass-hypnotic construction. There’s always the questions of how long ago was this planned, and what is the Cypher that it knows where it’s best to expand to.”
“There’s also the Nomad’s Blood exodus, right?” she asked. “Did people know the Tribeslands were going to be empty when they left Davranis in the other direction?”
Nomad’s Blood happened during the first generation of Saints, when Davranis Central and two other city-states were all there was and is easily the most well-known historic event the world over. It’s the kind of incident that, when brought up, could lead down a multitude of argumentative rabbit holes about whether those people were right, wrong, stupid, ingenious, desperate, or brave. In it, the first six of Dastou’s kind helped organize a mass exit from controlled territories, resulting in the establishment of the nomadic tribes of the far east continent. Thousands left, and since then, about every fifty years, another smaller group organizes and leaves, typically with the help of Saints. Hopefully they won?
??t need to do that anymore if Dastou and his people can make living in cities less politely oppressive. Thinking of it that way made him groan, though, as if he was making himself out to be the rescuer civilization needed rather than wanted. In a century, some of his faculty has told him, he either would or wouldn’t be spoken of that way, and right now it didn’t matter so much as getting ready.
“No, they didn’t have much of an idea about the place,” Dastou answered. “A couple of Saints had been to the Tribeslands and back, and they knew, from traveling along some of the coast, that the land was varied in, with large swaths of aridness. But it was accessible, so that exodus headed east because no one had ever gone west, therefore no one knew if it was more dangerous, and it was better to assume it would be.
“It took five years, I think, to build the four huge boats, and smaller ones for Sainthood members to go slightly ahead and scout the weather. As far as I know, only ten people died on the long voyage, eight of natural causes, two from suicide. They made it safely to the continent other than that, and the Tribeslands began. Who knows if the Cypher will go there later on, but for now it’s completely free, for better or worse.”
Trenna’s mild hum of agreement at the end of the story was followed by the distinctive, echoing klak-klik-klak of the trolley cutting the quiet air, echoing against buildings, and Dastou could see the rail car a few blocks north. Silhouettes revealed three people on the trolley.
Dastou touched a button on his throat-mic transceiver. “The backup is here,” he said, his throat mildly sore. “Meet us on the way.”
“Copy second,” Saan said into her mic.
“Copy third,” Nes followed up.
Since Trenna had no earpiece of her own, Dastou explained the situation. “They’ll meet us south of here, on the way out of the city-state. That trolley’s our ride.”
“Okay,” is all she said.
Dastou had been disappointed that she didn’t blurt out questions at him after the bullet smashed through a window in the embassy lobby and he seemed to have planned it, so he wasn’t shocked that she didn’t ask about somehow having a timely ride out of Blackbrick. As much as he hated being bugged about his skills or behavior, sometimes he wanted to see stunned expressions on people’s faces when he did something weird, and Trenna was disappointingly accepting of it all. The girl seemed to have an easy steel in her veins that was far more than the typical civilian, maybe more than a lot of other isolationists.
Klak-klik-klak.
Klak-klik-klak.
The trolley was almost here, a block away. It slowed as Trenna and Dastou focused on it, and the now the three young Ornadais Academy students onboard were easy to identify as they kept their heads on a swivel and scanned the area. Thanks to regular maintenance, the braking procedure of the single-car of the trolley was smooth, quiet, and half-automated, and the transport made it to a full stop directly in front of Dastou.
Two of the three young agents were people of the middle-south Tribeslands, a couple thousand kilometers south and east of where Dastou assumed Trenna was from. They were mocha-skinned and not very tall – slightly shorter than Trenna, who was already shorter than Saan. Those two were Evara Stroff and Even “Goner” Stroff, girl and boy, spotter and sniper, nineteen-year-old twins, and privates first-class. They had very dark-brown, wavy hair; Evara’s down to the middle of her back with a few tight braids on one side, and Goner’s an attractive half-mess halfway his neck. The twins had striking mid-shade gray-brown eyes with touches of amber
The third agent was Crawford Zedhani, a pale, tall, lanky twenty-one-year-old with a wild thatch of short, light-red hair. His own gray-brown eyes were tinged with mild green and yet darker than the twins’. He was also a private first-class, adept with computers and chemistry.
“You look like crap, sir,” said Goner, who was holding his sniper rifle across his lap as he sat. The boy pulled his bandanna, a green one with blue patterns, down from his mouth and nose to his neck, no longer worried about people seeing his lips move.
When Goner spoke, Dastou instantly recognized that lilting, musical accent that marked him as being from a certain part of Tribeslands, though the twins’ near-full year in the Academy had dulled its distinctiveness. The Saint also figured they worked on getting rid of the lilt; they were different enough as it was by being rare isolationist recruits and wouldn’t want people listening to their accent rather than their words.
At the boy’s comment, Dastou looked down at himself for maybe the ten-thousandth time since stopping Saan and Nes from killing each other. His leather jacket was gone, his white shirt and black jeans were heavily wrinkled from his time in water, and his boots were roughed up.
“Nice to know these last few hours haven’t made you more courteous,” the Saint replied after glancing up at Goner again.
“Can’t help that he’s correct,” Crawford added, as usual precise and haughty in his annunciation. “You look like you have been pushed around by a drill sergeant that’s entirely too enthusiastic.”
Dastou ignored the jab and asked, “What happened to the other cars?” He motioned toward the missing middle section and caboose that should have been trailing this engine car.
“Detached,” Crawford told him. “We didn’t need the extra room for only four more people.”
“By the way, hello, sir,” Evara said cheerily to Dastou, giving her commander a casual salute. He returned the salute with the same nonchalance. “How’s it going, Trenna?” the young spotter asked.
“I’m alright,” Trenna said to the girl she met only once earlier that afternoon and didn’t know rescued her off the street. “Really tired.”
“I’d imagine,” Evara said. “If Headmaster Dastou looks like that, you must feel like taking a hot shower and falling asleep in it.”
Trenna smiled and nodded at the comment, then looked around at the three privates. Dastou noticed her eyes focusing on the dark gray and vermilion uniforms the twins wore, and the name badges all three had. Crawford wore more casual clothes under a long white Ornadais Academy lab coat that ruffled in the wind. The crest that served as the insignia of the school and DSF was as clear on their clothes as on Nes and Saan, always placed on the shoulders of official clothing. At twenty-three Trenna was older than all of them, but the agents were trained soldiers at this point, their postures and confidence showing as much. Trenna studied them all with a hint of envy at their positions and discipline. Dastou was pleased about that; he wanted respect for his recruits, but also an additional covetous attitude, a desire to be one of them. Equally fun was when his people were hated but so talented and well-trained that no one could do anything but whisper their vitriol.
Dastou motioned for Trenna to take a seat and she walked one row past the twins, who were seated in the front two plastic seats on their side. Crawford stayed near the front control console of the mass-transit vehicle. As Trenna sat down, Goner smiled and inclined his head in greeting at her – a reminder of both how naturally pretty she was as much as how much of a horny teen he could be.
“Let’s go, Crawford,” Dastou said, “keep us south, no turns. Don’t pick up too much speed, though, we’re not stopping for the others.”
Crawford nodded, then pushed up on the trolley’s throttle bar. They took off slowly, and were going about twenty-five kilometers-per-hour when Nes appeared from an alleyway four blocks down from where the Saint was picked up. He was sprinting toward the street and jumped onto the vehicle as it passed by. He grabbed an overhead handhold when his feet touched the trolley and kept his balance perfectly. Trenna had a stunned grin on her face as Nes greeted the Stroffs with soft salutes.
“We are on the run from the law now,” Nes said to the impressed Trenna, breathing fast. “Running full-speed onto a getaway vehicle is something we might have to get good at.”
One block after they picked up Nes, Crawford groaned in confusion, then exclaimed in shock: “What!?”
A thump on the roof of the trolley car surpr
ised everyone. They all looked up, but no one was overly worried except Trenna. In a moment, Saan’s upside-down face appeared on the side of the trolley, hanging down from the roof.
“Hmph,” Saan grunted. She lifted her head out of sight, grabbed the edge of the roof with both hands, and flipped herself effortlessly inside, landing flat-footed next to Dastou.
“Wow,” Trenna whispered.
“Such an athlete,” Evara joked.
“More like showoff,” Nes said. “I could have done that if I felt like it.”
“My alley was blocked by worker bees getting something from a supply cache,” Saan explained. “The building I jumped from was two stories. An easy feat.”
“You couldn’t have just run down a different alley? Showoff.” Nes shook his head in reproach.
“Nes, take the controls and give us some speed,” Dastou said, interrupting the banter. “An unsafe amount if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, boss, I never mind an unsafe amount of most things.”
Nes took Crawford’s place at the controls as the latter agent moved to the passenger area. The twins changed position and sat on the backs of their seats, holding poles for balance, expecting a quick debrief. Dastou’s legs nearly gave out now that he knew he had some backup, some safety. He closed his eyes briefly, and realized that he truly was done. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything more today, not for a while. He opened his eyes and privately gathered his strength so he wouldn’t fall on his face in front of so many subordinates. Thankfully, a conversation had begun that would let him pretend to be stronger than he was for a minute.
“Goner, huh?” Nes asked without looking back, keeping his focus on the road ahead.
Even “Goner” Stroff shrugged, a smirk on his young face. His sister Evara had the exact same self-assured look. The girl’s long hair moved with the wind in the open trolley, her brother’s curls far shorter but still swaying. Dastou didn’t want to make rules on hairstyles stricter, but did take note that this was like getting together with a bunch of random hooligans except for the uniforms and badges.
“You said you wanted something special in case you needed a way out,” Goner said as he stuffed his rifle into his case. “Done.”
“So that was all planned?” Trenna asked.
“Not entirely,” Evara answered. “It was just one of three contingencies. And pretty much the last one we expected to have to implement.”
“It worked perfectly,” Saan complimented in a teacher’s tone. “A good bluff, relying on Tryst’s own personality to succeed.”
“I read Dastou’s lips through my scope on a mirrored surface,” Goner revealed. “He said there were a ‘handful’ of snipers. That’s close since we’re worth at least three.” He tilted his head to his sister on the last remark.
The twins smiled more openly at the comment. It was true, those two were amazing together. Evara was always Goner’s partner, their nineteen years together as family giving them a bond that no other sniper and spotter team could match. It was too bad Goner could be an impressively lazy bastard at times and Evara was always willing to help him achieve new heights in that regard. Dastou liked them both, and they were fun to have around. Crawford Zedhani, however, was known for being uptight at the best of times.
“What if it didn’t work?” Crawford said, somehow timing his attitude with Dastou’s thoughts. “How would we explain the situation to the general, that the best we could come up with was a phone call?”
“You think too much,” Evara said dismissively.
“No joke,” Goner added. “We got them out, that’s what counts.”
After all that, Dastou felt ready to walk the few steps he needed to, and tried out his legs. Oh, by the black, it hurt to move at all at this point. He actually wobbled a bit, but screw it, he needed to sit. The awkward silence that fell on the trolley meant that he was either incredibly commanding of attention by moving around a little, or he looked like absolute shit, as Goner suggested earlier, and his steps were nowhere near as stable as he thought they were. Past the first set of seats, his eyes wandered down and he felt his brain collapsing into sleep faster than he could stop it, yet he managed to keep himself upright and awake as the floor seemed to move toward and away. He felt a sudden pressure at his right side, pushing up on his elbow and underarm, and while it couldn’t have been too strong it was like that side of his body was shot out of a gun as much as he wanted to fall the other way. He glanced in that direction and saw Saan-Hu, much taller than she should be, and much closer than he expected.
“Sir!” she called to him, a thick worry pouring from her. “Are you alright? You nearly fell.”
“Did I?” Dastou said, his voice hollow in his own ears. “I honestly thought I was pulling off a fairly graceful walk.”
“Nope,” Goner said. “Not the smallest amount of grace.”
“Damn. Ugh, fine, if I’m already an embarrassing mess, please help me to a seat.”
Evara was close to him and stood up to get his left side. Her and Saan practically carried him to the third row of seats, and he plopped down, which was amazing! Getting off his feet that moment easily ranked in the top five greatest events of his life. He actually began to laugh, unable to respond to this insane happiness that had covered him like a good blanket on a winter morning, all from letting his body rest for a bare second. He didn’t stop laughing for several breaths, his eyes tearing up from the joy of his rear end being in this vaguely-cushioned trolley seat.
“Uh, are you gonna be okay?” Nes asked from seemingly a kilometer away. When Dastou looked, the corporal was still near the controls, his face scrunched in an expression of high-end worry that was rare for him to express openly.
“Yeah,” Dastou answered, his voice low. “You bet. I’m going to be great.” He took a long, deep, cleansing breath before saying more. “Get us out of the city, past the wheat fields and farms, to the warehouse depot at the end of this trolley line. Nes and Crawford, check the throat mics and rearrange the frequencies to new ones; the Caravan has our current channels listed and we need to not be overheard, obviously. We’ll debrief later. I’m going to nap now.”
Saying that much took effort, and as soon as he was done, Dastou lay his head on the back of the seat, faced away from the western-sinking sun, closed his eyes, and was almost instantly asleep.
~~~~