Saffron woke up in a medical chair with her right arm strapped down. For a long horrible moment, everything was white. And then, more horrible still, she could see everything: the tagging centre with its rows of chairs with leather restraints, the banks of tubes filled with blood in the refrigerator unit, Taggers standing under posters about “Doing your duty to the Directorate!”. Music played, some kind of recording of Woodwives chanting.
She kept her eyes half-closed as she tried to assess the situation around the pounding of her head. There were flashes of light outside, like fire. It was dark though, so she’d been out for a couple of hours at least. By the sounds of the voices, something serious was happening. She could only hope it had nothing to do with her. She needed to create some kind of misdirection.
The buzz of a tattoo needle wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.
She jerked, yanking at the straps until she wrenched the muscles in her back. Her other arm was free but her fingers worked slowly, as if they belonged to someone else. “Easy,” the Tagger said, sounding as clinical as she looked.
She wore a white lab coat instead of the usual Tagger military-hunter gear. She was stern and old enough that her hair was more white than brown. Even so, in her current condition, Saffron didn’t think she could take her. It was lowering and infuriating. “I’m just prepping the needles. And if you don’t stop squirming you’ll be stuck with an ugly tattoo. Is that what you want?”
Saffron barked out an involuntary and incredulous laugh. “Are you kidding?”
“She’s ready to be tagged, Peter,” the woman called out to a man inputting data into a tablet. He wore the usual uniform, the right arm bracer with a cut-away opening over his Directorate mark.
“We’re waiting on the blood analysis. Saffron Foxfire, age 20, Core resident.”
“I’m not sick, I’m pissed right the hell off.” She did feel queasy, no doubt from the sedative. “I don’t have numen poisoning, for Jack’s sake. Don’t you think if I did, I’d have blasted all your asses to the Badlands by now?”
“That’s not precisely how it works,” Peter sighed. “And why are you Core people always so rude? This is a simple process. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. There’s no need to make it unpleasant.”
Saffron had never wanted to stab someone in the face more in her entire life. And that was saying something.
Her daggers were in a pile on top of her satchel on the floor. She couldn’t even reach them with her foot. Peter thrust a small clay pot no bigger than a teacup in her palm. There was good dark soil inside. She stared at it blankly.
“Make it grow.”
Saffron blew the hair that had escaped one of her braids out of her face. Sweat stuck it immediately to the side of her neck. People disappeared from Tagging centres. She had to get out of here. “I. am. not. a. Numina,” she said, enunciated very clearly.
“There are many ways numen presents itself.”
“How about violence?” she asked. “Because that’s the only magic I’m feeling right now.”
“Try,” he motioned to the miniature pot. She had no idea what kind of seed was buried inside. It was a shame to waste it. All the same, she threw it at his head.
He ducked and it sailed over his shoulder. The explosion that rocked the building and sent the lights flickering was clearly due to something else. The sound of gunfire crept closer, like a snarling dog making eye contact. “Full blown riot,” of the Taggers shouted. “Follow procedure.”
Procedure, apparently, was to leave her behind when something crashed through the window. A bottle of liquor stuffed with a lit rag landed on the floor. Smoke billowed, acrid and eye-searing.
As a distraction, you couldn’t ask for much better than a riot.
Saffron was finally able to undo her restraints and grab her pack and her knives. Taggers stood shoulder to shoulder at the broken window, Tasers and tranquilizer guns at the ready. Getting by them would be tricky, if not impossible. Others fussed around the commscreens and the refrigerator. At the end of the row of chairs was a dark stairwell. She had no idea where it led but it was still her best option.
She took the steps two at a time while the riot pressed at the wall, triumph, discordant, and feral. The second floor was one long room full of more equipment, researchers in lab coats, and people restrained to beds. One had part of a leaf mask sewed to his face. His skin was a sickly green, like mould on a tree. Someone moaned under a framed poster of Cartimandua promising to protect the City.
The bank of plants in the centre of the room partially shielded Saffron as she stood momentarily frozen, bile burning in her throat. This would be her, if they ever found the leaf mask. She’d be another test subject, a specimen to be examined and experimented on. A woman with leaves growing out of her mouth choked on a cry, noticing Saffron.
There was nothing she could do to help them. If she didn’t get out of here, she’d be strapped in a chair again. She dove out onto the fire escape and she was on the ground of the alley within moments. A shadow lurched out of the way, bottles clinking. Saffron caught the glint of a familiar katana. “Killian!” She nodded to the bottles at his feet, the rags in his hand. “You threw the cocktail.”
He hadn’t barged in on some suicide mission to save her. He was too smart for that. Instead he’d given her exactly what she needed: a distraction.
“You are brilliant,” she said. “Now hand me one of those because I owe those tagging bastards.” She lit the ends and tossed two more into the side window, aiming for the chairs and the wall of blood. If the people trapped upstairs were lucky, the fire would burn them up like kindling.