Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (39 page)

“Go,” he said hoarsely. “Get to a part of the city where the fires do not burn. Do not attempt to hide until you reach a quiet sector. If you do, they will find you.”

They got up, more from terror of disobedience than happiness at deliverance, and fled from his presence. 301 shook his head and looked down where the body of the sergeant lay. During the entire course of the attack he had kept his feet planted and had barely moved an inch.

I just killed an entire detachment of the Great Army
, he thought.
Now, I am truly a traitor
. But he didn’t care as much as he had once thought he would.
Traitor
no longer carried the same weight in his mind. He had betrayed the World System in his heart long ago. It had just taken a bit longer for the rest of him to catch up.

No, what he feared now was something different. Something he had never had reason to fear before:

Cowardice
.

Guilt and revulsion welled up within him. How could he even think of fleeing to the Wilderness now that Grace had been recaptured? All the pains and tortures she would likely face...how could he condemn her to face them alone? He had to fight for her, even if it seemed he couldn’t possibly win. It’s what she would have done for him.

He spared one last, longing glance to the north—and the starry Wilderness that lay beyond—and then turned to go back the way he had come. But before he had even taken his first step, he froze. A figure stood at the mouth of the alley, hooded and robed. Darkness shrouded what might otherwise have been visible of his face, but 301 could tell by the faint light of the moon that this was a warrior. Likely, that meant a rebel.

Calumnior
still thrummed in his hand, and his grip tightened. Did the figure intend to attack? Perhaps the sight of so many bodies gave him pause.

The robed figure suddenly sidestepped around a building on the connected street, passing out of his vision.

301 felt his heart thump. What was that about? He made his way cautiously to the intersection where the figure had stood, reflexes primed for an ambush, and peeked around the corner. The robed figure had already traveled some twenty yards, but was making no attempt to hide. In fact, he stopped and looked back at 301 before turning casually down another street.

He wants me to follow him
, 301 realized.
But to where, and why
?

Time was short, but he needed allies. And if this man
was
a rebel, could he be leading him to more of them? Perhaps he could enlist their help in getting Grace free of the World System.

He let out an exasperated sigh, and followed the figure through the eerie darkness of the city.

32

T
HE FIGURE LED HIM
away from the orange glow of the purging fires into a more tranquil part of the city, and he was so distracted by the disparity that he almost failed to notice where he was. About half an hour into the chase, he emerged into a part of Alexandria that he knew better than any other.

The skyline, the melancholy quiet, even the smell of the area was familiar—of all the places he could have ended up, this destination could be no accident. He looked up and down the road and saw no sign of the robed figure he had been following. No, not an accident at all.

301 felt an unpleasant nostalgia as he gazed up at the simple five-story building wedged between its two taller neighbors, unsurprised with how little it had changed. But there was something…different. Though it had never been a place where happiness dwelt in much abundance, a deep silence rested on the entire block that gave 301 chills. It was as though he had emerged into an atmosphere of death—not the fiery death he had left several blocks behind, but a cold death. A lonely death. The stagnation of it tainted the very air he was breathing.

The Capital Orphanage. The nightmare of his childhood.

He would find no children within, not now. The orphanage had been shut down some months ago, its children scattered among several other facilities as the matron grew too sick to run it any longer. Someone else might have stepped in and taken over, perhaps, but it was well-known what the Capital Orphanage was. Matron Young and her loyal Discipliner sold their souls to the cause of destroying children and raising up soldiers in their place—a task few could stomach.

No doubt the robed figure had led him here for some purpose, but 301 could not imagine what it could be. McCall had mentioned Matron Young was dying, and had requested to see him, so perhaps the figure was not a rebel at all. Perhaps it was
him
.

301 shook off the impulse to flee on the spot. There was no longer any reason to fear that man. As if to prove it to himself, he detached himself from the place where he stood and approached the orphanage. He did so with moderate trepidation, wanting answers but at the same time afraid of what he might find.

He ascended the five stone stairs to the door and hesitated briefly before finding the courage to knock. Silence reigned in his ears for a long while, until at last the door opened just wide enough for a woman’s voice to say, “The orphanage is closed. If you want to pay your respects you can come back after the violence has ended.”

“Is the matron dead, then?”

“She was not to have survived the night,” the woman replied. “As the sun rises I expect she will fade. Are you one of her children?”

“No,” he said acidly. Not hers.
Never
hers. “But I was raised here, and she sent for me.”

“301?” she asked, opening the door a little wider. “Specter Captain 301-14-A?”

His eyes narrowed, “You know me?”

“No,” she answered. “But as you say, you are expected.” The door opened wide, and 301 caught his first glimpse of her in the pale morning light. She was pretty if not quite beautiful, at least ten years his senior with flowing dark hair that framed a tired face. There was resentment in her eyes as she looked upon him, though she hid it well in her voice. “Come inside, Specter Captain. There is no one here but the matron and me.”

As he stepped over the threshold he was immediately overcome with a wave of memories—not the fragmented visions of his dreams, but the clear recollections of his time growing from a boy of seven to a young man of eighteen. After his OPE he had split his time between the orphanage and the soldier training compound, yet he still considered it the only home he had ever known. His happiest childhood memories were here, though they were few—memories he shared with Liz. Suddenly he missed her deeply. So much had happened that he had barely had time to feel the stab of her betrayal. A woman he had grown up with, even thought he loved once, ready to kill him at Sullivan’s command.

But she chose not to, he remembered. That had to count for something.

“Did you grow up here as well?” 301 asked. He did not remember her, but of course that didn’t mean much. She could have passed through before his time.

“No,” she shook her head as she led the way to the building’s only elevator. “But I delivered many of the children who did.”

301 looked at her nervously. The orphanage’s elevator had seldom been used even when he lived there, and for good reason. It was an old, rickety thing that might send its occupants plummeting to their deaths without a moment’s warning. That’s when he noticed the tattoo on her arm—a designation he recognized all too well.

“You worked for Sir Wayne Collins,” he said as they stepped inside the death trap. He felt the floor creak beneath their weight, and the doors screeched eerily as they closed.

“He owned me, yes,” she replied, a bit more of her resentment shining through. She pressed the button for the fifth floor. “I split my work between the Collins household and Alexandria General Hospital. They paid
him
for my services, of course, but trained OB/GYNs are in somewhat short supply. Apparently the Systemics equations don’t account for everything the way they are supposed to. When you…” she paused and gave him a wary look. “When he died they allowed me to stay on at the hospital, and when I learned who the matron was I volunteered to manage her hospice care. She gave homes to many children who otherwise might have been discarded.”

“A better fate that what they received, perhaps,” 301 said grimly. “You have no idea what this place was.”

“I do…but a chance at life is better than no life at all, which is what Systemic Law would have given them. Many of the pregnant women who come through Alexandria General have no progeny license, you see. And due to population controls, the only way they were allowed to carry their children to full term was to place them with the Capital Orphanage to be raised up as soldiers. There is always room for more in the Great Army…just not anyplace else.”

301 swallowed hard, wondering about all those children who grew up believing they were orphans and actually weren’t. They were simply conceived outside the limits of Systemic Law, anomalies in the equation that needed to be balanced. And so they were taken from their parents and built into one of Alexander’s machines.

“I hear you were given a slave yourself some months ago,” the woman said as the elevator gave a lurch. She took it in stride and didn’t seem the least bit nervous, but 301 fought the urge to huddle in a corner and hang onto the sides for dear life. How long did it take to go up five floors?

“Word doesn’t travel fast enough, apparently,” 301 said. “That slave escaped and became the commander of the Silent Thunder rebellion.”

Her eyes brightened, “I suspected she was more than just a frightened Undocumented girl. Well, if your actions at my master’s estate are any indication, I am glad she managed her escape.”

The elevator doors opened and the woman stepped out, leaving him stunned by her jab. After a moment he followed, though he didn’t need her to guide him. He had come here very little, but every product of the orphanage knew the location of the matron’s room and feared it.

“It’s good you came when you did,” the woman said as he caught up with her. “She is fading fast. You won’t have much time, and I would not allow it had it not been her last request.”

“Why me?”

They stopped outside the room all children were forbidden to enter, and she motioned to the door, “You will have to ask her that yourself.” She crossed her arms sullenly and stared at the floor.

301 hesitated, “Aren’t you coming?”

“No,” she shook her head. “What the matron has to say is for you alone. I’ll be on the ground floor if you have need of me.” She walked away, abandoning 301 to go the rest of the way on his own. Taking a deep breath, he turned the doorknob and went inside, his steps cautiously quiet.

The only light came from a lone candle on her bedside table, the wick burned down dangerously close to the wood on which it sat. Wax dripped across the surface as the candle met its slow demise, flickering as though desperate to hang on as long as possible. The flame barely generated enough heat to keep the wax from hardening.

Matron Young lay unmoving upon the bed, eyes closed and hands limp at her sides. Her skin was so pale and her body so thin that 301 wondered if she was already dead.
What a cruel
place to die
, 301 thought sadly.
But then, this is the building where Elijah Charity died, and countless other names, to be replaced by the rank and file of the Great Army
. Perhaps the matron got what she deserved.

The floor creaked as he shifted his weight, and her head moved at the sound. 301 froze with fear as her eyes fluttered open and she asked in a rasping voice, “Who’s there?” She set her gaze on him and he couldn’t stop the shiver that ran up his spine—some childhood feelings never quite go away. But then he saw the fear in
her
eyes—the kind only impending death can produce—and he pitied her.

He stepped up to her bedside, “Matron…you may not remember me, but I am—”

“301-14-A,” she said, a bit of firmness coming into her voice. “I remember you very well, boy.”

He nodded, not knowing what he should say.

“Don’t feel obligated to comfort me,” she raised a frail hand to stifle a cough. “I shall receive all the justice I deserve for the evils I committed here in Napoleon Alexander’s name. I didn’t call you here for consolation, but so I could make at least one thing right before I die.”

“What did you do to me?” he asked coolly.

The matron let out a long, painful sigh, “On the night Lauren Charity was captured, soldiers filled the streets with their violence, killing at random much the same as they are doing today. That was the day you showed up on our doorstep, drenched to the bone with rain and scared half out of your mind.”

“But my file…” 301 said. “It says I was admitted to the orphanage in the 1
st
year of the Systemic Era. Lauren Charity wasn’t captured until SE6.”

“We lied,” she confessed. “Cold—disloyal, perhaps—but necessary to protect the orphanage and every child within it.”

“Protect them from what?”

“From you,” she said. “If anyone found out who you really were, the lives of all in the orphanage would have been forfeit. That night you came to us we assumed you were just another child victimized by the war between the World System and Silent Thunder, and took you in. Only the next day did we realize that all those soldiers in the streets were looking for a child…
you
. With the Great Army a wise person never hopes for mercy, so we did what we had to.”