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Tower

The Complex was enormous. All Family Headquarters were. They were called Complexes, but the truth was, they were like contained cities, sequestered in radiation-shielded, bomb-proof, rail-gun deflecting plasma containment, giving any exposed sky an odd, purple sheen; a massive network of magnetic entrapment units held the enormous shield in place. Most Complexes were much like Moloch Family’s, one enormous skyscraper, thick and round, heavy with weaponry and shielding. The center of each building was hollow, allowing light to spill onto the ground floor at high noon, a feature appropriately called a light well; the entire building was like one long tube. The outside and inner, curving walls of the massive structure sported enormous windows, employing clear solar tech to draw in light and generate electricity, along with a large fusion generator in the lower levels that powered the plasma shield itself. The basements were levels upon levels of R&D departments hidden away from the main population living in the Complex, while the top floors were built of pure glass, allowing for light to filter into the forests planted there, the crowns of spruce, elm, pine, and hemlock reaching through open ceilings towards the sky, the plasma containment shielding allowing light through to nourish the now mature trees; they had been planted when the building had finished construction, nearly 150 years ago.

The Complex being as large as it was, was more or less a labyrinth, especially to an outsider like Killian. He had not been one of the tens of thousands to be born into the Family’s employee ranks and had no connections within the massive Complex. This had been done on purpose, as the Captain of the Guard had to be impartial with justice. He was essentially a sheriff that could not be bought with money (currency was electronic, closely tracked, and could not be used for bribery), could not be promoted or endorsed by blood family (he had none within the rank and file of the Family), and was deemed psychologically strong, or ‘Sane’, before being hired. The Insane were not brooked among the Family, whether brought in or born in, and were often executed or excommunicated, depending on certain laws and whims of the Family. It was debatable as to whether excommunication was actually any better than execution, the state of the Outside being what it was.

“Alright,” he sighed, standing once more before the body of Arriques, the blood now congealed and crusty, the body covered by the tarp. The ambient temperature of the hallway had been dropped to a frigid 40 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent quick decomposition of the body. It would be moved to a morgue later, once 23 had been caught. “It all started here.” He shifted somewhat, the thick leather strap carrying his folded rail-gun rifle over his shoulder cutting into him a bit. His sidearm, a cordite and steel low-tech pistol, bumped against his thigh as he walked.

Lucina looked down at the mess with obvious disquiet, strange eyes wide with fear and revulsion. “This...is Mr Arriques?” she asked with a hesitant catch in her voice. This level of violence and gore were unheard of within the Complex, and it was affecting her. Empaths were especially sensitive to their own emotions and the emotions of others, by nature of their powers; the name Empath even connotated the central premise behind their psionics, the ability to sync their emotion with others and then manipulate the connection to effect change. It was much like tying a string between two metronomes; separately, they would swing out of sync, but tied together, they would soon match. The Empath was simply the stronger metronome, and could force certain rhythms and rates in the other person, allowing precise manipulation of emotion and thought. It made them incredibly dangerous, hence the heavy training of anyone expected to have even remote contact with them.

Shrugging, Killian rechecked his sidearm at his thigh reflexively and nodded. “It was Mr. Arriques. He’s a bit worse for wear, though.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.” He stepped around the body and looked down the hallway. “The security footage is similarly ugly. It was like watching a horror movie. Of course, that was before he systematically took out every camera on this level.” The captain looked up at the camera on the wall nearly twenty feet down the hall. It was shredded, but the rest of the cameras simply ceased to function. The shielded wiring had been super-heated, and shorted out on the entire level. The service crews would have to rewire literally every camera.

The Tower itself was dark, electricity from the fusion generator having been cut off from upper levels to limit 23’s ability to move in and out of powered doors easily. Most of the population had been evacuated to the basement levels under the guise of mandatory radiation shelter training, so the upper levels were a ghost town. The one and only entry to the Tower, a massive tunnel that entered the basement levels from an entry point about a mile away, was locked. The walls along the hallway had massive windows, letting in sunlight, although the sun was now setting. Killian looked outside into the growing twilight, watching lights flicker on inside the small, wood and concrete structures below. There was a town at the base of the Tower, buildings nearly hugging the plasma shielding, technically not part of the Moloch family holdings, but rather one of the spontaneous shanty-towns that grew outside every Family Tower, a place of agriculture and trade intermediaries who profited from proximity to the Tower as well as the Wildland peoples that occasionally came to town for trade.

The growing night irked Killian, frustrated it had taken so long to get started on the chase. They’d soon be reduced to the torch-lamps they carried and the oases of emergency lighting that ran on bioluminescence.

“He wouldn’t go to the bottom levels. All the electricity there is on. The cameras would soon pick him up, plus, Vincent sealed the lower doors,” mused Killian. “And he can’t hole up somewhere. We’d find him. He’s more likely heading for the top level, and he might attempt to make it out of the building through the rooftop forest. But...how?”

With careful steps, Lucina made her way around the dead man, careful not to step directly on the blood, although this was not particularly easy. She shuddered at the soft crinkle of the dried ichor. “Um, there’s an emergency escape stairwell that wraps around the building, and it starts at the roof, but you can access it from each level. You can see it from here.” She pointed out the window, and he could see the steel walkway spiraling ever down outside. It was incredibly narrow, with a thin hand-hold. “I think you need a key to the doors, though. And a way through the plasma shield.”

Killian blinked, craning his neck up to look at the precarious stairwell. “Never noticed that thing,” he grunted. “Of course he’d try to get to the Outside. He’ll need provisions, medical supplies, maybe gold as currency. And he’ll try to disappear into town, or into the Wildlands.” He scratched at his beard scruff absently, staring out the window, the faint outlines of mountains on the horizon, backlit by a sun already hidden behind their peaks, magenta and mauve rays catching the low lying clouds in the distance. He felt a faint pang of nostalgia at the sight, as well as the faint, natural fear of the night driven deep into him from birth, the brutal life of a Wildsman.

“What’s our next move, then?” Lucina breathed in her soft, airy voice, drawing closer to Killian as the darkness began to bleed into the hallway like a massive hand drawing a curtain over their closed off little world.

Good question. Killian pondered it for a moment, and he pushed his hands into his pockets; he wanted to fidget. He sorely wished he hadn’t quit smoking, but the archaic habit had almost killed him once, and he was a survivalist at heart. He was too pragmatic in the end.

“Alright,” he said after a long moment, pulling out a holographic map of the area. It flickered and glowed to life as he traced a trail through the level. “Each level has its own cafeteria and kitchen, as well as smaller kitchens within apartments. He’ll need water and food, first and foremost. I know enough about Psionics to know he probably consumed most of the glucose he had stored in his muscular tissue, and possibly some of his own body fat, in the murder. That could have left him with superficial and internal burns, so he may also head towards the medical clinic next.” He pointed out the cafeteria and kitchens, then traced a finger over to the clinics. “Between here an’ there are the apartment blocks, facing the windows. I know for a fact that some of the more cantankerous residents wouldn't've budged from their apartments. We need to query them and see if they saw something. That’s where you come in, Lucina.”

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Lucina looked up, nodding. Empaths could sense the emotions of others, even at great distances, but only dimly and rarely with any specificity. “Alright...” Her eyes slid shut and for a moment, Killian took in her face. She was very pretty, perhaps even beautiful, but despite her young age, fine wrinkles had furrowed their way into her brow, around the corners of her eyes and mouth. Frown lines. The Children, after a certain age, had little to smile about. “There’s about five people on this level right now, but only one is on our way.” Her eyes slid back open and Killian carefully averted his gaze, annoyed at himself for nearly dropping his training to look at a pretty girl. Sloppy.

“I’ll take point.”

The swinging rays of their torch-lamps swiped across the now dark and glassy windows, the marble floor, and the metallic sheen of the walls, illuminating nothing particularly interesting. But the whole Level, devoid of electricity and people, was silent as a tomb. Ghostly, semi-solid forms rose and fell in the shadows, like hobgoblins and trolls sniffing at the lights and then scampering away. Beyond their islands of light, there was an ocean of darkness, threatening to devour them.

Killian wasn’t afraid of this dark, imprisoned as it was by narrow hallways and pierced by emergency lighting. He’d grown up in the Wildlands, full of mountains and dense forests, where his family had included his mother and younger brother, both now dead for many years. The darkness of the mountain slopes had taught him one thing: the Night was a killer. It had killed numerous people within their small clan, scavenging beyond the far edges of civilization that the Families had built up. The little clan had been anarchists, unwilling to be subdued by the Families. Of course, outside the civilizing effects of the massive Towers, everything degraded and went back to the days of wild living, wild shooting, and wild dying. He’d seen his clan leader, an old military scout with a twisted facial scar, die to the protective instincts of a grizzly bear. He’d seen three people swept away with the flooding of a river. He’d seen nearly a dozen die to a simple outbreak of dysentery, easily remedied in the civilized world. And always the Night, the crawling, seething shadows, enshrouding unblinking yellow eyes, sharpening the howling of beasts, obfuscating the movements of the Madmen and Abhumans stalking the ruins with ravening teeth and taloned hands.

No, this darkness had no terror in it. But this place was different, nearly haunting in its oppression and gloom. He’d walked these halls in plain daylight or well-illuminated night, with the buzzing sounds of people and vents and echoing hallways. It was the silence that unnerved him. The utter, suffocating stillness of the place. The sterile quiet was unpredictable. It was deadly. And somewhere within it lurked one of the deadliest Big Brothers that had ever lived.

If he felt fear, Lucina was barely covering her terror. At some point, she’d grabbed his coat with her long, slender fingers and tightened the grip until her knuckles were white. Her eyes, odd and fractal, were wide and she twitched at any unexpected shadow or shuffle of her own foot. He hadn’t said anything about her hold, so she kept it right there. It helped, for some reason.

“You alright?” he breathed into the still, chill air. “I can practically hear your heartbeat from here.” He was trying to sound wry and aloof, but didn’t quite manage it; the soft jab came out as genuine concern.

“‘m’fine,” she whispered, taking a deep breath to still her nerves. She’d noticed here and there, drops of old blood spattering the floor. They were on the right track. “You aren’t like the others,” she said abruptly, a little louder than she’d intended. He turned to look at her forehead, but didn’t say anything. “You call me by my name. You ask if I ‘will’.”

“Mmm,” he grunted in acknowledgement, but didn’t continue the thought.

“Why?”

Killian shrugged gently. He hadn’t really wanted to address this. “I’m just...I don’t like treating people like their just pieces of machinery, s’why. People are people, not numbers, not automatons, not tools.”

“That seems to be against all the rest of Family thinking, you know,” she suggested carefully. “We are just pieces of machinery, in the end. Especially us Children.” The nip of anger in her voice was a thin blade. It was abundantly clear to the Families that Children did not particularly appreciate the state of quasi-slavery they’d been pressed into, and did everything in their power to degrade their sense of individuality and to enforce conformity. “It’s almost seditious,” she goaded gently, a small, wry smile on her face. “Almost rebellious.”

“I hold a weird position in the Family, Lucina,” came the ambiguous grunt from the man ahead of her. “I ain’t one of them. It’s part of the whole “Captain” thing. An impartial Outsider with no psychological manipulation. I can be bullied by the higher ups to a certain point, but since I’m actually a citizen of the Outer Government, they can’t touch me for political reasons. It’s actually fairly clever. I can’t quite do what I want, but I can certainly get away with more than most. Anyway, it’s good for optics ‘mong the Tower population.”

Lucina kept her voice low in the suffocating stillness of the Tower halls. “That doesn’t really answer my question. And we aren’t people, not according to the Families.” The talking seemed to make the terror abate, held at bay by the old frustrations that were continually roiling among the Children. It made her feel better, and she found herself curious about this strange Wildsman. “You have no obligation to be kind or considerate to us. Remember? You don’t have to ask what I ‘will’ or ‘will not’ do. Such questions are meaningless in light of our...genetics.”

He stopped suddenly, and she bumped quite neatly into his dark back. “Hey!” she barked, but stopped and stood still as Killian turned to look at her, careful to avoid the eyes. He gave her a once over, poked her in the arm, lifted a strand of hair idly, inclined close to her as if to listen, then nodded. The nearness of his body was all heat and musk and leather. She flushed, turning away from him. “What are…?” she started to say.

“Yep. Sounds like a human, feels like a human, talks like a human, gotta be human, right? Simple.” He smirked, scratching his stubbly chin with the back of his fingers, before turning back to the corridor. Up ahead, the hallway broke into three directions, with a turn heading away from the windows and into the apartment area.

Lucina thought about his words carefully. “You know,” she said after a few moments, “From the moment a Child is born, we are told, over and over and over again, that we are not human, could never be human, and are not entitled to human freedoms and liberties. The very telomeres of our DNA are constructed with Family patent code.” You could legally own a human you had “built”, according to most of the nebulous treaties and laws written by the Families. If you made it, it was your property, after all. And most of the psychic variants fell in line, especially the Kinos, with their extensive augmentation and drug regimen.

Empaths were not so easily manipulated, however. Their skills required clear-headedness, focus, and sensitivity to those around them. Drugs and neural implants were therefore off the table. Of course, the Families knew that, and would often apply specific psychological pressures to break the habit of seditious thought. Lucina had been no exception. In fact, once inducted into the ranks of the Big Sisters, the psychological tests and indoctrination only grew more aggressive. She was harder than most, though even now, it was nearly impossible to think of herself as human, as equal to her subjugators. “We’ve been held down all our lives, for generations. I cannot be human as you are human. I cannot be like you. That would mean I am as evil as you and your kind, prone to the same depravities and darkness. That cannot be true.”

With a harsh chuckle, Killian examined a map of the corridors. “And yet, I gotta body a few levels down that says otherwise. Definite evil, that display of carnage.”

She bristled at the words. “What slave would not desire to be free of his slaver? What being would not wish violence on those that do violence? It is only natural. It may even be right for the oppressed to slay the oppressor, given half a chance.”

“Just ‘cause it’s natural doesn’t mean it ain’t evil. The way I see it, evil’s a unique ‘human’ thing. Seen animals tear each other apart plenty, but it ain’t evil, just hunger, fear, survival. Mankind kills for vengeance, for pleasure, for domination, for unnecessary and overwhelming gain. That’s what evil looks like.” The map shone gently in the dark, the screen a blue-green-black mess of lines and marks and annotations. He fiddled with the settings.

Staring at him, Lucina watched Killian. This Wildsman, this Outsider, he thought of her as human, probably the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens to do so. And it was oddly intoxicating. She let the conversation drop. She clung to him just a little tighter and glanced down each hallway of the intersection. “Here. We have to turn here.”

Looking up from the map, he peered down the long corridor, the dim shapes of potted plants and shadowed doorways looming in the pallid light of the torch-lamps. “The map says this way.” Grunting, he took a moment to swing the gun strap to the railgun to the other shoulder. It felt heavier every year.

The Empath just shook her head once, hard. “No. Trust me. We’re headed this way. I can feel someone nearby.”