BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

He was about to walk back to his Ops truck when he saw the Chief of Command approach, his black leather trench coat swaying at his heels. Dent stood to attention and awaited the inevitable.

“Update me,” demanded Wulfwin as he halted in front of Dent.

“Unit inspection underway. All dish sites are operational, with a three-man detail. Shift change scheduled for sixteen-hundred hours, giving us fresh ears for the evening.”

“And the mobile units?”

“Twenty-six dispersed across the city. Density presence in Spire Wells, Creaser and Coxen Lyme.”

“Men per unit?”

“Three.”

“For fuck’s sake, Lore, you can’t respond to intel on a piss-all crew. We haven’t had as good a lead as this in years. You were under orders to recruit. What happened?”

Dent stared at Wulfwin, shoulders back. “We have a strong class of new entrants in the final stages of training. Once graduated, they will provide a valuable boost to numbers.”

Wulfwin sneered and stepped forward, bearing down on Dent. “That ain’t gonna help us tonight,” he hissed. “Get them in the field, now. Call it work experience.”

“But they’re—”

“Already I don’t care. I want them out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s get this straight, Lore. We’re gonna catch the Music Makers. I don’t give a shit what it takes. We will catch them and we will make them suffer.” He walked slowly around Dent, interrogating him with his eyes. He stopped, inches before his face. “Tell me, Lore. What are your feelings about the Music Makers?”

Dent stood tall, unwavering. “They are a threat to the city. It is the Authority’s priority to capture them. My job is to play an integral role in achieving that mission.”

“What? You sound like a fucking textbook.” He jabbed his right fist into Dent’s stomach.

Dent bent forward, but did not buckle.

“Talk from the gut,” Wulfwin growled. “I asked you what your feelings are.”

Dent looked squarely at Wulfwin, his jaw clenched. “The Music Makers are dangerous. Therefore, they must be captured, through whatever means necessary.”

“This is what I don’t get about you, Lore. No fucking feelings. Where’s your anger?” he shouted, punching him in the abdomen. “Where’s your rage?” He stood back, waiting for Dent to right himself and recover. “That would stop you from pissing about with recruitment. You’re too fucking soft. That’s why you don’t recruit enough. That’s why we’re short on the ground when we’re dealing with a high-stakes exchange.” He grabbed Dent by the collar and hissed in his face, “If you balls this up… If we lose them because you’re too gutless to get enough bodies to do your fucking job…” He let go and spat in the dirt beside them.

Dent straightened his collar and looked into Wulfwin’s eyes. “The objective of the Allears and the will of the Authority is all that matters. I shall succeed.”

Wulfwin hesitated for a moment, staring into unreadable eyes. “I’m on your case, Lore. Now, get the newbies out and on the ground. Then I want you breathing down the neck of every one of your blind little sound hounds. The Deaf Squad are ready and up to the job. Unfortunately, they rely on you to do yours.” He snorted, then turned on his heels, marching back the way he had come.

Dent was left standing in the centre of the Pentagon, watching the receding trench coat, breathing evenly. He thought about the young men and women, barely adult, up at the Adjustment and Training Centre in the Authority Complex.

He had been forced to increase recruitment three years ago following a failed raid and another of Wulfwin’s outbursts. They had been taken from their homes, from their Education Centres, from a climbing frame in Glade Park. Children. Young lives, denied of their freedom because they passed the Test.

The Test was another initiative devised by the vengeful Governor Wallace. It was undertaken annually by every fourteen-year-old in Wydeye, along with retakes from the previous year. Education Centres across the city interrupted their curriculum on the same day, on a given date, while their students sat the Test. No one knew what it was for – not the young students who had to endure five hours of rigorous, relentless tasks; not their Centre instructors, who were required to invigilate without knowing what they were observing; not the parents, who trusted the state education system and who knew better than to question the Authority.

The Test appeared to assess everything, from general knowledge to applied mathematics, from physical fitness to spatial awareness, from lung capacity to aural sensitivity. Everything was marked. Only the results of the listening test were recorded.

The listening assessment was designed to detect a heightened capacity for hearing, including the ability to hear sound at frequencies above and below the normal human range. Although such cases were rare, in a growing population with a high birth rate, the frequency of hits slowly increased.

Then, as the procedures for adjustment were introduced, the pass mark became more accommodating. Surgically induced blindness and anosmia meant that those who marginally missed the grade could, through a programme of retraining, find their hearing intensified. This, coupled with the systematic doping of recruits with a psychoactive depressant called Chromatofen, which modified behaviour to ensure conformity within their new world order, resulted in a healthy boost in numbers.

From the results of the annual test, the Authority compiled a list. The top-ranked candidates were the rare few who had proved themselves naturally gifted with acute auditory sensitivity, as in the case of Dent Lore. The second-tier candidates were those who demonstrated capability for acute sensitivity with the aid of sensory adjustment. Students ranked third were required to retake the Test the following year, to pick up cases of natural improvement.

The final list of names, on average between five and ten each year, became the Authority’s targets for recruitment.

As Dent strode towards his Ops truck, he considered Wulfwin’s words. He had been right: Dent had made a token gesture in response to his last orders to increase recruitment. He recalled the terror on the faces of the children presented to him – had seen