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

orders, I would be dragging their tortured body here to await their official punishment.”

“Someone is to blame,” she said, her voice low and laced with threat.

“You have my report, Governor. There are lessons to be learnt. Steps we can take to make sure we’re able to succeed next time. Meanwhile, we have the detention centres bloated with User scum. We’ll make them talk, beat them until they tell us where the Makers hide. We failed to raid the event, but it’s not over yet. I give you my word.”

Blix stood up straight and pushed her shoulders back. She grabbed a sheaf of papers from her desk. “Yes. Your report.” She flicked the pages without looking down. “You mentioned inadequate numbers of Allears. Explain.”

“Although they declared a positive detection from a source in the Nanso Heights, Commander Lore ordered the majority of his units to retain their positions across the city, taking ten units with us to pursue the source. In my opinion, he made the right call to split resources. Had he achieved his recruitment targets, as he was ordered to do, we would have had more bodies on the Heights. This would have enabled us to trace the source sooner, giving my men more time to locate the target.”

Blix glared at Wulfwin, her hands twisting the crumpled report. “Tell me straight.”

“Lore was under orders to recruit. Let’s say his efforts fell short of par. Numbers should be higher. As it is, resources are stretched.”

Attempts at composure were abandoned. Blix’s alabaster skin flushed pink. The twisted report became a baton that she held forth as if poised to duel. “Subpar performance. Failure to follow orders. You knew about this, yet it is only now that you think to inform me. Explain.”

“I take full responsibility. He had recruited, but I had not monitored numbers as closely as I should. He followed orders, but only through dragging his heels. This is unlike him and his impeccable track record. I should’ve kept a closer eye. The issue came to my attention yesterday morning; hence raising the point in my report.” Wulfwin paused, then said, “With regard to his loyalty, I am in no doubt. He regurgitates textbook commitment which, until now, he has consistently delivered. I find no cause to question it. I am certain the reluctance is motivated by something else.”

“Then find out what it is. And Wulfwin, if you’re wrong about Commander Lore… If I hear of any cause for doubt, the slightest mote of suspicion that his loyalty to the Authority is anything other than two hundred per cent, I hold you directly responsible. You will both be charged with treason. I trust I make myself clear.”

Wulfwin held her eye contact like a challenge accepted. “Yes, Governor.”

“And from now on, you are responsible for Allear recruitment. I want numbers doubled. I don’t care how it’s achieved. Get them in training and fast-track the best. We will not fail again.”

–

His feet pounding baked earth and stone, Dent Lore ran the Nanso Trail.

It was dusk, approaching twenty-four hours after the raid. Dent still hadn’t slept. His limbs were deadweights and his chest burnt, yet a passion numb to pain propelled him onwards. Although the light was fading, the route was an exercise in muscle memory. He ran the Trail every day – in part to maintain his fitness, but also through compulsion to search for something long since lost. He had no idea what this might be; for him, that was beside the point. He craved the movement, the travel. Never running away, but always forwards, towards an answer for which he did not know the question.

He pushed hard, snaking up Cinder Hill, winding through limestone outcrops and up barren inclines. The track twisted and climbed until it reached the foot of the Nanso Heights, only to loop and drop back down again as if intimidated by the prodigious mountain range. A stone-strewn descent led to gradual signs of civilisation, culminating back at the start on the suburban fringes of Wakenfold.

Reaching the highest point before the fall, Dent stopped running and bent double, his hands gripping his knees. Having caught his breath, he stood upright and gazed at the view.

Wydeye lay before him, a sprawling blur in the half-light. Sections of the city appeared to be greyscale wastelands: the less populated Hundreds of Wickerwood and Hole. Other areas glowed amber, illuminating the vast concrete structures beneath the darkening sky. Single bright lights snaked through the city, pausing intermittently as if caught by indecision: the headlamps of the steam railmotors as they rode the Elevated. To his left, the cold lights of the Authority Complex formed silhouettes of three vast detention centres and the featureless box that was the Allears Training Centre.

He stared, despondent. Achieving the ambition of Governor Blix and the Authority was his sole purpose in life. He shared the determination to achieve the long-sought end of catching the Music Makers. Yet the sheer brutality and arbitrary violence of the raids appalled him. He did not share Wulfwin’s pleasure in the suffering and cruelty that occurred through the course of avoidable action.

All that pain. Immeasurable hurt. And more to follow.

His mind turned to the detainees, crammed into squalid cells, awaiting interrogation. He knew it would be a protracted process – a message to others as much as method. Then he thought of the Allear recruits. He dwelt on the children who passed the Test, on the families they were taken from, on their adjustment.

The Authority depended on him and his command of the Allears. He relished the responsibility, honoured the cause, but deplored the cost.

The sun had dipped below the skyline. Darkness flooded the view, reducing the city to a sea of bobbing lights. Dent turned and began his descent.

–

“Blix is all out for scalps and she’s got her eye on yours,” said Wulfwin. He walked slowly around Dent Lore, who stood to attention, eyes front.

They were in Dent’s office inside the Allears Training Centre, a windowless concrete box that constituted