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

She would be left in her cell, on her blood-stained, urine-soaked mattress, to recover. Her spirit was prepared to yield, yet her body possessed a stronger will to survive. She felt herself slipping further and further back. Away from the edge. Away from the end.

Then sleep would take over.

Sleep was the worst. More painful than the torture. For in sleep, she retained the memory of sounds. In her nightmares, she was no longer deaf. Instead, she was tormented by her own deafening screams.

It was not cold in her cell. The shivering was from infection. Her wounds had not been treated. The raw flesh on her arm where her skin had been ripped off was swollen and weeping puss – tears of bacterial contamination. And the pain. It felt as if the man was still ripping her skin from her arm – a seamless, continuous action.

During one of her periods of ‘rest’, she discovered the woeful inadequacy of language in her new inescapable life. There were no words to describe the pain.

Only the screams in her dreams came close.

Chapter Thirty-two

Despite the late hour, the Authority Complex was alive with activity. Black-clad troopers trotted between buildings, Ops trucks in convoy crossed the parade ground, silhouettes moved in and out of distant yellow windows. Movement choreographed by purpose and urgency.

Floodlights bleached the night scene, denying the cover of darkness. Dent Lore pressed his back against the towering concrete wall of the Comms Control Centre, hidden by a narrow strip of shadow. He fought to control his breathing, having run from the northern limits of Hole, through Welspek Breach, to reach Gedges Hill and the sprawling Complex. He had left the Troubadours’ horse in a disused barn on the outskirts of Hole. His precaution would mean a long walk back to the barn, heavily burdened, should he make it that far.

He didn’t have a plan. Throughout the journey from the Troubadours’ camp, he had attempted to conceive of one, despite fearing the impossibility of the task. He was all too familiar with Complex security. Yet, despite his efforts, his mind would not focus. He could not get past the crushing disappointment of discovering his true self, only to be sent back to the appalling other world of cruelty and control.

Bend Sinister had not wanted him to go; he knew that. He could see it in his eyes. But the other two had. Is it a test? he had thought on the long ride back. A punishment? He could understand why this woman he was tasked to save was important to them. But to risk the lives of them both in a mission doomed to fail?

And now he was back. All trace of his manufactured loyalty was gone. In its place, an overwhelming revulsion at the regime that had been the architect and puppeteer of his convictions for a quarter century. He dredged up the mantras: I am loyal to Governor Blix… I serve her will and the rule of the Authority… The objective of the Allears and the will of the Authority is all that matters… Slogans of counterfeit allegiance. Attitudes ingrained with unwavering permanence like skin ink. He touched his own tattoo. How could I have forgotten who I am?

A noise behind him brought his attention crashing back to the present. The questions would have to wait. However impossible the task appeared, he had no choice but to make the attempt. To have any chance of succeeding, he knew he had to start by returning to his private quarters and changing back into issue fatigues to avoid drawing attention. He leant forward, his head breaching the shadow line, and assessed his path. Two hundred floodlit metres. All he could think to do was to run for it.

Then he realised, I do this every day.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the shadow and started running along the concrete track to his block. An Ops truck drove up behind him, swerving wide as it passed. Two troopers left a building to his left and marched back the way he had come. Dent relaxed his shoulders. Don’t hide. They don’t know. As he jogged the final yards to his block, he almost felt like smiling.

Just as he reached out and grasped the door handle, a voice boomed out behind him. “Lore. What the fuck?”

Dent froze. His heart raced.

Wulfwin strode up and stood behind him. “Feeling better, I take it?”

Dent slowly turned around to face him.

“Shit me. You are proper ill. What in crow’s name are you doing out running?”

“I… I needed to get out. Thought a run would do me good.”

“Looks like it’s near enough killed you.”

“I… I do feel rough.”

“Well, do me a favour and go back to bed. I need you fit for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Ursel, the User Scum. It’s her last chance. If she doesn’t spill, the arm’s coming off. Blix wants you there to observe.”

Dent’s mind raced, making the appalling connection between the woman he was there to save and the broken figure he’d witnessed be so brutally tortured. Choking on the memory, he fought to slip back into role. “My class-two recruits have got a field test first thing. Where we’ve fast-tracked them, I have to keep on top of assessments.”

“I know. But she’s insisting.” Wulfwin rubbed hand over fist, eyes glaring. “Between you and me, the bitch has fucking lost it. Paranoid wreck. And high as the Heights.”

“The Music Makers?”

“That’s part of it. But she’s freaking out about the citizens. Convinced they’re going to revolt. Because of the holes. Like they’ve got the wherewithal. It’s doing my head in.”

“The citizens won’t do anything. Those who aren’t loyal are controlled by fear.”

“Exactly.” Wulfwin eyed Dent and sighed. “You see it like I do, Lore. I know it. You’re there on the ground, among them. They’re too friggin’ scared to even look at us, let alone cause trouble. But she’s up in her tower, staring at monitors, imagining all sorts of crazy shit.” He stepped forward and lowered his voice. “She’s