The Human Experience

Half P, day 7, 3414.

I think Mentalist Delia Alister was a fugitive before she broke me out of the Rathian asylum. How else is it that she has no past, no family or friends? That breakout proved that she felt she had nothing left to lose.

I don’t know how she came to work for the anti-colonialists who captured me, since she doesn’t seem to hold their beliefs. Like most people, they think the Voices are heralds of the prophesied apocalypse, but unlike most people they believe this apocalypse won’t manifest as a supernova, but as a global war between Vangarde and the colonies of Little Vangarde. Loyal to the colonies, they sought to separate me from the Helms in the hopes of giving Little Vangarde the courage to seek independence. ‘The king has lost his sword,’ they’d say. As if I was a symbol of colonial subordination rather than someone hired to stop the epidemic.

Del thinks the colonies have no thought of rebelling, especially not when the epidemic has left them crippled with fear and desperate for a powerful leader to guide them. The Star-King may be weak, but his Holy Diviner Orcadis Durant is undoubtedly a powerful leader.

I asked Del why she joined the anti-colonialists. She simply told me she could find no other organized unit that opposed the Helms.

I’ve never gotten to the root of her hatred for the Helms. But for all her talk of using me to stop the Voices without any murder involved, I can tell that she cares more about spiting the Helms than anything else.

When Hector opened his eyes he saw a familiar face wavering over him, bathed in a light that set her copper hair ablaze and lit her skin to make her freckles stand out. The dark blue of her eyes looked more intense than ever.

Hector struggled to peel his eyes open. Lethargy pulled at his mind, and for an insane moment he thought he’d had an anger outburst and had been sedated like the animal he was.

Del saw him wake and her eyes widened. She’d been running her hand through his hair, but now drew back so suddenly her fingers ripped through the knotted strands. She flushed at his groggy wince.

The light receded. A foreign chamber took shape as Hector turned his head on his pillow. Varali slept curled at the foot of his bed, her head resting on his lower legs and her black eyelashes fanned over closed lids, clumped wet despite her peaceful expression.

Vara? Hector darted upright in bed. Screws drove into his temples with the sudden motion. Del gently coaxed him down and he made no protest, probing the tender area on his head. His fingers grazed the crisscrossing mesh of a cotton bandage.

“What...how...?” he gasped, his throat scratchy.

“Vara came to my office in a panic,” Del explained. “Said some Helms tried to take her away and you were hurt. I came as fast as I could. You were unconscious by the window, your head bleeding. We packed our things right away and moved you to this inn.”

Hector tried to think through the blood pounding in his brain. His tongue felt heavier than usual, everything felt heavier than usual. Again he squinted at Del, trying to figure out if she’d drugged him, because he just didn’t feel right.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he slurred, struggling to sit up only to slump to the side, unbalanced. “If they wanted Vara, why’d they take the time to knock me out instead of going after her? And I seriously doubt they couldn’t outrun a fifteen-turn-old kid.”

“My question is why’d they leave you? Resisting a cleansing is certainly enough to get you locked up for a few turns.”

Ignoring the mounting pressure behind his eyes, Hector brushed his sister’s bangs from her face. He thanked the Quintet she was safe.

For how long, though, he couldn’t say.

He would have to live with that tightness called worry a little longer. It had been his existence for over a T-turn now. When Varali was gone it, too, would go, and be replaced by an emptiness Hector quailed to think of. If the Alignment did bring apocalypse and Pyrrhus went supernova as the doomsday prophesiers predicted, it wouldn’t matter. Not if Varali was gone.

That was Hector’s apocalypse. But could it be worse than this worry, this fear? The waiting?

The anticipation’s the best part, his would-be executioner of three T-turns ago had told him. The fear.

Now he knew what that meant.

“You can’t stay here,” Del whispered. Her eyes locked onto his. “I’m not buying that those Helms didn’t know who you are. Durant is up to something. He’s been looking for you for three turns, since Lykus broadcast our arrival in Vangarde, and now he’s found you. This was a warning. He wants you to come back.”

“A warning? Why would he warn me, so I’d have a chance to run away like you’re suggesting? Why wouldn’t those Helms just capture me and drag me back to the Keep, if they’d known who I was? Orcadis wouldn’t play games like that, Del. Not when every wasted moment means more people lost to the Voices.”

“Well we can’t just sit here and analyze his intentions. We have to move.” She pounced up from the bed as if taking her own words literally. “There was a village fire down in Keytaa – I could probably find some therapy work there, and they’re so desperate to rebuild I think they’d even hire you – ”

“Del, slow down. You’d think the Helms are after you, the way you’re reacting. Sit down. Please. There are other ways besides running to deal with things.”

“Not when you’re on the run,” she hissed, though she grudgingly lowered herself on the edge of his bed. “Things are dire for us both. If we get caught, my head’s going to be the first to roll. Yours will follow as soon as the Helms find out you’re no longer immune to the Voices. You’re useless to them now, you understand?”

Hector’s gaze fell on Varali, still snuggled peacefully against his ankles. Heaviness settled over him again. “She calls him ‘Uncle Orry.’ He used to sing her to sleep when she had nightmares. She still doesn’t understand why we’re running from him. He...he’d try to save her, I think. Even if he killed me. Maybe he could find a way. He knows more about the Voices than anyone.”

Del threw up her hands. “Stars above! Fine, then, give yourself up to Durant, for all I care. I’m leaving. I hope Jesreal does something with those stupid brain scans I risked my life for, because if they don’t help end the Voice epidemic, I’ll be damned!”

“You’re leaving? Just like that?”

“I’ve accomplished my mission. The Helms will never have their assassin back, and the chirurgeon has the information she needs to end the epidemic.” She didn’t look at Hector as she spoke. He could tell even she thought her words made her sound like a callous bitch, but that was exactly how she wanted to sound. It was the only way she thought she could get Hector to let her go.

“Please don’t,” Del said in a constricted voice. She looked at him like he was a ghost. “Don’t cry.”

He blinked away the moisture he hadn’t realized had crept to his eyes. His eyes weren’t meant to cry, he remembered. They were wolf’s eyes.

“I’m not going to cry,” he spat, reverting to anger. Delia’s shoulders relaxed. He’d known the anger would make her more comfortable. But then he remembered the tenderness with which she’d stroked his hair when she thought he was unconscious, and reminded himself that she had feelings, too. She’d been under no obligation to stay with him and Varali for the past three turns. True, she was a runaway too, exiled from her motherland for stars knew what reason and with no family to return to, but she could have chosen solitude over his broken family, couldn’t she? How could he buy her excuse that she stayed because she didn’t have anywhere better to go?

Hector took her wrist when she made to rise from his bedside. “Del, you know I’m working on it, don’t you?”

He felt her tense. “Working on what?”

“It’s not going to be the same as with Vara. Let’s take the mentalist approach and say my instant attachment to Vara is due to our genetic closeness. With you it’s different. People spend their whole lives trying to figure out romantic love. All I know for now is that I feel most comfortable with you.”

Her cynical smile carried an edge of discomfort. “That’s because we’re both emotional cripples.”

Hector tightened his hold on her wrist. He’d better reel her in now, before her jokes spiralled out of control and the situation became a circus as it usually did when she was uncomfortable. This was no joke. When Varali left for the Exodus, Hector would be alone. He couldn’t lose Del, too. Not now. Not now that he cared. Alone, Varali’s loss would destroy him.

“Marry me, Delia,” he blurted.

Del’s eye twitched. Then she laughed. Varali gave a soft snort in her sleep.

“It’s not funny,” Hector said, trying to keep the offence from his voice. Or whatever that punch-in-the-gut feeling was. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want to lose you.” And I don’t want you to get bored of me when I’m normal, when I’m no longer an ‘interesting case study.’

Del looked unimpressed. “Let’s face it,” she said, “I bring in the good money, I play mentalist to you and your sister, I break you out of asylums and sneak you across borders. Why wouldn’t you want to marry me? I’d be shackled to do all those things forever.”

“But you do them anyways,” he said, resisting when she made to pull her wrist away. “Without being shackled. Why else, if not love?”

She grimaced at the last word. “We’re both very alone, Hector. Let’s not make this anything more than it is. Besides,” she added, a desperate glint lighting her eyes, the same one that told him she was trying too hard to alleviate tension. “Mentalists can’t have relations with patients, remember?”

He gave her a flat look, deciding not to remind her they’d been having ‘relations’ for three turns. The redness spread to her ears as she caught his meaning. “I mean emotional relationships. Why can’t things just stay as they are?”

Because they’ll never be the same again without Varali. Don’t leave me, too. Don’t leave me alone in this shithole world.

A shadow crossed Del’s face as if she’d sensed his thoughts like the observant mentalist she was. How the hell could she understand people so well and so poorly at the same time? Hector, reading her desire to escape, slid his free arm about her waist and drew her toward him. She pushed against his chest to keep from being pressed into an embrace – Del hated hugging. She felt like the enveloping arms were a cage, he knew, but he couldn’t think of another way to keep her from bolting. “Okay, you’re scaring me now,” she warned as she struggled.

“Be quiet and stop cringing! My love isn’t that bad.”

Rallying her strength Del tore herself from him. Hector threw out his arms for balance, but it was too late. He tumbled out of bed, cursing as pain launched through his tailbone. “Amaris’s wrath!” He kicked free of his blankets and shook his hair from his face. Varali was propped on her elbows, alert, a broad smile spreading on her face to see him awake. Delia lingered by the door, being her uncomfortable, awkward self.

Grabbing the bedpost he hoisted himself up. The room swam before him, faded from sight, and reappeared with new focus. He blinked.

“Are you hurt?” Del asked softly.

“No, but...” He blinked again, trying to place the shift he’d sensed. “Something’s different.”

Different, but...nice. He suddenly felt free. How interesting.

Then it hit him: the tightness in his chest was gone.

And with it, so was Hector.

A cold, hollow satisfaction unfurled within Lykus as Delia paced to and fro, punching numbers into her phone. It was nice to watch her frantic emotions and not partake in them. The soothing balm of apathy again coated his insides, returning his overexerted heart to its regulated beat of three T-turns ago.

It was relief. The kind that follows when you stop bashing your head against the wall. He must have been downright masochistic to want emotions.

Del tossed the phone on the mattress and plastered both hands to her forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t reach Chirurgeon Padon. It’s my fault,” she moaned. “It’s my fault you fell out of bed.”

“I’d think it’s more likely from the head trauma I suffered at the Helms’ hands,” Lykus said casually. “The fall must’ve only triggered the inevitable. If I ever see those Metal Heads again, remind me to thank them.”

Del gave him a wide-eyed look. Lykus frowned. He’d hoped to retain his newly developed understanding of emotional expressions, but alas. “Don’t bother yourself,” he said. “I don’t mind. In fact, I’m relieved.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “I got to experience emotions, just as I wanted. Turns out you were right – they’re overrated. Haven’t improved my quality of life one bit. After all, I did this for me, for my knowledge and understanding.” Lykus gave her a wonderfully meaningless smile. “Now my curiosity is sated.”

Varali rolled out of bed and hopped over to lock him in a hug. “I’m happy if you’re happy,” she said.

“I’m not happy,” Lykus laughed, the sound an echo in an empty chasm. “But I’m not angry, either. Or sad. That’s good enough.”

Varali tipped her chin up to stare into his face. The raised ridge of scar tissue shone white at the corner of her mouth as she tightened her lips into a line. “You’ve never changed to me, Lykus. You know I’ll love you either way.”

He held his breath. Nothing. His sister’s sentimental words bounced off the protective shield that had hardened around him. Lykus swept Varali from her feet and spun her around, savouring the lack of effect her delighted shrieks had on him. He set her back down, watching her sway, her hair windblown.

“You can’t be serious,” Del said in a voice that quavered with restrained emotion – emotion Lykus wouldn’t have to worry about. “Don’t you dare tell me I lost my job and got my mug shot posted up from Van-Rath to Van-Tillis so you’d throw away everything I worked for.”

“I never asked you to–”

“You were the star-forsaken Iron Wolf! I did what I did so the Iron Helms would never have their greatest weapon back.”

“Then why didn’t you let me drown at the asylum?”

Del’s lips drew back over clenched teeth, distorting the softness of her features. “If you stay like this you’ll join the Helms again. I know it. Your attention span won’t let you hold a job. You’ll fall on hard times and come crawling back to that fucker Durant because you won’t have a conscience to restrain you!”

Lykus brushed off her warnings. He wouldn’t pass up a good job opportunity just to satisfy her hatred for the Helms.

Hatred. Wouldn’t Del do better to live as Lykus did? She’d be free without self-consciousness to bind her to propriety. She’d be more pleasant, certainly, without that hatred that festered within her and made her suspicious of everyone.

Emotions were ropes. Couldn’t she see that?

“I told you I have no desire to go back to the Keep. But I admit that if being the Iron Wolf is the only job I can find, I’ll have to take it.”

“Vara’s Infected!” Del blurted in the high frequency tone of desperation. “Would you kill her if Orcadis ordered his dog to attack?”

“How much would he pay me, theoretically?” Lykus wondered. Varali snorted a laugh and he grinned at her. Yes, Orcadis would have to offer him quite a pretty sum for her life.

“We wouldn’t like it if he started killing Infected people again,” Varali said. Referring to herself in the plural had driven Hector up the walls. Lykus didn’t care. “But you can’t force him to be someone he’s unhappy being just because you spent time and money on him, Del.”

Varali’s eyes flashed with unconscious wisdom as she turned them up to Lykus. And to think he’d thought the window incident had left her a hopeless halfwit.

He knew she was thinking along the same lines as he. Sure, people’s hatred rolled off of Lykus like water off feathers and the guilt of his past crimes no longer crushed his chest like an anvil, but the major impetus driving him to abandon feelings was and always would be Varali.

She could go join the Exodus now. He’d even pack her lunch and wish her luck. He’d stand on the threshold to wave goodbye as she skipped off into the double sunset. Bless her, the sweet child knew it would be better for both of them this way. Ah, he could just kiss those crown-wearing mind-reading bastards!

Maybe they had recognized him in the end, and then panicked and left him unconscious for that reason? No, that was idiotic – Iron Helms, panicking? Their initiation training didn’t involve starvation, sleep deprivation, pain resistance and reflex suppression so they could panic at the sight of their former assassin.

Whatever their reason was, Lykus knew Del was right. Orcadis wasn’t done with him just yet. The man hadn’t raised him out of inherent goodness. He’d raised him, like Del said, as a weapon. And now, coincidentally, oh-so-coincidentally, the weapon was back.

“Well,” Lykus sighed, clapping his hands together. “This convinced you to stay better than marriage ever could. Don’t want to leave the Wolf unchaperoned, do you?” He hooked his arm around her neck playfully. “You unleashed me on the world, and you’re responsible for me now, right? Isn’t that what you think? What were you saying about Hector trying to shackle you? Sorry to say, but you put those shackles on yourself, my love.”

Del pushed him away so forcefully he staggered into the dresser. “The Helms did this on purpose. I know it, you know it. I swear, if you go back to the Helms, Savage, I’ll hunt you down.” She swivelled and burst from the room, the oaken doors swinging after her.

“Why d’you think she hates Uncle Orry so much?” Varali wondered, staring at the flapping doors.

Lykus decided against mentioning that Orcadis issued all the Infected isolation warrants, including the one that had almost gotten his skull bashed in two. He smoothed the front of his shirt as he straightened. “Everybody needs something to define them. Her hatred for the Helms is her definition.”

And the Iron Wolf was his. Emotionless, he knew who he was. Hector had been a raving mess, undeveloped as a human being. Hardly more than the brain computer after which he was named.