Into Darkness

4

It was that bastard Cushing’s fault. He’s always handling the elderly Hospice guests (they’re called guests, though everyone, including them, knows they’re not allowed to leave) too roughly. I’ve seen more bruised arms than at Heroin Park. Anyway, I was in the kitchen helping Lars and the staff prepare Thornemas Eve dinner when I happened to glance out the door. The view from the kitchen into the communal dining room is a good one, and there was Cushing, shoving Mrs. Elkins down into a chair so hard she cried out in pain.

Then what did he do? He pinched her. He grabbed a fold of papery skin on her upper arm and twisted, hissing at her to shut the f**k up.

So, yes. I lost it. Again. Before I could stop myself, I had every knife in the kitchen flying through the air toward that sick bastard’s head.

I caught myself before any bodily damage was done, but the sight of an army of knives hovering in midair around Cushing’s head, held up by nothing, made Mrs. Elkins faint dead away. Cushing wet his pants. The kitchen staff witnessed the entire thing.

I pretended to be just as horrified and shocked as everyone else, but now there will be an inquiry. The Elimination Campaign will have the Inquisitor out to interview everyone at the Hospice first thing in the evening. Just like six months ago, when I overheard the Hospice Administrator call her guests “cows awaiting the slaughter,” and every mirror in the place shattered.

State-sponsored euthanasia is a fact of life in New Vienna, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Along with rations, sun poisoning, and the televised hangings of Dissenters, frying anyone over seventy-five in the CineratorTM after a lethal, “humane” dose of SleepSoft-9 is something I’ll never quite be able to stomach.

First Formers don’t have to worry about growing old, though. Money can buy a lot of luxuries here, as many extra years as you need. In a world run by a corporation only one thing really matters: profit.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can survive before the wild, snarling thing inside me breaks free once and for all, and tears this frail and shallow world to shreds.

Thorne help us all if the monster inside me ever gets out.

ONE

December 25, 2037

New Vienna, Austria

Lumina Bohn awoke in the sultry semidarkness to the sound of gunfire.

The sound was off in the distance, a sharp rat-a-tat that shattered the eerie quiet of Curfew. She jerked upright on her pallet, heart racing, then held perfectly still, straining her ears, awaiting the final burst.

There was always one more burst.

Through the sooty window across her cramped bedroom glowed the neon beacon of the megascreen, broadcasting the Imperial Federation’s tagline, “One World In Harmony,” throughout the district. A glance at the slowly rotating screen atop the south tower of what used to be St. Stephen’s Cathedral showed the time as 5:17pm IFST. Curfew didn’t end for another three quarters of an hour.

As another volley of gunfire rang out, Lu said a silent prayer for the poor soul who’d broken it.

A tap on her bedroom door, then her father’s head popped through. “Liebling? Ist alles in ordnung?”

He was whispering, the survivalist habit of one long used to hiding. Behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, his brown eyes shone with worry. He knew too well how much she hated the sound of gunfire.

“Yes. I’m fine,” Lu lied, noticing how deep the grooves around his mouth had become. His once-dark hair had, overnight it seemed, paled to gray. In his faded dressing gown and house slippers, he reminded her of one of the guests at the Hospice. The thought made her shiver. He still had six more years before they’d have to face that, and Lu tried hard never to think of it.

She tried hard never to think of a great many things.

He switched from German to English. “Can you go back to sleep? You still have a few hours before work.”

He looked hopeful, but they both knew she’d never go back to sleep now. Beyond the obvious horror of what gunfire during Curfew meant, there was something darker that prickled her skin and soured her stomach at the sound. Some ancient monster buried deep in her psyche blinked open yellow eyes and lifted its head, hackles raised.

That monster she feared more than anything else, even more than discovery by the Inquisitor.

“No. I think I’ll go in early today. We could use the extra credits.”

“All right. I’ll put the coffee on.” Her father swung shut the door, and Lu heard the shuffle of his footsteps all the way down the stairs.

She scrubbed her gloved hands across her face, rose from the bed, and went down the hall into the bathroom they shared. The dying rays of the sun filled their apartment with a dim red light, filtered through the cloud cover, soupy and opaque. She removed the lightweight night gloves, laid them on the ledge above the sink, and stared down at her bare hands.