Arcene: The Island (41 page)

But Talia was quicker than Arcene had expected and easily sidestepped the thrust, slamming the hilt of her sword into Vorce's wrist as he floundered forward, almost losing his balance.

The crowd was in turmoil, shouting and clamoring for Vorce's Judgment. What was wrong with them? After all this and they clung to their old ways like a baby to its favorite teddy bear.

Vorce moved to continue the fight but Leel ran to Talia's defense before Arcene could stop her. Arcene could see the aggression, the bloodlust from earlier and the atmosphere combining to send Leel over the edge, to go berserk and ravage Vorce until he was nothing but lumps of flesh. This would not be good. It would cause havoc, and it wasn't what Arcene wanted. She had other plans for him.

"Leel, no!" Leel turned but kept on moving, teeth bared, eyes manic. "You won't get any supper. Ever. Stop!" Leel skidded to a halt, the punishment filtering into her mind, the threat of loss of food combined with the order enough to stop her from losing control completely.

Arcene rushed up to her and whispered in her ear, while everything else was still.

The crowd was silent.

Vorce seemed lost to the madness and just stood there as if accepting he was beaten.

"You stay and guard him. Don't let him move," Arcene ordered Leel, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Are you all mad?" Arcene shouted, finally at the end of her patience. "We tell you what he has done and all you can think of is to carry on as you were. I'm sick of the lot of you. You deserve to be locked up here forever and to never see what the world is really like."

The crowd shifted about uncomfortably, unable to come to terms with the changes thrust upon them so quickly. Was this all a mistake? Should she have left Talia and Erato to deal with this how they saw fit? No, they were too close to it all, and Arcene was certain Talia would never have defeated Vorce if left alone to end it all. She had to...
Ugh, something's not right.

Arcene turned to find Leel laying down at Vorce's feet, half asleep and far from the vicious animal she was a moment ago. She turned to Talia and Erato, but they were half asleep too.

The crowd was quiet, watching. Watching her. As she turned her attention from the crowd to the huge screen, she was confronted with the smiling face of Vorce.

"Did you think you could subdue me, Arcene? Did you think you could defeat me? ME! I am The Island. The Island is me. It is MINE! You are a child and it is time you were taught a lesson by the grown-ups." Vorce's eyes bored into hers from the screen. Arcene couldn't turn away, was transfixed by his manic gaze, by the light that caught the spittle at the corners of his mouth. By something else.

He was going to win.

Battles with Worms

A worm.

There was a worm wriggling into her skull, boring into her mind and her thoughts, eating away at her sense of right, her sense of duty, her compassion and her personal morality.

It was being gnawed away and replaced by something else. By a craving for Justice, for a call to vengeance and an acceptance of what her betters knew to be just. She was being warped, changed so she believed in the power and the righteousness of Vorce. Her leader, the man that would do what was best and who's say was final.

Arcene watched transfixed as Vorce moved forward, smiling like it was a pleasant day and all was well in the world. Her mind was reaching for his, his mind reaching out to hers, reaching out to everyone's. Invisible tendrils, powerful beyond compare after hundreds of years of practice in The Noise, able to insinuate himself into the minds of others, even Awoken, taking advantage of the slightest weakness and forcing his will on her, on them all.

This was the truth behind the man, behind the madness of The Hunt. He projected his personal sense of Justice onto them all, enveloping them in his presence like a warm blanket, tucking them in tight, making them a community that had to sacrifice to stay together, to survive and remain as they were.

Arcene's mind floated above, watching herself lose control and her posture slump, her sword lower and her eyes dull. Vorce had a similar effect on every single person on The Island.

She watched as Elders emerged from inside the building to see what the commotion was about, seemingly coming out of hiding after the revelations of earlier. A few of his wives came out too, with children. They must have feared for their lives and hidden once his true nature was revealed. He was calling to them all, calling everyone to him.

As he strutted across the wide platform of the entrance, Arcene watched his confidence grow.

Was she truly floating above herself, watching this unfold? Or was this merely her imagination, a means to escape the brutal attack on her senses? It made no difference, she knew what she had to do.

Arcene switched off The Noise inside of herself. Shut it down and sealed its all-encompassing power away. Pushed it out. She turned inward, examined herself as she was now and how she once was — a wild thing, a primitive creature.

She looked at the things she'd done to herself, the transformation of her body chemistry to lock herself away forever as a fifteen-year-old girl, the half woman, half girl she was for eternity. She followed all the changes she had made to herself in a fit of anger and shame and she traced the subtle lines of invisible energy that made it all possible. She flowed inside of herself and met Vorce, his will, his presence inside her body, and she joined him.

Then, with everything she had, just her, no Noise, no crutch of any kind, she shut him out, pushed him away just as she had her own aging.

She was herself once more, and Vorce's power was no more forceful on her mind than the gentle breeze that tickled her cheek.

Vorce stared at her, wide-eyed and unbelieving. "You don't have the same hold over me, Vorce. You forget, I have not been subject to your manipulations like the others. I will not allow you to enter my head and do as you please. Are you ready?"

Vorce shook, his hold gone on the islanders as he focused on Arcene. The crowd slumped, shaking and moaning as they regained their true selves. Shouts rose and anger erupted as his spell broke.

Vorce had messed up, revealed his true nature. The memories of his manipulations flooded into everyone, and they understood what he had done, what he had been doing for so long but they had never realized.

"I'm ready. You will pay for this, Arcene. You've ruined it, ruined everything. Do you think it's better to live there, with all the madness, the reminders of how bad things used to be?"

"It's better than this. At least that's real. And at least I have a choice. You forced these people, Vorce. You never gave them a choice and you are selfish."

"Selfish! Me? I gave everything I had to keep us safe. They wanted The Hunt, not me."

"So you decided to cheat, to lie, and to steal their free will? What kind of choice is that? People must be allowed to make up their own minds, not do what you believe is best. Now you have forced my hand, and now they can decide for themselves. You know what they will choose. They want their freedom, they want to think for themselves."

"This is what's right. This is their home, our home."

"Not any more. Now I decide, and those that want to can leave." Arcene turned to the crowd once more, although she really didn't want to. Pieter was still somehow working the camera, although the picture shook and the image kept blurring.

"My offer stands. Three hours, no more. You can leave, or not, it's your choice, but after that you may never leave." The crowd erupted into noise, chattering, arguing and shouting, some saying they would go, others saying they were scared, more still baying for Vorce's blood.

"Enough. Take him, disarm him, but if you kill him not a single one of you will ever leave this Island. I can get you out, only me. You kill Vorce, you all stay. Understood?" Arcene knew she was playing a dangerous game.

There was no reason for them to fully trust or even believe her, and they could easily take her just like Vorce, but she knew they wouldn't. Somehow she knew.

Arcene knew the kind of dominant personality she displayed when she let herself get rather dramatic and carried away. She was Arcene, the girl that saved or destroyed worlds. Somehow, she had the power others craved, only difference being she didn't want it. She just wanted to have some fun, a full belly, and enjoy the flowers and watch the clouds dream in the sky.

The islanders surged up the steps and Vorce was lost amid deranged screams of power and that he would see them all Judged and they would be lost without him and he would slice them to bits.

Soon, his words were drowned out, and in minutes Vorce was bound to the pillars just as Arcene had been days earlier.

Arcene watched in dismay as they taunted him and jeered at the broken man, head bowed, bloodied and bruised but still alive as his people called him names and his wives cried at his treachery and his children clung to their mothers, asking what father had done.

But what choice was there? She couldn't leave things as they were, could she? No. She had become involved, owed the people a second chance.

And Vorce? Well, he had nobody to blame but himself. Maybe. Arcene saw him as he truly was, understood he had the best of intentions but it had all gone wrong somehow. It was the isolation, the need to strive for something different.

When you got right down to it he was one man trying to make a better world, not repeat the mistakes of the world he knew before The Lethargy.

He'd lost his way, but for a time he was a good man, with noble intentions. Life jut somehow got in the way and he never had the courage to stand up to it and continue on the path he had first chosen.

Peace. She would give him peace.

He deserved that, if nothing else.

Peace

There were thousands of people, and in the end it took the whole night and into the early morning before everyone was taken off The Island.

Talia and Erato took turns taking people down in the elevator and onto the train, then passed on the job to others once they understood what to do.

The Elders were a surprise — once they understood what had happened to themselves over the years, and went deep into The Noise and the corruption was revealed, they helped immensely in organizing the mass exodus. They soothed the islander's fears and concerns about the alien transport and the strange new world they found themselves in on the mainland.

Once everyone had left, and hardly able to keep her eyes open, Arcene took the elevator down to the station for the final time. She mangled the lock for the elevator with the bar Erato had found, and then used it to smash the buttons inside.

She then wedged the doors open permanently. There would be no elevator descent. Arcene knew this wasn't enough, as Vorce could find a way down the shaft, but she didn't think he would even attempt it.

Her and Leel boarded the train alone, the silence almost deafening after the clamor of thousands of people and their endless talk of a new life, their fears and their shame over what they had allowed themselves to become.

Finally, they reached the mainland. As the doors opened, she stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and stepped onto the narrow platform. She thought about disabling the train, but then had a better idea.

Arcene walked through the open door and up the steps into the warmth of a summer's day, where a community stood in the broken city on real land for the first time, or in centuries for the few Elders who had such a past.

"Fill it in. That's all you have to do, then go about your lives. Fill in the entrance, like it was never here. Fill it with rubble, and make sure you fill it deep. Then add soil and plant something. A tree, that will be nice. Maybe an oak. That's it."

Arcene nodded to Talia, then Erato. She patted Leel on the head and they turned and walked up the street.

They passed the gap in the fence and carried on going.

At the spot where it all began she stopped, sent her mind flowing along cables and up into a room on the seventh floor.

She activated the camera for the last time.

Vorce sat on the top step of The Island and watched as an image on the screen sprang to life.

The camera zoomed in, blurred for a moment before Arcene's face filled his vision.

She nodded slightly, lip turned up in a half smile that could almost be a sneer as she brushed a loose strand of silver hair from her face.

The picture blurred again.

A moment of static, then just an ice-blue eye. Clear. Unapologetic. Knowing that this was the true gift. Even a forgiveness of sorts.

Arcene winked.

The feed cut.

Tsccccccccccccch.

Vorce sat alone on the steps of The Island.

There would be no more Hunt, no more people. No way off The Island.

He smiled.

Vorce lay back and stared at the clouds dreaming in the sky.

Peace at last.

The End