Trent Jamieson - Roil

The Interface was a series of cold, long chambers guarded by sombre men and women who had seen far too much of horror. She was held for a while in the loading bay with her Melody as it was checked, with a rigour matching that of Tate, for Witmoths. Just as she was checked, her temperature taken, her pupil response measured. She did not surrender her weapons, nor was it requested that she did so.

Her fingers kept straying to the hilt of her rime blade.

They watched her now, and she could not help but feel sorry for them.

Their little enclave as Anderson put it was just that… little. Insignificant when compared to the efforts of Tate.

Margaret did not feel safe here, but that was barely an impediment.

She had grown up in the Roil and, as terrible as her last few days had been, she had endured these horrors all her life. She knew herself capable of dealing with them, and if she failed she would die. Death did not scare her. But it terrified these soldiers.

It had beaten them down, and it showed, not in their movements or the way they handled their weapons, absolute efficiency personified, but in their eyes. These people of the light had been thrown into a nightmarish place that did not hate, but just devoured. She could only begin to imagine how awful that might be.

In Tate, once the land beyond had succumbed suicide rates tripled and never really stopped. Some could not live in the dark, and you did not know if you could until you had to.

She noticed something else in these guards and the way they regarded her – a sort of grudging respect.

“You came from Tate in that?” One of them had asked, pointing back at the Melody, and here in the light Margaret could see just how much damage it had sustained, its armour dented, a rear tire worn down to metal. Seeing it so battered, Margaret had trouble believing it herself.

“Yes, all the way.”

The soldier bowed deeply. “Well, madam, you are indeed the bravest woman I have ever met, and I have Drifter in my blood. My mother and my aunts on her side were all air maidens, warrior pilots.” She laughed.

Margaret could not hold her gaze.

It wounded her. She did not consider it bravery, there had been no choice in the matter. Well, that was not quite true. She had fled, and she was not yet ready to dwell too long on those who had stayed; nor the dim quaking of the earth as brilliance swept overhead, followed by the gently falling snow.

“Not brave,” she said. “It was just stupid luck. If I hadn’t gone looking for my parents I would be dead too.”

“But you kept going. You drove through the night-dark miles and we know what’s out there. All of us do. There is no escape in the Roil, but horror after horror.”

“Crew, enough gawking,” Anderson, said. “She has been a long time coming to us, let her have some peace,”

The guards nodded and gave her space, though they did not stop their scrutiny. Within half an hour, Margaret suspected she had been viewed by the entire installation. And as for peace, they had given her very little of that.

“I’m sorry to keep you so long here, but I thought it best that people should see you.” Anderson whispered to her.

“Why? They hardly know me.”

“You give them hope,” he said.

Margaret shuddered. The last thing she wanted to hear. How could she give anyone hope when she held none of it herself? Nausea threatened to engulf her. She struggled against it. Pushed it down, just as she had pushed everything else down.

Anderson must have seen some of this in her face for he led her gently from the loading bay.

“I do not wish to be anyone’s hope. If anything, I bring despair. My city is lost, destroyed. And if we have succumbed to the Roil how can you hope to defeat it?” Her voice was flat, she avoided Anderson’s gaze. “I did not ask for this. The things I have seen would extinguish anyone’s hope. I did not face my city’s attackers, but fled. All that I loved I have deserted.”

Anderson flinched at that. Margaret wondered what lay in his past. She had been driven away from the Roil. What might drive a man into it?

“And yet you are here, only a few hundred yards from the edge of the Roil,” he said. “You have survived. And survival is no small thing in these times. Now, you must be very tired.”

“Tired is not the word for what I feel,” she said and stumbled.

“We have sleeping quarters nearby, though you’ll be the first to use them, none of us can sleep here. Not once we’ve crossed the Interface. But you, Margaret, you are made of sterner stuff. Rest now.”

“I can’t rest,” she said. “Not yet. There’s much you must know.”

Anderson’s face grew conflicted. She could see his concern for her but she could also see that he hungered for what she might tell him, for any information that might help them in their study of the Roil. Yet he hesitated.

“I’ll rest when I have shared what I know.”

“If you insist,” he said at last. “Come with me, but the moment you want to stop. We stop.”

He took her to a small room, with a table and chairs and a recording device.

“State of the art,” Anderson said. “It will take down your voice and return it to you. Much more convenient than note taking.”

He manoeuvred a large microphone in front of her. “Now if you’ll just speak into that, slowly and clearly.”

Margaret did. Telling him everything from her wait for her parents through to her flight from the city and her arrival here.

When she had finished, Anderson switched off the machine.

“If I hadn’t seen the Melody Amiss, your cool suit, your obvious parentage, I wouldn’t believe a word of it. And yet, here you are.

“Did you bring blueprints for your parents’ I-Bombs? The machine is off, you can speak with candour.”

Margaret shook her head.

Anderson could not hide his disappointment, though he tried valiantly, smiling. “It does not matter,” he said. “We are researching something similar at any rate. It is good to know we are on the right track. That you survived at all is remarkable. Now you must rest.”

This time Margaret did not argue. She let him lead her away to the showers, where she stripped of her cold suit and bathed.

Her flesh was swollen, and sore, but there were surprisingly few pressure wounds. She let the heat of the shower seep into her and tried to think of nothing but the relief it offered her body.

When she was done, one of the soldiers led her to a small room with a single metal-framed bed, and little more.

Clothes had been laid out, military fatigues, they fit her, reasonably enough. And, while it felt odd to be dressed in something that didn’t chill her or push tightly against her flesh (and when had that cold grip become a comfort?) she fell asleep almost at once.

No dreams haunted her. How could they? Her life was nightmare enough.

A few corridors away from the sleeping quarters was a small room, with a small table, a couple of hard wooden chairs and a door that backed on to the kitchen. There were well-thumbed copies of all the recent Shadow Council stories stacked neatly at one end of the table.

Anderson and Winslow both had offices crammed with notes and maps and memos from the Council, and filing cabinets with large locks, and some that were even fitted with alarms. But it was here that they made their decisions, in this little room, usually with nothing more than a cup of tea, some dry old biscuits and a lot of pacing.

Anderson put his cup of tea down. “This cannot be right. It’s made me uneasy from the beginning. She is a Penn. A Penn,” Anderson said. “Without them we would not have half the weaponry we do.”

Winslow nodded. “But we have our orders.”

Anderson walked the length of the hall, before turning back. “We have been following orders for the last year, even as they have grown less and less reasonable. Winslow, she escaped her city’s fall. She is a resourceful and strong woman, and even if she were not, I cannot in good conscience hand her over to the enemy.”