Balance - Book 2 by Marc Dickason
CHAPTER 13
The following morning was a Saturday and I awoke to realise my body was suspended in warm marshmallow.
For what seemed an eternity I lay still, not knowing where I was or how I had come to be there. And not caring. Everything was foggy and obscure, nothing held shape long enough to be identified. And apparently not even nearby voices discussing me held intrigue.
“This is him? You’re sure?” One of the voices asked.
“Yes. This is Jet Clarence,” a female voice responded.
There was a pause. “I’m disappointed.”
Footsteps approached and stopped beside my bed. For a moment there was nothing, then the voice spoke into my ear.
“So you’re him,” it said, “Jet Clarence. So disappointing. Boogie man. Fallacy. Children’s bedtime story.” There was a sigh. “Hoped for more, Jet Clarence, I can’t deny it. Got taken in by the hype. But here you are; helpless and broken. Had this image of you in my head, you see, and I guess I started believing it. Huge intimidating monster of a man, grizzled face, burning eyes. And what do I find? Someone who looks like they’ve been sleeping in their clothes and hasn’t owned a razor in a week.”
I forced open my eyelids. Each creaked mournfully ajar like a rusty trapdoor. Before me was the face an expensive suit-wearing young man, barely out of his teens, hair scraped back over scalp and baby-skin face cleanly shaven. His dark eyes regarded me with something bordering on revulsion.
“Ah, it lives,” he said wearily, “if you call what you’re doing living.”
“Who the hell are you?” I heard myself grunt.
“Know what the worst part is, Jet Clarence? That you don’t have the decency to be a witless moron. That, at least, would have been a reasonable excuse; something to justify your unforgivable waste of potential. But no, you’re just… unbearably common; squirming around in petty emotions, expending your energy on limp grudges and childhood fairy tales.”
He reached out and tentatively wiped something off my cheek with a thumb, grimacing, like a mesmerized child prodding a dead animal with a stick.
“Leave me alone,” I muttered, “what do you want?”
“I want you to be someone else,” he sneered, cleaning the thumb on my bed sheets. “You’re an embarrassment. How I hoped for more. Waste of time.”
With that he turned and exited the ward.
More time was spent in the marshmallow womb, after which a hand shook me and my eyes opened. A nurse was looking at me. Behind her early morning sunlight was peeking through a curtain. The bed previously occupied by the old man, I noticed, now stood empty.
“How are you feeling this morning,” she asked.
“Alright.”
My mouth had inexplicably been replaced by a handful of toffee.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.”
She smiled, “Good,” and began removing the dressing on my hand. “How does your hand feel?”
“Hurts a little. Who was in here last night?”
“Someone was in here?”
“Yes. Some young guy.”
“You had a visitor? It must have been after visiting hours.”
“You don’t know who it was?”
She shook her head. “Check with the front desk.”
The dressing was replaced and after a brief visit from a doctor I was informed I was free to go, not feeling entirely bad for a person on the receiving end of a bullet. The fact I once again dwelled in the realm of prescription painkillers had a lot to do with it.
I stopped at the front desk and was told no visitors were written in the registry. I then called for a taxi and shuffled out onto the sidewalk to meet it. Upon climbing into the vehicle, head floating in a pink fog, I bravely told myself I would go drug free. But before that same journey ended the pain in my hand flared up and two more pills were swallowed dry.
“Trouble in the city today,” the taxi driver said to me, nodding at a black van that tore up the street beside us, “Enforcers are out and about. Heard there are protests up north.”
“I know,” I replied.
“That poor girl, huh? Judy Carlson? What a shame.”
“Yes. It was a terrible shame.”
Upon arriving at the apartment I paid the driver and drifted upstairs, now bathed in throbbing medicinal euphoria. I had expected the place to be empty but found Benny on the couch. His uniform was on and blank face stared at the TV.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi,” he replied evenly, “Heard you got shot.”
“Yes, in the hand. Says much for the quality of sniper in this city, doesn’t it?”
“You kidding? Missed your head. Probably would’ve missed your hand as well if you hadn’t put it right in his line of sight.”
I shuffled over to the couch and plonked into the seat beside him. For a long moment we both stared at the screen. A news report covered yet another protest, this one livelier than the previous and growing steadily bigger.
“Thought you would have been called out to that,” I said.
“I was,” he replied, “Got back an hour ago.”
The picture changed. Again Judy was tottering up the street. I entered the frame behind her.
“Last week no one even knew that girl existed,” Benny said sombrely, “Funny old thing this city.”
“I could’ve brought her in,” I muttered. “They shot too soon. Just a few seconds more and I would have disabled her.”
“She was going hot. They had no choice. A few more seconds and that street would have been a crater.”
“I could’ve…”
“Why didn’t you, Jet?”
There was a beat. The room suddenly seemed very large and empty.
“Answer me,” he pressed, “Why didn’t you disable her?”
“I tried.”
“Did you act when you had the chance?”
I hesitated. Thoughts were not lining up like they should. “Yes. Of course.”
It sounded false even to my own ears.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
He sat motionless. Pale TV light flickered a disjointed story on his face.
“Jet,” he said at last, “I get the strongest feeling you’re crossing a line and I can’t abide by that. I’ll ask you again, and if you say yes I’ll believe you. Did you put Judy Carlson down when you had the chance?”
“Crossing a line? You’re talking to me about crossing a line?”
“Yes? Or no?”
“The Enforcer who uses a high school girl raping convict as an informant is talking to me about crossing lines? The Enforcer that scrambled the brain of an old man two days ago?”
His head swung round, eyes blazing. “That’s not the same God damned thing, Jet! You know it isn’t!”
“Do I? Seems to me Enforcer rules only apply to you when it’s convenient…”
“Enforcer rules?” He pulled open his blazer, tearing the medals away from his chest. A finger tapped his heart. “These rules, Jet! You know the rules, everyone does! You’re born with them, and when you start ignoring those rules you’re no better then an animal scratching around in the dirt! You tell me you don’t know what the rules are and I’ll call you a damned liar!”
He stopped, eyes probing me. I couldn’t meet his gaze. When he spoke again his voice was calm.
“Now tell me; did you put the girl down when you had the chance?”
“No. I needed to know where the white wall was. And I found out first. But…”
“Stop talking.” His face turned to stone. “That girl is dead, Jet. You let her die for your own personal bullshit. You crossed the line.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“But it did. You’re becoming a dangerous person. You understand me? From where I’m standing you just degraded to the level of that animal scratching around in the dirt.”
The words reverberated inside my head. Part of me wanted to passionately declare my innocence, but even thinking the wor
ds made my mouth taste of lemons. So instead I nodded.
His eyes returned to the TV.
A thin veil tore. My stomach was an icy fist of shame. In response my hand reached for the painkillers in my top pocket, but I stopped it. Instead it settled for massaging the scar on the opposite wrist.
“I need some coffee,” I heard myself mutter, making to stand. But Benny’s words stopped me.
“I looked into your being assigned to Judy Carlson,” he said. His voice was neutral.
I blinked. “Yes?”
“You were assigned someone completely different up until two hours before the Accelerated Program started. Then it was specifically changed to Judy Carlson.”
“By whom?’
“Your trainer, Gibson. Who told him to do it I couldn’t guess. But I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the same person who tipped off Delaney you don’t belong in the Academy. Someone doesn’t like you. Someone,” he pointed vaguely at the ceiling, “Up high.”
“Right.”
“So where is it?” he asked.
“What?”
“The white wall.”
“It’s a school. A day care centre. Little Dreamers Day Care.”
“Think your mother will be there? Hiding out as a teacher, maybe?”
“I don’t know.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment. “Ready for your basics?” The subject change was swift. He didn’t miss a beat.
“No, not really.”
“You needed help with the Reality Manipulation spell, as I recall. Flame from Fingertips.”
“Yes.”
“No problem. Tomorrow?”
“That would be fine.”
“Alright. Goodnight. Or morning. Or whatever.”
“Goodnight.”
He stood and exited to his room.
For another half hour I stared at the TV, watching the various crowds of protestors around the city swell in size. The face of Jeremy Dempsey made another appearance, but when the footage of Judy began to repeat I stood and headed for my room.
The first thing I did was flip open my ancient second-hand laptop and search: ‘Little Dreamers Day Care’. It came up on the first hit. But upon reading what little information there was on an extremely basic website, learned it was about as unremarkable a day care centre as could be asked for. From the homepage that featured ethnically diverse children, to the reasonable rates and pleasant but firm teacher, I could spot nothing untoward.
I did a second search, combining the words ‘Little Dreamers Day Care’ with ‘suspicious,’ ‘abnormal,’ ‘magical,’ ‘illegal,’ ‘dangerous,’ and even ‘Liza Clarence,’ ‘Judy Carlson’ and ‘Linda Hastings.’ All of which turned up nothing. The place declared only that it welcomed children of all kinds, including those gifted with natural magical abilities. If anything, the place bordered on being creepy due to ‘gingerbread house syndrome’.
I wrote down the establishment’s address and tore the piece of paper out of my notebook. Then I sat back, thinking.
From far below came the sound of mid-morning traffic beneath my window.
“You scratching around in the dirt?” I asked myself.
Stupid, simple words; ‘something that scratched around in the dirt’. And somehow, at that moment, sharper than the finest razorblades.
The words solidified and settled in my chest, forming a nugget of bitter ice. I acknowledged the ice then dropped it, tumbling into my stomach, where it sizzled on the caged flame. After an adjustment the two elements settled. Tenuous harmony was created.
I sighed, somehow feeling like I had just taken a step back from the edge of an invisible cliff.
“I’ll find you,” I said to the piece of paper, “not long now, I’ll find you.”
Then I set it aside, changed out of my uniform, and reached for my textbooks.
The following morning was a Saturday and I awoke to realise my body was suspended in warm marshmallow.
For what seemed an eternity I lay still, not knowing where I was or how I had come to be there. And not caring. Everything was foggy and obscure, nothing held shape long enough to be identified. And apparently not even nearby voices discussing me held intrigue.
“This is him? You’re sure?” One of the voices asked.
“Yes. This is Jet Clarence,” a female voice responded.
There was a pause. “I’m disappointed.”
Footsteps approached and stopped beside my bed. For a moment there was nothing, then the voice spoke into my ear.
“So you’re him,” it said, “Jet Clarence. So disappointing. Boogie man. Fallacy. Children’s bedtime story.” There was a sigh. “Hoped for more, Jet Clarence, I can’t deny it. Got taken in by the hype. But here you are; helpless and broken. Had this image of you in my head, you see, and I guess I started believing it. Huge intimidating monster of a man, grizzled face, burning eyes. And what do I find? Someone who looks like they’ve been sleeping in their clothes and hasn’t owned a razor in a week.”
I forced open my eyelids. Each creaked mournfully ajar like a rusty trapdoor. Before me was the face an expensive suit-wearing young man, barely out of his teens, hair scraped back over scalp and baby-skin face cleanly shaven. His dark eyes regarded me with something bordering on revulsion.
“Ah, it lives,” he said wearily, “if you call what you’re doing living.”
“Who the hell are you?” I heard myself grunt.
“Know what the worst part is, Jet Clarence? That you don’t have the decency to be a witless moron. That, at least, would have been a reasonable excuse; something to justify your unforgivable waste of potential. But no, you’re just… unbearably common; squirming around in petty emotions, expending your energy on limp grudges and childhood fairy tales.”
He reached out and tentatively wiped something off my cheek with a thumb, grimacing, like a mesmerized child prodding a dead animal with a stick.
“Leave me alone,” I muttered, “what do you want?”
“I want you to be someone else,” he sneered, cleaning the thumb on my bed sheets. “You’re an embarrassment. How I hoped for more. Waste of time.”
With that he turned and exited the ward.
More time was spent in the marshmallow womb, after which a hand shook me and my eyes opened. A nurse was looking at me. Behind her early morning sunlight was peeking through a curtain. The bed previously occupied by the old man, I noticed, now stood empty.
“How are you feeling this morning,” she asked.
“Alright.”
My mouth had inexplicably been replaced by a handful of toffee.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.”
She smiled, “Good,” and began removing the dressing on my hand. “How does your hand feel?”
“Hurts a little. Who was in here last night?”
“Someone was in here?”
“Yes. Some young guy.”
“You had a visitor? It must have been after visiting hours.”
“You don’t know who it was?”
She shook her head. “Check with the front desk.”
The dressing was replaced and after a brief visit from a doctor I was informed I was free to go, not feeling entirely bad for a person on the receiving end of a bullet. The fact I once again dwelled in the realm of prescription painkillers had a lot to do with it.
I stopped at the front desk and was told no visitors were written in the registry. I then called for a taxi and shuffled out onto the sidewalk to meet it. Upon climbing into the vehicle, head floating in a pink fog, I bravely told myself I would go drug free. But before that same journey ended the pain in my hand flared up and two more pills were swallowed dry.
“Trouble in the city today,” the taxi driver said to me, nodding at a black van that tore up the street beside us, “Enforcers are out and about. Heard there are protests up north.”
“I know,” I replied.
“That poor girl, huh? Judy Carlson? What a shame.”
“Yes. It was a terrible shame.”
Upon arriving at the apartment I paid the driver and drifted upstairs, now bathed in throbbing medicinal euphoria. I had expected the place to be empty but found Benny on the couch. His uniform was on and blank face stared at the TV.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi,” he replied evenly, “Heard you got shot.”
“Yes, in the hand. Says much for the quality of sniper in this city, doesn’t it?”
“You kidding? Missed your head. Probably would’ve missed your hand as well if you hadn’t put it right in his line of sight.”
I shuffled over to the couch and plonked into the seat beside him. For a long moment we both stared at the screen. A news report covered yet another protest, this one livelier than the previous and growing steadily bigger.
“Thought you would have been called out to that,” I said.
“I was,” he replied, “Got back an hour ago.”
The picture changed. Again Judy was tottering up the street. I entered the frame behind her.
“Last week no one even knew that girl existed,” Benny said sombrely, “Funny old thing this city.”
“I could’ve brought her in,” I muttered. “They shot too soon. Just a few seconds more and I would have disabled her.”
“She was going hot. They had no choice. A few more seconds and that street would have been a crater.”
“I could’ve…”
“Why didn’t you, Jet?”
There was a beat. The room suddenly seemed very large and empty.
“Answer me,” he pressed, “Why didn’t you disable her?”
“I tried.”
“Did you act when you had the chance?”
I hesitated. Thoughts were not lining up like they should. “Yes. Of course.”
It sounded false even to my own ears.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
He sat motionless. Pale TV light flickered a disjointed story on his face.
“Jet,” he said at last, “I get the strongest feeling you’re crossing a line and I can’t abide by that. I’ll ask you again, and if you say yes I’ll believe you. Did you put Judy Carlson down when you had the chance?”
“Crossing a line? You’re talking to me about crossing a line?”
“Yes? Or no?”
“The Enforcer who uses a high school girl raping convict as an informant is talking to me about crossing lines? The Enforcer that scrambled the brain of an old man two days ago?”
His head swung round, eyes blazing. “That’s not the same God damned thing, Jet! You know it isn’t!”
“Do I? Seems to me Enforcer rules only apply to you when it’s convenient…”
“Enforcer rules?” He pulled open his blazer, tearing the medals away from his chest. A finger tapped his heart. “These rules, Jet! You know the rules, everyone does! You’re born with them, and when you start ignoring those rules you’re no better then an animal scratching around in the dirt! You tell me you don’t know what the rules are and I’ll call you a damned liar!”
He stopped, eyes probing me. I couldn’t meet his gaze. When he spoke again his voice was calm.
“Now tell me; did you put the girl down when you had the chance?”
“No. I needed to know where the white wall was. And I found out first. But…”
“Stop talking.” His face turned to stone. “That girl is dead, Jet. You let her die for your own personal bullshit. You crossed the line.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“But it did. You’re becoming a dangerous person. You understand me? From where I’m standing you just degraded to the level of that animal scratching around in the dirt.”
The words reverberated inside my head. Part of me wanted to passionately declare my innocence, but even thinking the wor
His eyes returned to the TV.
A thin veil tore. My stomach was an icy fist of shame. In response my hand reached for the painkillers in my top pocket, but I stopped it. Instead it settled for massaging the scar on the opposite wrist.
“I need some coffee,” I heard myself mutter, making to stand. But Benny’s words stopped me.
“I looked into your being assigned to Judy Carlson,” he said. His voice was neutral.
I blinked. “Yes?”
“You were assigned someone completely different up until two hours before the Accelerated Program started. Then it was specifically changed to Judy Carlson.”
“By whom?’
“Your trainer, Gibson. Who told him to do it I couldn’t guess. But I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the same person who tipped off Delaney you don’t belong in the Academy. Someone doesn’t like you. Someone,” he pointed vaguely at the ceiling, “Up high.”
“Right.”
“So where is it?” he asked.
“What?”
“The white wall.”
“It’s a school. A day care centre. Little Dreamers Day Care.”
“Think your mother will be there? Hiding out as a teacher, maybe?”
“I don’t know.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment. “Ready for your basics?” The subject change was swift. He didn’t miss a beat.
“No, not really.”
“You needed help with the Reality Manipulation spell, as I recall. Flame from Fingertips.”
“Yes.”
“No problem. Tomorrow?”
“That would be fine.”
“Alright. Goodnight. Or morning. Or whatever.”
“Goodnight.”
He stood and exited to his room.
For another half hour I stared at the TV, watching the various crowds of protestors around the city swell in size. The face of Jeremy Dempsey made another appearance, but when the footage of Judy began to repeat I stood and headed for my room.
The first thing I did was flip open my ancient second-hand laptop and search: ‘Little Dreamers Day Care’. It came up on the first hit. But upon reading what little information there was on an extremely basic website, learned it was about as unremarkable a day care centre as could be asked for. From the homepage that featured ethnically diverse children, to the reasonable rates and pleasant but firm teacher, I could spot nothing untoward.
I did a second search, combining the words ‘Little Dreamers Day Care’ with ‘suspicious,’ ‘abnormal,’ ‘magical,’ ‘illegal,’ ‘dangerous,’ and even ‘Liza Clarence,’ ‘Judy Carlson’ and ‘Linda Hastings.’ All of which turned up nothing. The place declared only that it welcomed children of all kinds, including those gifted with natural magical abilities. If anything, the place bordered on being creepy due to ‘gingerbread house syndrome’.
I wrote down the establishment’s address and tore the piece of paper out of my notebook. Then I sat back, thinking.
From far below came the sound of mid-morning traffic beneath my window.
“You scratching around in the dirt?” I asked myself.
Stupid, simple words; ‘something that scratched around in the dirt’. And somehow, at that moment, sharper than the finest razorblades.
The words solidified and settled in my chest, forming a nugget of bitter ice. I acknowledged the ice then dropped it, tumbling into my stomach, where it sizzled on the caged flame. After an adjustment the two elements settled. Tenuous harmony was created.
I sighed, somehow feeling like I had just taken a step back from the edge of an invisible cliff.
“I’ll find you,” I said to the piece of paper, “not long now, I’ll find you.”
Then I set it aside, changed out of my uniform, and reached for my textbooks.