Chapter Fifty-One
Origin Story
General Malcolm Reed
As his son exits the conservatory, Charles Tucker rises and comes to stand just behind me and slightly to my right, which (quite the opposite of the usual suspicion and paranoia I experience when someone is behind me) gives me a sense of being tethered by a safety line so I can't fall too far into the abyss if I begin to slip.
My throat is locked, and it doesn't decide to co-operate until the commodore has disappeared back into the lift and nothing terminal has happened to my insides. Maybe that's because of mild apprehension that he's simply forgotten my life quite literally depends on the unknown settings of whatever's monitoring my whereabouts, or maybe it's because I know that finally I have to explain to my family why I walked away from the career in the Royal Navy that lay before me like a shining ribbon to honour and success on the day I qualified at the Royal College.
So in a low, dogged voice, with Charles's solid, comforting presence at my back, I tell them about that afternoon in the grounds of Nottingham Old Hall. Not without halts and pauses that I need to compose myself even now, I tell them about what Sallis and his pals did to me. I tell them about the way that when the incident finally came to the notice of the staff because I collapsed from the pain and blood loss of my internal injuries, Sallis's father had me treated in a private clinic and leaned on the Head to keep it quiet even from them. I tell them about the way the footage was passed around the school, and about the way it drove me to study and excel rather than socialise and endure the scorn, the pity, the sniggering. I tell them that it haunted my nightmares for years afterwards, warped my attitude to sex and effectively destroyed my ability to form normal relationships..
Then I tell them how the night before I accepted my commission in the Navy someone came to my room and attacked me, drowned me in what should have been the safety of my own lodgings, before resuscitating me with the horror of water now added to the older horror, and making the thought of service on board ship now unthinkable. And how then, by the merest coincidence (I was so honourable then, so bloody naïve!), there came the offer of a career that would bring me power – power to finally hit back at those who had got away with everything scot-free. And that I accepted it, because in the Empire justice is for sale to the highest bidder, and the only thing more powerful than money is power itself.
"Everything that happened to me after that was as a direct result of what Sallis did to me," I continue, my voice still quiet and flat, as it has been throughout; I've had the strangest illusion that I've been talking about someone else altogether. "He wasn't responsible for the drowning, but he was responsible for my craving for revenge. It made me – vulnerable – to someone who was on the lookout for bright, solitary, angry young men.
"I took that offer. I won't go into what resulted from it. But you can believe that it transformed me into something that was very apt to the Empire's purposes – something that obeyed orders, and killed, and became very powerful.
"In due course I met another man who had been through the same process, though with slightly different results. He now gave orders, and killed, and became very powerful."
They all know perfectly well whom I mean. Even now, Maddie looks around automatically before she breathes the name.
"We became lovers." I don't conceal the fact; whatever happened afterwards, I wasn't ashamed of it then. I was proud to be one of the two people he trusted, to be one of the Triad. "He offered me and – one other person – power. And we took it."
I take a deep breath, and look down at my hands. The left is still in Mother's grasp, the right lying along my thighs, and I can feel the sweat on my hidden palms. "And I used that power to do what I'd promised all those years ago. I'd managed to arrange a fatal 'accident' for one of them before they left the school, but I hunted down the other five, one by one – and they paid for what they'd done to a six-year-old boy.
"Sallis was the one who had the idea in the first place. I reserved a special hell for him. He had to pay for the pain and the humiliation, but he also had to pay for what I'd lost because of that day, as well as for what I'd become – and for what I'd done because of what I'd become.
"I don't say that his responsibility exonerates me of any of mine. I've never claimed that, or believed it. But he set the chain reaction in motion, and I wanted everyone in the Empire to see his punishment. I thought that would ... would finally put my demons to rest."
I had thought so. And I suppose in a way it did, but instead of satisfaction there was just a cold, empty, echoing space where the lust for revenge had been. And nothing I could do afterwards filled it, though recently (even if I refuse to admit it aloud) it seems strangely less empty when an insignificant lieutenant by the name of Cutler is curled up alongside me.
"So, you deserve an explanation, and now you have it." I raise my head, and look each of them in the face. "Those were my reasons for what I did, and you may or may not feel them adequate, but that's your decision. If you decide you never want to see me or hear from me again, the commodore will arrange for you to be returned home at once. You'll still be protected, as you have been all this time, but I'll honour your wishes. It's as simple as that."
"'Simple'?" The word bursts from Maddie's throat; judging by the way she's leaning forward in her chair, wringing the ends of her scarf between her hands, she wishes she had hold of my throat instead. "You're a murderer, Malcolm, just a cold-blooded murderer!
"I haven't heard you say one word, one word, of being sorry for what you've done. All the lives you've ruined, the other people you've killed and tortured! You talk as if what those boys did was justification for what you did as a man, when you should have been capable of putting it into the proper perspective rather than – than behaving as some kind of animal!"
'Some kind of animal'. A little desperately, I look from her to Mother and Father. Maybe the bonds of parenthood are stronger than the love of a sibling, because although Mother's face is wet with tears she is still holding my hand, and Father – although clearly waiting to see how I respond to this accusation – has not turned away from me.
"Some kind of animal?" There's a lump in my throat as I say the words aloud. Although I've deliberately chosen to spare my family the details of what was done to me by Harris's order, and even this doesn't change my mind, by the end of that process that was exactly what I was. Maybe it's what I still am, and you never know, maybe it's what I always will be: something separated from humanity, from normality. From every other member of the human race.
"Malcolm." Mother squeezes my fingers, and pats them helplessly with her other hand; maybe more shows in my face than it would have done if I weren't so bloody reduced. "No, Malcolm, no, we don't think that for a minute!"
"That's exactly what I think!" says Maddie viciously.
"And what do you think, Father?"
He takes his time. Judgement in the Reed household is never hurried.
"You have not, over the past years, upheld the highest standards of the British Armed Forces," he says finally, in measured tones. "In the light of our family tradition, I cannot do other than deplore that failure.
"But it would appear that you were effectively press-ganged into the service of a Foreign Power. In those circumstances, and under influences that were so overwhelmingly malign, I cannot in justice conclude that you were entirely to blame.
"To the best of my knowledge and belief, Commodore Tucker is a worthy man, with laudable intentions. I am confident, Malcolm, that given sufficient time, you will be able to voluntarily – and, I trust, sincerely – commit yourself to following and furthering his aims. Moreover, when that time comes, I suspect you will do so gladly, and feel the better for it.
"That his father, who instilled in him the values of kindness, compassion, respect and honour, has accepted you as one of his own tells me that in spite of the evil you have done, you have not yet entirely abandoned those values yourself and that you are still a Reed at heart, and still my son."
"I'm glad to hear you say that, sir." The commodore's voice comes quietly from behind me. I don't know how long he's been there, or how much he's heard, but the uncertainty doesn't worry me as much as it probably should.
Tradition is the God of the Reed household, and though we are not descended from the ancient nobility, my father, being staunchly egalitarian, still takes it on faith that we are equal to any who are, even in the face of a world that insists more adamantly with each passing year that some are more equal than others. With my father's acceptance still ringing in my ears, and given his high praise for Charles Tucker, I think he will approve the gesture I am about to make. I only hope that he and the others here present will understand that I am doing it honestly, out of a genuine desire to … learn, grow, change? I honestly don't know what I want, but it's certainly something more than earning my father's approval with an empty gesture.
I turn my wheelchair, propel myself over to Charles and with some difficulty slither out onto my knees in front of him. He glances from my father to the commodore and shuffles his feet a bit. With dread I realise now that I will howl out my outrage and shame if he rejects my appeal and defers to his son, the display precipitating a far more detailed explanation of my MACO training on Wolfplanet Mindfuck than I had ever intended to give anybody. After that, Maddie will know just what kind of animal her older brother has become. Surely, he will have some idea what it is I am asking of him, and understanding that, he must know that the responsibility cannot be transferred, even to a favourite son.
This is immensely difficult. I'm daring to believe – daring to risk believing – that things can be different; that I can be different; that there can be some kind of safety in being other than a human wrecking ball. For the first time in my adult life I'm putting faith in something I can't see, something I can't prove. After all the years of bitter experience it's as much as I can do to contemplate this gesture, but it seems to me that if there's 'something else' there, if there's another way to exist rather than in a constant state of frenzied fight for survival against everyone and everything, I need to … try.
If I'm proved wrong, this time, there will be no possibility of redemption. If I survive the discovery of my error I will go to my death frozen solid, dealing out vengeance on anything and anyone I can touch, so cold inside that even the fires of the Hell I'd be destined for (if such a place does indeed exist) would never thaw me out. But the dream being held out feels like some kind of second chance at life, and if I'm to even reach out for the possibility it may exist, I need help. As much as it hurts, as much as my worst inner nature is still screaming at me for a fool to be taken in like this and to trust those who still want me for something, who still want to use me, the sensation of warmth after the years of being a monster carved out of ice has been so alluring, so intoxicating, that it's coaxed (duped?) me into this position.
I find in this moment that helps to remember how, not so very long ago, when I kicked in the panel on that biobed, I did it with the understanding and the certainty that I would die, and I welcomed it. Even knowing that I'd never so much as thought to do anything to try and restore myself to something worthy of anything other than fear and abhorrence, and that, if there was any such thing as an afterlife, mine would surely be one of eternal, continued suffering.
Yes, in what I believed to be my last moments, I became – let's not say religious, for that requires some degree of dedication – but willing to believe, possibly even hope, that something of us might live on when our corporeal existence has ended. It's hard, when you're standing on the lip of the crevasse of unknowing you're about to step willingly into, to take that last step still believing there will be nothing afterwards.
And yes, I was willing to face the possibility of eternal damnation over the continued torture and betrayal heaped upon me by the people I thought I loved most in this world.
I suppose, at least for me, that old saw 'there are no atheists in foxholes' might hold true. But I have to be honest with myself, too. I'm no longer in the foxhole, and I am far too practical and far too demanding of instant gratification to contemplate even the slightest change in who I am and how I comport myself for the possibility of a slightly less miserable experience in an afterlife that I'm not remotely convinced exists now that I'm not facing my imminent demise. If I'm going to do all the work in this life, I bloody well want to reap the rewards now, too. The prospect of putting myself through the kind of mincer that turning myself around will involve, for no more than a distant hope that my debts in the afterlife (if any) may be reduced accordingly, isn't nearly enough to attract me. And however mercenary that makes me sound, I've never lied to myself while I was in power and I'm not going to start now.
There is another old adage that tells us 'Life is suffering.' Well, I am alive, and I'm suffering now, have been, for a very long time, and frankly don't expect it to ever stop no matter what I do. The best I can hope for is that the nature of that suffering and the quality of my existence might change. In this moment, I am trapped, caught in that agonizing, paralyzing moment of decision, choosing between what I know and what might be.
Do I try? Do I ask for help? Do I make the effort to become something different, and making that effort, do I dare hope that my past is not insurmountable, that my frozen core might someday thaw and eventually, I can become, if not the man I had hoped to be when I took the salute at the Imperial Naval College, then something like him, older, wiser, shrewder and less trusting, but...not loathsome? Do I take that risk?
Or do I pretend to try? As my physical strength returns, I have more energy to power my mind and, as clever as she is, I think I could actually manage to fool Ginny soon. So, instead of accepting the help that's been offered, do I instead act the part of the novice seeking guidance and instruction? Do I play along with Commodore Tucker's scheme, let him physically rehabilitate me, restore me to my previous station, possibly even elevate me to the position of the Empress's consort, and then revert to the frozen bastard I've been all these years and snuff out all those who helped me in good faith for the unforgivable sin of seeing my weakness?
Ginny was right, the old General Reed was comfortable, he was predictable. He was predictably a bastard, and I can't deny a part of me finds the prospect of annihilating all those who've tried to help me through my recovery deeply soothing. It's like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. If no one who saw me struggling and suffering survives, then did it ever really happen?
I could go back, it wouldn't be difficult, but I realize I don't actually want to, and I've never been one to take the easy way out of anything; though if this frail, foolish possibility on which I've finally placed my foot fails me, my second fall into Hell will be possibly even more terrible than the first, and what emerges from it even worse. I can't stay where I am, balanced on an incredibly narrow ledge of possibility with the winds of inevitable change eroding the crumbling rock beneath my feet. If I'm to go forward, I will need help. And Charles is the person to whom I've already submitted in the way my Pack nature dictates, and he's already offered me his support. However painful – no, agonising – the public statement of that need and that submission may be to my supposed position of invincibility as the sole remaining member of the Triad, even just before these people so closely connected to me, it's something that feels required.
I lower my eyes, bow my head, and fold my hands in my lap, my posture every inch that of a supplicant. My emotions have been scraped so raw by everything that has happened to me that in my current mood of humility I'm prepared to plead with him to accept me, if that's what it takes. With horror I realise I've already committed myself so deeply to hope that things can be different for me that I'm actually willing to abase myself that much; but first I will ask, as sincerely as I can.
It's wholly possible that Charles has never heard of the ancient tradition of fostering as practised in medieval Britain, so I start off by explaining the concept.
"A thousand years ago, it was an established tradition among the noble households of my homeland to foster their children out to other families when they reached a certain age. The family ties remained intact, but the children were sent away to improve their education. The idea was that one could learn more from teachers who were not one's own parents – partly because, being free from the hindrance of familial affection, the foster parents found it easier to be strict when necessary, and partly because, being under formal contract to train and educate the child, they would make a more concentrated effort to do so.
"My parents did right by me. They were adequately strict and set the highest standards I could possibly be expected to achieve. Although they did not smother me with expressions of affection, I never doubted their love. They did everything right, and they did everything parents could possibly do.
"Then the events of my life intervened. They fouled my compass and blew me far off the course my parents had helped me set. There was a time when I never would have dreamed of doing anything to dishonour them, but now, I can't remember the last thing I did that wouldn't."
I pause and take a deep breath. I've rehearsed this often enough, but honesty at this depth is flaying. For so long I've taken refuge in the mentality of It's them or me – Wolfplanet Mindfuck merely cemented the savage I'd become, it didn't create it – but finally acknowledging my own fall from everything I'd ever dreamed of being is still cruelly hard. And yet, I owe this; to myself as well as to them. Because until you're honest about exactly where you are, any meaningful movement is impossible. Even if I ultimately fail in this reckless attempt to reclaim something of the self I might have been, at least I'll have admitted that none of my ruin was their fault. So I go on steadily.
"The fact that they still claim me as their own says everything about the kind of loving, compassionate parents they are and have always been and nothing about the kind of son I have become.
"The day we met, without in any way discounting all my parents had done for me, you offered me a place in your family. You had no intention of usurping their role in my life; you were just offering me an additional support as I try to find my way again.
"Please, let me accept that offer now. My mother and father have done their part. They've done as much as they could do. Foster me, even though I'm no child, no longer impressionable. Even though I'm stubborn, often angry, usually ungrateful, and always, always difficult, take me into your household and teach me the lessons I failed to master, remind me of the ones I've forgotten along the way.
"I know that in a lot of ways I'm still trying to learn, trying to change. I'll probably fall back at some point, maybe spectacularly. I can't promise I'll ever be a model human being. But I'm asking you to take me in, and take the chance."
I look up at his face, and it's a little puzzled, a little thoughtful, but solemn. He doesn't know how to respond, but understands this is something that matters deeply to me.
After a moment he reaches out and cups my face between his massive hands. His palms feel dry and cool. Just as he did that first day, he leans forward and places a kiss on my forehead.
"I'll take you in," he says, "an' I'll accept you as my son, as much as any boy I ever raised, provided your parents approve."
I turn and look anxiously at Father. From the corner of my eye, I see Mother doing the same. In the Reed household, Father's word is law, even if sometimes Mother might be the one to suggest what his word should be. If his mind is already made up, he won't even consult her.
Perhaps he thinks he knows what she wants for me. Perhaps he believes he already knows what I need. Whatever the case, he assents with a single, solemn nod of his head.
Charles pulls me to my feet and we hug, completely unselfconscious. It's hardly the way one would imagine a medieval fosterage contract being sealed, but this is the patriarch of the Tucker clan, and I am one of them now, and still also a Reed, and so I joyfully accept this confirmation of my new dual status – even as a small, mischievous voice whispers gleefully that this makes me the commodore's older brother, and therefore entitled to boss him around.
(Well. Technically.)
When we separate, Charles carefully steadies me as I get back into my wheelchair (my pins aren't up to holding me for long yet, and kneeling wasn't fun) and then steps back as I turn around to my family.
Father doesn't do hugs. I salute him in the naval style (after all these years, I still remember how to do it properly) and he returns it. Mother's hug is enough for both of them, and almost tips me out of my wheelchair – fortunately Charles and the commodore are close and quick enough to grab the handles before I end up faceplanted in her lap.
That leaves Maddie. When Mother finally releases me, I look around.
The remaining chair is empty.
With a stifled curse, Commodore Tucker goes over to the comm. panel and slaps the emergency button. Then he presses the transmit button and shouts over the blaring alarm, "Lock 'er down!"
By the time he gets out into the corridor, Corporal Cole and two other MACOs have arrived. I'm relieved to hear that his instructions are quite clear: Maddie is not, under any circumstances, to be treated as a hostile. "If she's too upset when you find her, call Liz Cutler an' tell her she might need a sedative. Only stun her if she seems like she's about to hurt herself an' you can't reach her in time to prevent it."
As they disperse to begin their search, he calls after them, "An' turn that damned alarm off!"
Apparently, Corporal Cole has the ability to control the alarm system remotely because it falls silent as the commodore returns to the conservatory muttering, "We really need to install a yellow alert option. Not every emergency requires everybody to run around like their hair is on fire."
Taking the handles of my chair, he says, "I assume you want to help in the search?"
"Yes, if I won't slow you down."
"You won't," he says, and then with a slightly amused tone, he adds, "'Long as you don't apply those brakes unexpectedly again." Looking to his father, he says, "Daddy?"
"I'll wait here with Admiral and Mrs. Reed, boys," he assures us.
Calling over his shoulder as we roll out, the commodore says, "We'll be back as soon as we find her."
I wait until we're out of the conservatory before I ask, a bit tensely, "Do you mind telling me why my sister's wandering off constitutes an emergency?"
"This place is supposed to be abandoned, Malcolm," he explains. "It's an old nuclear test site from the 1950's. They neutralized the radiation decades ago, but the land is still sterile an' the amount of water that isn't too far from the surface to be practically accessible isn't enough to sustain any significant population. We actually put a lot of work into makin' it look like a dump. So, as far as the Empire knows, nobody comes here but squatters, vagrants, an' desert rats. If General Reed's little sister appears on a satellite image an' gets recognized … Christ!"
Well, yes, put it that way, this is a very serious matter. He doesn't even have a colourful expression to describe how much trouble we'd be in. Anyone who did recognise her would want to know exactly what she was doing here – which would lead to even more, and extremely awkward, questions being asked.
"Also, I am a bit concerned for Maddie's safety," he continues. "She's at no risk of glowin' in the dark, but most of the structures above an' below ground are unstable; an' while I can tell she's smart enough not to venture into one of the blast craters, the edges of them have been known to crumble away underfoot."
"Bloody hell," I mutter. I was always protective of my little sister as a boy, and her continued animosity toward me notwithstanding, it seems the events of the day have brought that instinct to the fore once again. There's a tight knot of anxiety growing in my stomach as I worry about her being in danger.
"You know your sister, Malcolm. Would she go outside or hole up somewhere here in the bunker?"
"She's not stupid," I say, not even having to think about it. "If she knows she's in the desert, she wouldn't go outside without adequate water and protection from the sun."
"I'm here!" calls a thick, tear-choked voice, and Maddie, with her face all blotchy and wet, slips out from behind a collection of rubbish bins. Walking toward us, dragging her feet with every step like a child who knows she's in trouble, she looks at the commodore and says petulantly, "I'm sorry I worried you. I didn't go outside."
"That's all right, Miss Reed," he replies, smiling kindly and with relief. "But it would be best if you don't wander unescorted around the facility. There's things here you probably shouldn't see."
I look up at him sharply. Bad enough he brought my family out of their protective bubbles for a visit, but to have exposed them….
"Nothin' dangerous, in an' of itself," he says, derailing my angry thoughts, which he probably divines without much trouble, "but things of such a nature, that some people, if they knew you'd seen them, might do terrible things to get the details."
"Secret projects, you mean," Maddie guesses.
"That's right."
"All right then," she says, sounding a bit chastened. "I won't wander off again."
She looks down at me in my chair, and I give the commodore a jerk of my head which he correctly interprets to mean sod off for a bit, will you?
"I'll let your parents know we've found you," he says to Maddie. "I'd appreciate it if you'd help your brother get back to the conservatory." Then he walks away.
Dropping to her knees before me, Maddie rests her hands on my lap and looks up at me. Speaking to me – not exactly kindly, but at least without active hostility, for the first time since she's been here, she asks, "Malcolm, why didn't you ever tell anyone?"
I exhale, and try to send my mind back to what passed for reasoning after that afternoon. Of course, Sallis had threatened me with what else they would do to me if I told anyone, and that in itself had kept me quiet until I haemorrhaged and went into shock from blood loss. After that, Mr. Colyngbourne the Head Teacher had come to see me in the private room in the hospital, and together with a couple of the other senior members of staff had impressed it on me how much trouble I would cause for everyone (including, by implication, me) if the story got out; how mortified my family would be to have me the centre of such a scandal. How the story would follow me around, possibly for years, and how much better it would be for everyone if I was brave enough to keep my mouth shut.
At six, you believe adults know best and you trust them, however foolishly, to want what's best for you. I was already conscious, even at that age, of being undersized and prone to illness. Absolutely the last thing I wanted was to give Mother any more reason to worry and Father any more reason to be ashamed of me.
"I was too ashamed," I say in a low voice. "I blamed myself for not being able to stop it from happening. And the school ... the school just wanted it hushed up."
Her eyes flash. "Weren't they punished at all?"
I know her anger is not for me, but for the boy I was, and I'm grateful that she still has any feeling at all for either of us.
"Sallis was moved to another school; I think they worried I might be so traumatised seeing him around the place that I might not be able to stop myself from blurting something out. The others, well, they more or less said he'd forced them into taking part, so they got pretty well let off."
She looks down for a minute, and then up again, searchingly. "You do know the place burned down a few years later."
I hold her gaze, keeping my own opaque. "I heard about it."
"And several members of staff died in the fire."
"Old Colyngbourne among them."
I know what she wants me to say. Or rather, to deny. But that was the year that I came back from Wolfplanet Mindfuck, and any capacity I'd ever had to forgive those who'd wronged me had been long lost.
"I hope you're not expecting me to say I was heartbroken about it," I say with a shrug. "But at the time I'd been off-world for special training and been promoted to Staff Sergeant. Believe you me, I had a lot more on my plate to worry about than what those cowardly bastards had done over twenty years ago."
"Of course," she says, relieved. "You wrote to Aunt Sherrie that you were appointed control of a platoon when their own officer was killed."
I give a grunt and a roll of the eyes that indicate something of what a task I'd been given. It would probably have been a lot worse if the story of the Battle of Training Room Six hadn't passed into legend by then, but it still wasn't easy. I had to deal out a few more examples of my version of 'discipline' before it was accepted that failing to obey any order I took it into my head to give was extremely hazardous to health – and, occasionally, to life and limb.
"Shall we go back to the conservatory before they have Commodore Tucker sending out a search party?" I ask. "You know Mother. She always worries."
For one moment she hesitates, and I hold my breath. Then she gives a sigh, and I know with a mixture of shame and triumph that she has chosen to believe me. After all, back then I was a relatively junior officer in the service of the Empire, stationed at the other side of the world.
What chance could I possibly have had to organise a deadly arson attack on a school in the heart of the Nottinghamshire countryside?
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