“You’re
under arrest for harboring a fugitive,” the uniformed officer roughly informed
Blue as he slapped a pair of cuffs on his wrists. The Night’s Herald was face
down on the floor, as was Harata, both having their noses ground into the
matting.
“You-“ a harness bull addressed Harata, nuzzling a pistol against his
back, “where’s your ID?”
“I don’t have any,” the Clanless spat back, tasting the reeds that
made up the woven mats.
The cop threw the wallet his was pawing through against the wall.
“Listen, asshole, everyone has ID.”
“I don’t have any.”
He could feel the cold pressure of the gun against his spine. It shifted
around, as though alive. A hand took hold of a mass of his hair and pulled.
“Where is your ID?” the face of the angry policeman filled his
vision.
“I. Don’t. Have. Any.”
Harata hadn’t expected the first punch. For a moment after it
connected, he saw nothing but black. The assault began in earnest then, and he
tried in vain to shield himself from the onslaught. Lying prone and cuffed,
there was nothing he could do but accept the beating. The two cops standing over
Blue began snickering, then outright laughing. It wasn’t long before they
started on him, too.
Neither of the captives made any sound, other than dull grunts as air was
forced through their lungs. Soon enough, the beating was over, and the two lay
silent and bleeding, the cops hovering over them, dull vultures.
“Let’s take ‘em in- find out why this little bitch is hiding his
ID,” said the lead officer. He nudged Harata with his boot. “You know,
we’re going to find out who you are anyway, jackass. Who you are, and what you
did.”
The pair were lifted to their feet and prodded along by the noses of the
guns. Outside, the humid evening air settled into cuts and bruises with an
antiseptic feel. At one point, Blue stumbled a little, nearly pitching down the
steep temple stairs. The police began snickering again.
They were driven into the city. Harata stared with wonderment at the
bright lights whizzing by, in awe of the giant nest of humanity. The Night’s
Herald, familiar with the neon titan that was Mianuus, simply rested his
forehead against the cool glass. He glanced over at the Clanless. Soon, the
shock of their arrest would wear off, and Blue worried that his newfound
companion would panic. The Night’s Herald had already resigned himself to
fate. What had happened, happened. The only way was to walk forward through
this, just like everything else.
They were booked at the central station of the city. Harata was taken to
a wing of labs, where the staff would determine his identity, while Blue was
carted off for interrogation.
The world seemed to swim before Harata’s eyes. He felt himself
bordering on exhaustion, but his primary emotion lay somewhere between confusion
and frustration. I came all this way… all this way to rot in a cell. He
wondered if there was anything he could’ve done to prevent this outcome. He
wondered if he shouldn’t have just ignored the dream, or if he should’ve
waited longer before leaving the Otherlands. He wondered hundreds of things as
he walked down the dull corridor, painted in chill florescent light.
In the lab, the attendants looked at him, eyes vacant from routine. He
was seated, and like hungry ants they fell on him, pulling samples of hair,
skin. They aimed his deep brown eyes at some contraption for a retinal scan. As
they buzzed about him, plucking and scraping, he felt they were stealing his
very humanity. They cocooned him in science, where he would undergo his
metamorphosis- living soul to tissue sample. He became awash in despair,
breathing it in until one of the attendants turned to him and said,
“All right, now let’s see who you are.”
The young man pushed a button on the keyboard of his computer. The two
sat waiting.
“You have about two minutes to fess up before this thing tells your
tale for you. Got anything to say?”
Harata silently shook his head.
The computer flashed through data on each of the samples and scans.
NO MATCH.
Those two lone words, two simple syllables became the silent chant of the
screen. Over and over, its only communication sprang to vision. NO MATCH.
NO MATCH.
“What the…?”
The attendant stared at the screen for a moment, then turned a menacing
look on Harata. His fingers rushed back to the keyboard, tapping out a series of
codes and combinations. He ran a group of samples taken earlier in the day. Each
one dragged the appropriate personal information from the seemingly infinite
database and displayed it on the screen. He tried Harata’s samples again.
NO MATCH.
“Hey!” called another man from the back of the lab. “What’s the
digs on our mystery man?”
“Computer’s busted. Check it out.”
Soon, the others drifted forward, zombie-like in the eerie light. They
gathered around.
“Try running another set.”
“Already did. Yesterday’s batch was fine, same with today’s.”
“Maybe there’s a glitch processing new info?”
“Let’s try someone else,” came a soft suggestion from the back of
the small group.
So they agreed to run the test on the soft-spoken man who’d made the
suggestion. After taking the usual set of samples and running them through the
computer, they sat back to wait. It wasn’t long before the data popped up. As
the attendants stood, scratching their heads, Harata peered at the screen. A
swift shock constricted his throat- not only was the man’s name, address, and
information regarding appearance available, so was his present location, with
the option to track his previous movements on another screen. There was also a
menu with options to locate family members and known associates. No one can
hide here, he thought to himself.
The lab staff had decided to run a second set of tests, in the event the
first batch had been tainted somehow. So the poking and prodding began anew.
When they were through, everyone gathered round the screen. It seemed that no
one was breathing, and they were all tilting forward like unseasoned gamblers
watching the races. A few moments passed. Finally, the awaited answer sprang to
the screen- NO MATCH.
There was a collective sigh.
“What should we do with him?”
“I guess they’ll just book him for the night,” answered the
loud-mouthed attendant.
Suddenly a voice piped from the back,
“You know what this means? He could be…”
“Don’t get your hopes up. Odds are, this guy’s nothing but a
smarter than average hooligan.”
The group fell into an argument then. Harata sat in
silence, listening to their voices rise and fall. It seemed roughly half of the
group believed he could be a seasoned criminal, one with the means to alter his
biological makeup. Others argued that it couldn’t be possible. Wouldn’t such
a problem have come up earlier if such operations were available? One suggested
he could be a spy from the Otherlands. He could’ve bleached his skin, perhaps
the hair follicles, too.
“Well,” the outspoken attendant turned to him. “Don’t you have
anything to say for yourself? Are you the Clanless One? Huh?”
Harata said nothing.
“Can’t you speak?”
“Hey,” said the quiet one, “save the questioning for the
Inquisitors. Let’s just file our report and be done with it.”
So Harata was led back down the hall, through the impotent florescent
glow of the lights. How am I going to get out of here? There seemed to be
no answer to his question. At the end of the hall, he was handed back over to a
harness bull. The quiet lab attendant leaned forward quickly and whispered,
“You’re the One, aren’t you? I know it.”
He turned and left abruptly, the sound of his footsteps fading down the static hall.
