‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run ›
Hurricane Heart
Demobilising Operation
Hurricane
‘Arjan!’ I cried, hurrying after him as he strode purposefully back to the road where I’d parked. He didn’t respond; it seemed he was determined to give me everything I gave him.
That was different. I had a reason.
And I wasn’t the prisoner—he should be listening to me.
‘Arjan!’ I called again, noticing how he got further ahead of me. I slowed, wiping my face, slicked with wet, slimy mud, on the sleeve of my leather jacket.
One question still ran through my mind.
What had just happened?
I got into the car, slamming the door and turning on the heating without a moment’s hesitation. He got in beside me, finally out of the rain.
‘What was that about?’ I asked. I’d meant to sound a little more grateful; after all, he had just saved my life, but after all this silent treatment it came out more like an impatient demand.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, playing innocent.
‘Well,’ I said, allowing my voice to soften just a little as I looked out the windscreen into what I could see of the night, the glass steaming up before me. ‘Why did you do it? I haven’t exactly been nice to you since we met.’
‘I heard screams,’ he explained. ‘What did you expect me to do? Nice or not; I’m not just going to watch anyone die when I know I have the power to help them.’
Despite all the bullshit people were taught these days, at least morals had stayed the same. Considering he was a non-Dreamer, Arjan had been educated well on this side of things. I highly doubted he’d ever been in a life-or-death situation, or anything anywhere near so serious, so I was surprised he even knew the true significance of killing and saving a life.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured, still unable to meet his gaze. I took off my sodden jacket and chucked it through to the back seat. I ran a hand through my black and pink hair, pushing it back out of my face and pulling my legs up close to my chest against the cold, not ready to drive off just yet.
After the ordeal, I had momentarily forgotten everything Arjan had said to me before; everything he’d said about running from emotion; running from the truth.
Maybe it was true.
No. I knew it was true, to some extent. In a way, I’d intended it to be true. I’d willingly given up on emotion when everything went wrong, and I decided to change my life for the better. Now, I was the best Dreamer there was, because I had nothing to lose. Creating no special bonds of love and friendship meant I had nothing to worry about but my own survival, and even that was hardly important. All I needed was to complete the tasks I was set; for personal gain, or to make the world a better place. What happened to me or anyone I knew was of no significance.
And now, Arjan was forcing this demon called emotion back into my life again. He’d saved me from the Soulless and from God-knew-how-long in the Institution, and I was almost unbearably grateful. I almost couldn’t stand it. Imagination was the safe thing. Emotion was the danger.
So yes, I was running. I was running from emotion; I was running from love and friendship; I was running from myself, and possibly from everything that had ever made me who I was. I wanted to deny it; to make it fade into the past, but it never would quite leave me no matter how far I ran, so I never stopped. Never had I reached a true safe house where I could be rid of all dark emotions and memories.
Wow. I was fucked up.
I knew it, and yet I had no real desire to change.
That was until Arjan came.
Though of course everything I did to him was pretend. Every time I smiled at him and tried to make myself trust him and grow closer to him, it was just another stage in the Master’s task. I was just doing my job, and I was doing it to a high standard.
Yes. Everything I thought about him was pretend...
***
We drove through the night until about two am, when I finally succumbed to the tiredness and pulled over to the side of the road, just for a small sleep. Surely I was allowed a couple of hours or so, was I not?
I woke up precisely two hours later, turning on the engine and beginning to drive off down the quiet highway. Arjan was asleep in the seat beside me, and I decided to leave him that way. He hadn’t fallen asleep until I pulled over either.
Shortly after a pale dawn broke and the rain finally stopped, we entered into Lithuania. Despite having narrowly missed getting killed on the road many times in the last twenty-four hours, I was rather proud of my maniacal driving and I considered getting this far this quickly as some sort of personal achievement.
I stopped off at a highway service station around mid-morning so that we could both use the toilets, and I picked up some more food. Thankfully, the Master had supplied me with enough money to last a while before I left, and there were always ways of getting more, but it wasn't always that easy.
Once again, we were quiet during the day, driving speedily but uneventfully through Lithuania. It was unimaginably boring as usual; so boring that I actually bothered to tune into the radio news broadcasts. It sounded like not a lot was happening in the world—we were receiving a Lithuanian radio station around here, spoken in a speedy foreign tongue, and I wasn’t overly interested in minor Lithuanian politics anyway.
I clicked through the stations absent-mindedly, ideally looking for a German one, but the English one seemed sufficient instead. It was mostly reporting on British news, which I didn’t care about quite so much, but it talked about the rest of Europe too.
The interesting bit came when I first heard the word ‘rebel.’ My ears pricked and I turned the volume up. It seemed that even Arjan was listening.
‘What is it?’ he murmured.
‘Ssh,’ I said, leaning a little closer as though I would hear more from that distance.
‘In other related news, the fates of fifty-three British rebels captured two weeks ago when their base in London was raided, have finally been decided. One week after they were captured and trialled, twenty-two of them, who did not currently have a criminal record under the official title of Rebel, were put into six months of rehabilitation in the Institution. A further twenty-eight have now been sentenced to longer terms behind bars; the longest of which went to a Matthew Cartwright, who was the only rebel to receive a maximum sentence of fifteen years in the Institution after evidence was found of him breaking into the underground Vaults on multiple occasions.
‘As for the remaining three, they have all currently been staying in Institutions for the past two weeks, and now it has been officially decided by the Crown Court that these three have committed crimes severe and regularly enough to receive Demobilisation.’
I abruptly changed the channel. Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to hear about the Demobilising Operation. I ended up on a Polish speaking channel, with a female voice blabbing on about something that sounded like the weather. Arjan looked at me questioningly, but my face suggested that he didn’t proceed.
I did not fear death, but I feared the Operation. We all did. And for those poor, incredible people who sacrificed their very souls for the sake of the dream, I felt the deepest regret ever. And I couldn’t take it.
I switched my mind off, concentrating on the menial things around me as though I was a normal citizen with no imagination; the height of my thoughts focusing on the cars on the roads and the trees that lined it and the names on the signposts and even the colour of the sky...anything that wasn’t to do with the Dreamers.
We crossed into Poland during the middle of the day. The Master had told me to get out of the Baltic States before stopping anywhere. Now I was officially back in Poland, I figured we could stop. The Soulless hopefully still thought we were in Belarus or Estonia or possibly somewhere on the Baltic Sea, and until they realised otherwise we were relatively safe.
I drove into the city of Suwalki as the night closed in and the sky turned black. It was completely dark by the time I found a hotel; decorated and designed like all the others we’d stayed in, and booked us a room. I took in my little gun and the bullet one, just to be on the safe side, plus all the essentials I normally packed into my bag.
‘Arjan!’ I cried, hurrying after him as he strode purposefully back to the road where I’d parked. He didn’t respond; it seemed he was determined to give me everything I gave him.
That was different. I had a reason.
And I wasn’t the prisoner—he should be listening to me.
‘Arjan!’ I called again, noticing how he got further ahead of me. I slowed, wiping my face, slicked with wet, slimy mud, on the sleeve of my leather jacket.
One question still ran through my mind.
What had just happened?
I got into the car, slamming the door and turning on the heating without a moment’s hesitation. He got in beside me, finally out of the rain.
‘What was that about?’ I asked. I’d meant to sound a little more grateful; after all, he had just saved my life, but after all this silent treatment it came out more like an impatient demand.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, playing innocent.
‘Well,’ I said, allowing my voice to soften just a little as I looked out the windscreen into what I could see of the night, the glass steaming up before me. ‘Why did you do it? I haven’t exactly been nice to you since we met.’
‘I heard screams,’ he explained. ‘What did you expect me to do? Nice or not; I’m not just going to watch anyone die when I know I have the power to help them.’
Despite all the bullshit people were taught these days, at least morals had stayed the same. Considering he was a non-Dreamer, Arjan had been educated well on this side of things. I highly doubted he’d ever been in a life-or-death situation, or anything anywhere near so serious, so I was surprised he even knew the true significance of killing and saving a life.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured, still unable to meet his gaze. I took off my sodden jacket and chucked it through to the back seat. I ran a hand through my black and pink hair, pushing it back out of my face and pulling my legs up close to my chest against the cold, not ready to drive off just yet.
After the ordeal, I had momentarily forgotten everything Arjan had said to me before; everything he’d said about running from emotion; running from the truth.
Maybe it was true.
No. I knew it was true, to some extent. In a way, I’d intended it to be true. I’d willingly given up on emotion when everything went wrong, and I decided to change my life for the better. Now, I was the best Dreamer there was, because I had nothing to lose. Creating no special bonds of love and friendship meant I had nothing to worry about but my own survival, and even that was hardly important. All I needed was to complete the tasks I was set; for personal gain, or to make the world a better place. What happened to me or anyone I knew was of no significance.
And now, Arjan was forcing this demon called emotion back into my life again. He’d saved me from the Soulless and from God-knew-how-long in the Institution, and I was almost unbearably grateful. I almost couldn’t stand it. Imagination was the safe thing. Emotion was the danger.
So yes, I was running. I was running from emotion; I was running from love and friendship; I was running from myself, and possibly from everything that had ever made me who I was. I wanted to deny it; to make it fade into the past, but it never would quite leave me no matter how far I ran, so I never stopped. Never had I reached a true safe house where I could be rid of all dark emotions and memories.
Wow. I was fucked up.
I knew it, and yet I had no real desire to change.
That was until Arjan came.
Though of course everything I did to him was pretend. Every time I smiled at him and tried to make myself trust him and grow closer to him, it was just another stage in the Master’s task. I was just doing my job, and I was doing it to a high standard.
Yes. Everything I thought about him was pretend...
***
We drove through the night until about two am, when I finally succumbed to the tiredness and pulled over to the side of the road, just for a small sleep. Surely I was allowed a couple of hours or so, was I not?
I woke up precisely two hours later, turning on the engine and beginning to drive off down the quiet highway. Arjan was asleep in the seat beside me, and I decided to leave him that way. He hadn’t fallen asleep until I pulled over either.
Shortly after a pale dawn broke and the rain finally stopped, we entered into Lithuania. Despite having narrowly missed getting killed on the road many times in the last twenty-four hours, I was rather proud of my maniacal driving and I considered getting this far this quickly as some sort of personal achievement.
I stopped off at a highway service station around mid-morning so that we could both use the toilets, and I picked up some more food. Thankfully, the Master had supplied me with enough money to last a while before I left, and there were always ways of getting more, but it wasn't always that easy.
Once again, we were quiet during the day, driving speedily but uneventfully through Lithuania. It was unimaginably boring as usual; so boring that I actually bothered to tune into the radio news broadcasts. It sounded like not a lot was happening in the world—we were receiving a Lithuanian radio station around here, spoken in a speedy foreign tongue, and I wasn’t overly interested in minor Lithuanian politics anyway.
I clicked through the stations absent-mindedly, ideally looking for a German one, but the English one seemed sufficient instead. It was mostly reporting on British news, which I didn’t care about quite so much, but it talked about the rest of Europe too.
The interesting bit came when I first heard the word ‘rebel.’ My ears pricked and I turned the volume up. It seemed that even Arjan was listening.
‘What is it?’ he murmured.
‘Ssh,’ I said, leaning a little closer as though I would hear more from that distance.
‘In other related news, the fates of fifty-three British rebels captured two weeks ago when their base in London was raided, have finally been decided. One week after they were captured and trialled, twenty-two of them, who did not currently have a criminal record under the official title of Rebel, were put into six months of rehabilitation in the Institution. A further twenty-eight have now been sentenced to longer terms behind bars; the longest of which went to a Matthew Cartwright, who was the only rebel to receive a maximum sentence of fifteen years in the Institution after evidence was found of him breaking into the underground Vaults on multiple occasions.
‘As for the remaining three, they have all currently been staying in Institutions for the past two weeks, and now it has been officially decided by the Crown Court that these three have committed crimes severe and regularly enough to receive Demobilisation.’
I abruptly changed the channel. Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to hear about the Demobilising Operation. I ended up on a Polish speaking channel, with a female voice blabbing on about something that sounded like the weather. Arjan looked at me questioningly, but my face suggested that he didn’t proceed.
I did not fear death, but I feared the Operation. We all did. And for those poor, incredible people who sacrificed their very souls for the sake of the dream, I felt the deepest regret ever. And I couldn’t take it.
I switched my mind off, concentrating on the menial things around me as though I was a normal citizen with no imagination; the height of my thoughts focusing on the cars on the roads and the trees that lined it and the names on the signposts and even the colour of the sky...anything that wasn’t to do with the Dreamers.
We crossed into Poland during the middle of the day. The Master had told me to get out of the Baltic States before stopping anywhere. Now I was officially back in Poland, I figured we could stop. The Soulless hopefully still thought we were in Belarus or Estonia or possibly somewhere on the Baltic Sea, and until they realised otherwise we were relatively safe.
I drove into the city of Suwalki as the night closed in and the sky turned black. It was completely dark by the time I found a hotel; decorated and designed like all the others we’d stayed in, and booked us a room. I took in my little gun and the bullet one, just to be on the safe side, plus all the essentials I normally packed into my bag.