Awake.


Awake. He was awake. His mind stirred as he tried to comprehend something else. Pain. Not sharp, not new; dull, throbbing. In his head. Something else, what was something new..... Bump. He felt a bump, and his whole body shifted. He was being moved. Not a lot of sounds. Something smelled like mold and vomit. Eyes open. Brown. Brown felt, fabric, a few feet above him. Another bump. He was in a car. He tilted his head up. Buildings were flying by outside the window. It was dark, streetlights were on. Something hard, on his back; his gun? No, just a pocket knife. Might come in handy anyway.

He sat up, and everything tinted yellow for a moment, before clearing. That's right. He was in the back seat of an Order car, being “escorted” to Holding. They'd come right as he'd been tossing the pistol, which had been used to kill his sister's recent acquaintance, off a bridge. He hadn't quite finished before they'd arrived and gotten their hands on it, and he was put in cuffs. He'd tried to make a break for it, and almost made it, except one of those morons got lucky and landed a whack on the back of his knees. He'd dropped like a rock, hit his head on the pavement, and all had gone black.

“You awake back there?” came a voice from the front. He couldn't see the speaker, there was a divider blocking him with just a tiny little window in it.

“Do I want to be?” A short, muffled laugh came as a response.

“Yeah, you want to be. Last thing you want is to make us have to chuck you into a cell. We're not known for being too careful after finding out one of our Ordermen got his head blown off. 'Specially not with the kid who did it.”

So they'd already made their own conclusions. Good that they didn't know what really happened, but bad that they'd decided he'd done it. Worse yet, now that they were convinced he'd done it and they actually had him, he had pretty much no chance in hell of getting out again. He was good, but nobody's that good.

He felt the car slow down, felt another bump as they turned into the Holding House. They came to a stop, and he stole a moment to enjoy the silence, the softness of the seat beneath him, before the door was yanked open and he was forced out of the car. They pushed him through the door, and he was quickly searched, his pocket knife removed. One of them walked off to the counter for some paperwork as another two Ordermen came out to help drag him, stumbling, to a cell. The door clanged shut after they dropped him in, and his knees buckled, sprawling him across the floor.

This had not been a good day so far. He'd known it would be a bad day from the moment he woke up, because it was June 15th, and that was always a bad day. The exact magnitude of how bad a day this would be, though, he'd had no idea.

* * *

It had started off like every June 15th for the last five years: rolling off the bed of some anonymous cheap hotel room at some unholy hour of the morning, and glaring at the wall until eight o`clock, wishing the day to an end. He'd then head out, and look for the graveyard, where he'd stand perfectly positioned in a tree outside the fence, watching the hill off about a hundred feet away, invisible to anyone who wasn't on that hill.

Sometimes he'd wait for hours; this time he only had to wait twenty minutes. The city was just warming up when he'd seen her: long dark hair tied back in an elegant braid, beautiful face strangely pale in the morning sun, her skirt skimming the grass as she made her way up to a small gravestone, barely visible above the ground. He'd watched her bend down to place a few wildflowers on the rock, and trace out the words announcing the death of an old man named Cabi.

He hadn't seen the words himself since the day they'd been put there, not even come within the boundary of the graveyard fence, preferring to use the opportunity to see her, to see his sister. He'd thought Naima wouldn't want him there, intruding on her, though surely he had just as much reason to be there as she. Whatever the reason, she always went to the gravestone, and he always stayed away to watch her.

Until, of course, today. Ten minutes after she'd left, as he'd decided it was time to get down and head back, he'd been nearly startled out of the tree at a sudden voice.

“Avi,” It said. Or she'd said. For it was her, Naima, in her unmistakable animated voice, calling him by his childhood nickname. Stunned, he'd looked down into her eyes, awkward and desperate, and was at lost for what to say. “I need your help with something.”

Eyebrows furrowed, he'd slid out of the tree. “With what?” He'd asked, ready for anything

“I killed an Orderman.”

* * *


“Name?”

Avi groaned inwardly, clutching his throbbing head. What was his name supposed to be this time? He'd had so many, he could never remember. Ironic, considering how keeping away from the Order was the reason he'd had so many names.

“Name, please.”

Irony aside, he needed a name now, and clearly not the one they were looking for. What was a name he could use? Something new....

“Dansu. My name is Dansu.”

“Just Dansu?”

“Would you leave me alone if it was?”

“Family name. Now.”

“Samoki. Samoki Dansu.”

“Got any ID?”

Avi looked up wearily. “Gosh, must've lost it when you guys tackled me. Should I go look for it?”

“That won't be necessary. We'll find out from your prints soon enough.”

No they wouldn't. A plus for being born and raised outside of the knowledge of the Palace: no mandatory childhood fingerprint scans, DNA submissions, yearly photo submissions, or any other method of identification they had. Of course, he hoped to be long gone by the time the results of those came in, but if all else failed, that would make for a nice backup.

“What were you doing on the Codali Bridge tonight?”

“Getting a breath of fresh air.”

“Why did you have a gun?”

“Wanted something shiny to look at?”

“Were you aware that that gun belonged to Orderman Kasabi Foali, who was recently found dead?”

They were seriously pushing for answers now. No way to get out simply, so it was time to start actually trying to look less guilty. “Wait, what?”

“Orderman Kasabi. Dead. Killed. And you did it.”

Blink a few times. Shake head slowly, mouth slightly open. “That.... What? No....” Gulp loudly, look over at the door guard nervously. Babble like an idiot.” Look, I didn't do anything to any Orderman, I swear. All I did was pick up the thing. Honest. I just came walking back from the bar, the one around the corner from the bridge? Then I saw it, just laying there, by the edge. Nice gun, I thought, so I went over to look at it. Then I figured, someone probably meant to throw it over, right, to get rid of it, so it wasn't any good holding on to it, even if it was a nice piece. Somebody wanted to get rid of it for a reason, so I was gonna throw it off again, 'cause my prints were on it and all, and I didn't want to get caught up in anything, 'cept you guys came first. Probably a good thing you did, though, if some guy used it to kill an Order. Man, are you really serious? Is an Orderman seriously dead?”

“We never said it was used to kill him.”

Don't hesitate.”Well you didn't say it, but what else could it be? Guy has a gun, gun gets taken away from him, guy end up dead, gun ends up on a bridge somewhere. I'm no detective, but that seems kinda obvious to me.”

That earned him a frown. “.....You're right. You're no detective. And that's a nice story, but we can't let you leave yet. I'll have Orderman Saldo take you back to your cell.” The guard at the door came over and grabbed Avi's elbow, yanking him up. “Still say your name is Dansu?”

Just answer and go. “Um, yeah.”

“You say you were in a bar before you found the gun?”

“Yeah...”

“How old are you, Dansu?”

Hesitate. They trust bad liars more.”Twenty-two.”

“No you're not. I doubt you're even nineteen.”

“I...” ...Actually am nineteen, not that I'd tell you...”... I turned eighteen a couple months ago.”

A laugh.

Grimace.”You're not going to do anything, are you? Look, I know I shouldn't've been in there, okay? I'll stay out of--”

“Whatever, kid. I don't care. Just don't go picking up guns off the ground anymore, okay?”

Halfhearted smile.”Yeah, sure.”

“We'll get you out of here as soon as we can.” And with that, Avi was marched back to the cell, where he sat on the floor with his head in his knees, trying to ease his headache.

Awake.


He was awake again. On the floor; it was hard, cement. Something loud, a banging, from behind him. He tilted his head up, and looked out to see a uniformed guard, yelling at him.

“What?”

“Get up and move. Some big shot wants to talk to you.”

Right. He was arrested. He'd been there for at least ten hours, so they'd have run his finger prints by now, and found out he wasn't who he'd said he was. Or who he'd said he wasn't, for that matter, because he wasn't anyone, as far as they'd be able to tell. He contemplated how much they knew as he picked himself up off the floor and followed two guards down the hallway. His hands were cuffed, and each of his arms were grabbed, leading him around several turns, deeper into the building.

After a few minutes, they arrived at a door, at the end of a hall. The guards stopped, and one of them took out his radio, and said that they'd arrived.

The lack of any information coming to him was frustrating, although not terribly surprising. “Arrived where, exactly? Where're you taking me?”

“We're just taking you here. Some other guys are taking you the rest of the way.”

“The rest of the way to where?”

“I told ya', some guy from the Palace wants to see you. Probably was a friend of Foali, and doesn't buy your stupid 'I just found that gun' story.” The other guard gave a warning glance; evidently Avi wasn't supposed to hear that.

A knock on the door signaled that whoever was coming for him had arrived as well. The door opened and Avi was greeted by – a breeze. Fresh air. He was outside, looking at a sleek black Order Car, with two Ordermen in suits standing around it, and a third beside him at the door. These weren't just any Ordermen, though, they were Peacemen, the higher level of Ordermen who, instead of keeping Order, evidently kept the Peace. Special Order Ordermen, as Avi preferred to call them.

Aside from being Special Order, though, they were also known for being guardians of the Palace. Not the Palace as in the government, but the actual physical Palace, which stood ominously in the middle of the city, by law taller than any other building, supposedly as a symbol of the greatness of the Kingdom. Orderman Kasabi must have had friends in high places, to have his death catch the notice of someone at the Palace.

He was brought into the back of the car, with the largest of the Special Orders next to him. As they started off and drove down the road in silence, he considered the possibility that his own peculiar lack of a name might have been why he was being transported to the Palace. Unlikely, since the base for identification was probably the only group that cared, and it was on the edge of the city.

The buildings seem to grow smaller as the Palace stretched out in front of them. They came closer and closer to the great building, pulling into a circle drive fifty yards from the main entrance. Two of the Peacemen stepped out of the car, taking him with them, and the driver pulled away. They were far enough away that he had time to look over the building. Windows everywhere, but not too many doors, and he doubted many of those windows actually opened. Ventilation shafts between each row of windows caught his eye, as they looked big enough to squeeze through in a pinch, if he could get the covers off. Might come in handy.

They walked through the doors, large and wooden, and entered a monstrosity of a room, which would not have been out of place in an ancient church. He had little time to enjoy it, though, because he was immediately drawn to the left, through an archway in the side. From there he was walked down a corridor, turning right, and reached a reception desk at the end of it, next to a large, polished wooden door. A woman sat there, hair drawn back, staring intently at a computer screen, fingers flying across the keyboard. After a few moments with no indication she'd noticed Avi and his entourage, the man to the left of him gave a short cough.

The woman stopped typing, moving only her eyes to them. “Yes?” She asked curtly.

“Suspect in Kasabi murder, West Gali Holding House, for the eighth hour.”

Her eyes moved back to the computer screen, where she tapped out three key strokes. Her mouse lay off to the right, half hidden under papers, gathering dust from neglect. “No record of an appointment.” The eyes slid back to them, the brows above frowning. “The Royal Palace rarely deals with criminal matters. There shouldn't be any reason for a meeting to be called.”

Royal Palace? This wasn't good.... It wasn't just some big shot who wanted to talk to him, it was a part of the Royal Family. Very not good, very very not good.....

“The meeting was requested”

“I very much doubt that. I'm the one who sends out the requests.”

“The request was personal, it wasn't run through you.”

That startled her a bit. Numbly, she turned in her chair, and pushed a stack of papers off of a small screen. She tapped it, tapped it again, and slid her finger down, scrolling the screen down a list. “My apologies.” She said weakly, as if her very existence depended on knowing all that went on. She reached over and flipped a switch. “Suspect in Kasabi murder, entering.” She told the switch, flipped it down again, and pressed a button next to it. The door behind her buzzed, and one of the Peacemen walked forward to open it. Avi came through after him, the other Peaceman behind, and stepped into the most splendid room he'd ever been in in his life.

It was beautiful, with columns of finely crafted woodwork stretching toward the ceiling. It was centuries old, and must have been of the finest architecture of the time, contrasting the newer, sleek and efficient style that currently filled the city. The ceiling flowed up to finely lain tiles, depicting colorful designs of flowers and water and trees, shining with the light from the giant crystal chandelier which hung from the center. The left side of the room was filled by archway windows, tinted with swirling colors of blue and red and green, which splayed across the stone floor before them. And at the head of this glorious room, on a platform beside a very large body guard, was an elegant wooden armchair, upon which sat the shiniest, most richly attired woman Avi had ever seen.

She was young, hardly eighteen, with sharp features, and looked almost like a large porcelain doll. She wore a long red dress, smooth and silky, with great bell sleeves which nearly reached the floor. Around her neck were enough stones to buy half the city, ringing around layer after layer, so that from her collar bone to her shoulder there was little that could be seen but red glittering rubies.

Yet her hair was the most ludicrous of all. On top of her head was a strange ornament, metal, with thick wires twisting and turning in elegant arrangements. And through it her hair, jet black, was threaded, looping and dipping, slick and shiny, into an arrangement which looked like the world's most complicated chandelier, except the designer forgot to include lights. And from that convoluted hair stuck two long, bright red feathers, and one black feather in the middle. It was these feathers which told him he was looking at the current Queen of Desoria, the most powerful nation in the world, and as luck would have it, the nation in which he was currently standing.

Avi knew a bit about the woman he was looking at, from the many articals and news broadcasts and the like which were in such abundance these days. Her name was Anafia, and she was indeed hardly eighteen. She had turned eighteen two weeks ago, which was when she was able to inherit the kingdom her father left her when he died. She'd been raised as the daughter of a Nobel family until three years ago, as was the custom, and since had been trained on how to be queen. She would officially become queen in another two weeks, a month after turning eighteen, and there would be a city-wide celebration, a national holiday, and at least four grandiose honorary ceremonies. Which meant there was quite a number of things she needed to do. Which meant that for her to put all of it aside long enough to personally request a meeting with a suspect in a homicide, a suspect who had provided a perfectly reasonable explanation and really shouldn't be a suspect, was, quite definitely, very not good.

Once they were about thirty feet away from her, the two Peacemen beside him bowed, in that demeaning kneeling position which made one look like they were about to get their heads chopped off. Not wanting to cause more problems than he surely was already going to, but hating every moment of it, Avi tipped himself into a bow as well. He kept his eyes on the woman before him, however, instead of looking at the floor as he ought to have. She inclined her head slightly, and they rose.

“Hello to you,” she said, in a very quiet voice.

Avi looked at the floor before him, doing his best to make as little impression as possible. “Greetings”

“I say the words 'hello to you' “ she continued, in the same quiet voice,” because I have no other way to address you.”

“I am addressed as Dansu.”

“So I've heard. But as you not only lack personal identification, but my Center of Identification has been unable to find any record of a Samoki Dansu, nor any family called Samoki, I remain unconvinced”

A twinge of irritation at himself for not being more careful, for not thinking far enough ahead, for not somehow preventing this from happening flooded through his mind. Why hadn't he been able to stay away from the Order as usual? Why couldn't he have been smart enough to get a new ID before getting in this mess? Why hadn't he been able to talk his way out of this as he'd been able to every single other time he'd been outnumbered?

“But as you may have figured out already, that's not why you're here. You're here for three reasons: First, because I knew Orderman Kasabi Foali many years ago, when I was very young, and have been watching for news of him since. Second, because there was a leak in a water line yesterday morning, and all of the bars near either side of Codali Bridge were closed. And third, and most importantly, your fingerprints, which did not match a Samoki Dansu, turned up a single result, a match to those on a database of persons who are rated as the highest priority for capture. All record of the person was removed from file, save that set of fingerprints.”

Avi inwardly cringed. He'd been so thorough! So painstakingly careful to remove all traces of himself! The database must have been kept in an entirely different section from where his file had been. If he'd done the job properly, he wouldn't have been in this much trouble in the first place. And just then he realized exactly how much trouble that was. It was really time to leave. He needed a way, some way, to get out, to escape. If he could get away, if he could just get out of the building, he could figure something out, he could disappear like so many other times.

“Given the implications of these facts, it seems laughable to have you kept in a common Holding House. It only makes sense for you to be kept here, the most secure place in the city, until it can be determined what to do with you. Lusen” She said, turning to the guard beside her, “Go down to holding, and have a cell run through and prepared for our anonymous guest here. Afterwards, send guards up for him, and find Nobelwoman Kifa and tell her I'll be over at preparation shortly.”

The guard bowed lightly, and exited the room. This was his chance! He quickly assessed the Peacemen beside him from the corner of his eye. Only the one on the left had a gun at his belt; the one on the right had his on the inside of his right ankle. They had stopped holding on to him, and neither of them was abnormally large or strong. He had a decent shot, if he did it right. Remember your training.

In half a second, he'd knocked the one on the right to the ground with a shove to the back of his knees. He grabbed the gun from the second, awkwardly holding it with both hands. A hard knock to his head with the butt of the gun, and the one on the left was unconscious. The first was struggling with his ankle holster, until Avi pulled him up with the chain in his handcuffs around his neck. Gun pointed at the soon to be queen, he stumbled over to the windows with the Peaceman gagging for breath. She simply watched him, head tilted, like she was watching a play or a television show.

He was on the first floor. If he broke the window, it wouldn't be more than a ten foot drop to ground. He could make it. He turned the gun toward the window, and pulled the trigger-- the glass shattered. As it tinkled to the floor, his ears were filled with a crackling, sizzling sound, and the world went yellow, as 50,000 volts ran through his body. Twitching violently, he fell to his back, and watched the yellow fade to black around the image of the receptionist, holding a Taser.

Awake.


With a headache. No surprise there. Cement floor. Eyes open. Grey walls. Had it been a dream? Well, the first part hadn't. He was in Holding. And evidently, the second part hadn't either; the sting on the base of his neck told him that. Wonderful.

Avi sat up, and looked around him, taking stock. One exit, a metal door with bars over the tiny window. This cell was better than the one at the Holding House; they'd included a bed, with an actual mattress. There was a metal table in the corner beside the door, bolted to the floor, and a mirror. This was all.

He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror, contemplating the cesspool of problems that was his life. If you look at the basic facts, and overlook some things, he was pretty much just a nineteen year old guy who was in Holding for something he didn't do. He'd had a difficult life, to say the least, and he'd done what was necessary to stay alive, to stay free. He'd broken rules - a lot of rules. But it had been for self preservation. He hadn't hurt anyone who hadn't hurt him, or would have given the chance. Well, at least he tried to avoid it. And most importantly, he still protected everything his dad had worked for, everything Cabi had worked for. That was what mattered.

He studied himself in the mirror. His skin was always dark, permanently tanned; that might be from his preference for outdoors, or just a fact of his heritage. He wouldn't know, he'd never asked about his heritage. His hair, usually black, was gray from dust, and greasy from sweat. Needed a shower. Needed a haircut, too, his hair was almost to the tip of his nose, but that was a bit of a luxury just then. He had a cut on his face, just above his eyebrow, from one of his many adventures over the last few days.

Avi sat on the bed, laid down, let his body settle and his muscles relax, let the bed mold around him, hugging his form, inviting him to spend the rest of his life just laying there, doing nothing. For a moment it was almost tempting, to stay there forever, not having to run anymore, not having to think to remember his name, not having to scan every building he enters, every room he walks in for exits and escape routs, not having to be vigilant for every hour of every day, to be ready to wake up at night at a second's notice, fully alert and ready to run some more. What a wonderful thing it would be to simply sleep his life away.

But then the moment passed, and he remembered that nothing came without a price. He would never be safe, never be able to truly fall asleep, without giving up something very dear to him. And there was really only one thing that was dear to him, which was also dear to others.

As if to remind him of this simple fact, footsteps were heard from outside, and a key was put inside his door. Avi was on his feet before the door was open, ready to fight off a bear. If only a bear was what had opened the door. Instead, two men were standing, guns drawn and aimed at him, just beyond the doorway. Two more men came in around them, with a pair of handcuffs, this time cuffing him behind his back. They were learning.

He was taken down an unremarkable hallway, and shoved through a door. Inside the door was, big surprise, a classic interrogation room: metal table, two chairs on either side of it, giant one way mirror, and a very professional looking woman standing in the corner with a manila folder. Taking a guess at what was expected of him, he walked over to the nearest chair, kicked it out, and sat down, arms still cuffed uncomfortably behind him.

The woman walked over to the other chair and carefully sat down, dropping the folder in front of him.

“Hello” She stated; for it was more of a fact than a greeting.

“Hi”

She put her elbow on the table and sat her chin in her palm, staring intently at him. “This is usually the point where I throw a big folder of papers in front of someone, and start flipping through it, talking about every little detail of their life, and showing them that we know everything one could possibly know about them.” she stared down at the folder. It was very thin, if not completely empty. “Clearly, that method is not going to work here.”

“Probably not.” he agreed.

“No, probably not.” She watched him for a moment, studying him, and he stared back, unflinching, face dead to expression. Then she sat back, let out a sigh, and stood up again. “So let me see if I can put some things together from what we do know about you.” She turned back to him. “You're not your normal teenage kid.” Bravo. “You might have started off as one, but you fell in with the wrong crowd, right? Maybe got involved in some things you thought were cool, rebellious, so you got yourself involved with them deeper and deeper.

“But pretty soon you started getting scared. You weren't a big shot, you weren't important, but I'm betting you got pushed into doing something big, and you wanted no part of it. You wanted out. But they wouldn't let you out, and you didn't have any other options. So you ran. You found someone who knew computers, and when you eventually popped up on the radar, you had your past deleted. You tried to start over, as someone else, as someone new, but maybe they found you again, so you had to keep running. And you've probably been running ever since.”

Wow. Avi was impressed that someone could seem so sure of something as that woman was of that story, yet be so completely and totally wrong. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to tell her how wrong she was. He wanted to go over every point, and tell her how he'd started off even less normal than he was now, how he hadn't fallen in with the wrong people but had been born in with the right people. How he hadn't run because he'd done something wrong, but because he was being chased. He didn't say this, though. There were too many people at risk for him to tell this woman even that much.

So instead, he looked down, and pressed his lips together slightly, shifting his shoulders, silently telling her that she was right but he didn't want to say so. She seemed to believe him.

“You don't have to run anymore, though.” She said quietly. “We can protect you. We can help you. All you have to do is help us.”

Protect him? Who did they think he needed protection from? And how did they think he could help them?

“Orderman Kasabi was part of the task team against the Kavas. He was a senior Orderman in that team. He'd been talking about finding someone who'd disappeared from the grid years ago for weeks. It makes sense that that person would want to stay hidden.”

Aha. The Kavas. The infamous gang of the southern part of the city, responsible for any number of crimes city wide. They thought he'd been a part of that. Helping them probably meant giving them information about the Kavas. Which might be rather hard to bluff, considering how he'd had no interest in information about them in his life, and thus had little to give that wasn't already well known.

“There was a struggle, we know. Maybe things didn't go like they were supposed to. Maybe it wasn't intentional. Maybe it was even an accident.”

It wasn't an accident. He'd seen the scene himself, heard what happened from the actual killer. There was a struggle, yes, a huge struggle, which had been ended by a blow to the head. Followed by several more, and finally a bullet. If he were to agree with them and say it was an accident, they'd have him in a minute, and with the way things were going so far, he'd be executed by the next morning. If he sat there and said nothing, they'd have nothing concrete against him, so he could possibly even make it to next week. If he was very lucky.

“We can help you. We can make this all go away. You went to a lot of trouble to put this all behind you. That much is obvious. Let us help you. Just tell us what happened.”

Nothing.

“Alright, maybe you don't want to talk about what happened. That's fine. We can talk about that later. How about we just chat about your old friends? How about you tell us about the Kavas?”

Nothing.

“Just tell us something. Anything. It can't hurt you. You're only hurting yourself by refusing to talk.”

Give them nothing.

“How about something small, then? Tell us about yourself. That hardly matters, now, doesn't it? What's your name?”

At this, he looked up from the table, straight into her eyes, and smiled broadly.

“I am called Dansu”


* * *

“Dinner.”

Avi's head perked up. Food? Wonderful. The door to his cell opened, just enough to place a tray of food on the table next to it. He got up from the bed as the door slammed shut again, locks clicking in place, and began tearing at the food. If this was dinner, then it was mid-afternoon, and he hadn't eaten for a day and a half. It wasn't too bad, either, compared to most of the things he'd had to eat. There was some kind of breaded thing which tasted good, a bit of slightly overdone meat, and a small bowl of rice. He'd devoured the entire meal in less than five minutes.

Not that this was the longest he'd gone without food. Oh no. All things considered, this was nothing, compared to a few years ago. He'd been living almost entirely on the streets then, eating only what he could steal or find, with the odd pity meal from some kind soul. That was when he'd first started out, when he'd thought he'd been completely alone in the world. How lucky he'd felt when he discovered that his Uncle Cabi had had more friends than he'd thought.

He thought back to his times with his uncle. They weren't exactly happy, but they were definitely the best. The man had raised them, Avi and his sister, and taught them everything he could to help them stay alive. Everything was a test, everything was a form of training, Even the games they played, when they were taking a break from training, were a form of training.

There was one memory that stood out to him more than the rest. He'd been seven, Naima ten, and the two of them were playing a game of Cabi's invention, which they called “Slips”. Slips was played in a very large pine tree. They would take turns climbing up the tree with an unshelled boiled egg, which was made slippery with oil. Avi would start by climbing up the tree a few branches, and once he was about five feet above her head, he'd drop it down to Naima. She'd have to catch the egg, and climb up the tree five feet above his head, one handed, because the other had to keep hold of the egg. Then she would drop it down to Avi, and he would catch it, and climb up five feet above her.

They would continue this until they got to the very top branches, when they couldn't go any higher, and then finally throw it down to Cabi, who would be waiting at the bottom. He would inspect the egg, and if it wasn't damaged at all, they were given special treats at lunch. If it was damaged, though, they had to do extra chores. It was a very challenging game, and the hardest part was climbing the tree without holding the egg so hard it was squeezed out.

That particular game of Slips, they were getting toward the top, and Naima was above him. She was so small, smaller and skinnier than him despite being older, and she slid through the branches easily. Avi was always getting caught and scraped by the needles and the rough bark, and his hands were blistered and cut a bit because Cabi never let them wear gloves. Naima was almost to where she'd drop the egg, when she stopped climbing.

“What's wrong?” He'd asked

“I don't know....” She'd answered, shifting so that bits of bark fell down on him. He'd looked up again, and saw that she had been staring out, through a hole in the branches. “Cabi's walking away. It looks like he's holding Misa,” Misa was their name for the MSA, the Mobile Surveillance Alarm that Cabi always carried with him on his belt.

“Why's he doing that? We're almost ready to throw it down to him.”

“ I dunno! He's just walking away with it, over to the cabin. Now he stopped....” A loud yell came thundering from down below. They'd heard their uncle yell their names to them, and then their code word, crystal. That meant there was trouble. Avi had let himself slide down the tree trunk, from each level of branches, as fast as he could, and heard his sister above him doing the same.

By the time they'd reached the ground, Cabi was already out of sight, but that was okay, because they'd known what to do. They'd run to the cabin, ignoring the usual precautions, and grabbed their bags from inside the bench by the door. Then they'd met their uncle at the Jeep, where he'd been throwing the five emergency bags of his own into the back. They set their own bags in the back, and jumped in the back seats, before being jerked out of the garage and down the trail to the road, never to see that place again.

Awake.


Noises. To the left of him. A series of clicks, followed by one larger one. A thin beam of light to the right of him. Footsteps walking away. The door was open! Avi sprang out of bed, and was at the door in a moment. It was barely cracked open. The footsteps were growing faint. He opened it just enough for him to look out into the hallway. Nobody was there, not even a guard. Strange.

Stranger yet was the folded sheet of paper taped over the window of the door. Noticing it had writing on it, he snatched it down. The guard was bound to come back soon. This was as good of a chance as he'd ever get at freedom. He took the tape off the paper and stuck it on the locks on the door, preventing them from locking again as he stepped out into the hallway, and closed it behind him.

Then he ran. Down the hall, silently, quickly. Check the corner before turning; nobody there either. Run more. Dead end. Not good. Open door, a conference room. A dozen chairs, a large table, and a small lamp. Trying not to stumble in the dark, he made it over to the lamp, and turned it on. Heart racing, he opened the paper, and read the short note:

Run, and every guard in the Palace will be put on alert.

If you'd like to run, go to the ground floor of this building, the room in the south west corner, in the next twenty minutes. Failure to come will mean every resource in the area will be used to find you, and send you to your death. Do not draw attention of any kind.

Every fiber of his being was screaming “trap”. He makes a run for it, they catch him, and have an excuse to execute him; any idiot could see through that. It seemed like such a strange way for the Palace to get a reason to kill him, though, now that he thought about it. The only reason he was still alive, after the Order found out he was such a high priority, was probably because the Peacemen thought he could give them information. If they just wanted to pin a crime on him, they could do that even without the benefit of his committing one for them. And anyway, if it were a trap, why would they have left a note?

So he had three options. First, he could go back into his cell like a good little prisoner and wait for morning to come. That was out, partly because they might have already found his empty cell, but mostly because he hated sitting around doing nothing when he might be executed.

Second, he could run for it. That wasn't a great idea, partly because he didn't think it was a bluff that, if not every guard in the Palace, at least a large portion of them, would be sent out looking for him. Also, because even on the off chance that it was a bluff, he'd have a hell of a time getting out of what might actually be one of the world's most secure buildings. Tempting it may be to try, it wouldn't be smart when there was another option.

And that option was to go to the south west corner of the ground floor. He was in the basement, he knew that was where Holding was, but he didn't have the slightest clue where south west was. One thing at a time, though. First he wanted to get upstairs.

Obviously, he couldn't just go find an elevator and punch a button; there were cameras in elevators, not to mention people. And anyway, there was likely a keycard or code needed to work it in Holding; the same went for the stairs, if there were any. He needed something new. And, looking up, he saw a possibility.

Closing the door to the hall, he came back and put a chair on the table. He climbed up, and lifted one of the cork tiles from the ceiling. Electrical wiring ran bundled to the actual ceiling, two feet above. He pushed at the top ceiling, wondering if he might come through the floor – no luck. It was stone. The whole building was stone; it was a castle after all.

Yes, it was a castle. A very old castle. With thick stone floors and walls. That was made well before electricity! Avi remembered learning about buildings and structural weaknesses, years and years ago. On buildings like this that couldn't be torn down, but needed electricity everywhere, they had problems getting through the thick stone walls. So, for the plumbing and wiring, they carved hollows in the walls, for construction workers to climb through to set it up, and for repairs. If he could find one of them, he might be able to crawl to the next floor, and climb out the ceiling!

He climbed down from the table, and pushed it to the wall. Grabbing the lamp, he climbed back up, and began removing the ceiling tiles, holding the light up to show any gaps. He'd made it almost to the corner of the room when –yes!-- he found a shaft. He stood up on the chair and felt around, finding a metal bar in the hole.

Pulling himself up a bit, he found another one, running across, six inches above the first. It was a ladder! Strenuously, he pulled himself up to a third, and his feet no longer touched the chair. He lifted his legs above the ceiling tiles for a bit of help to get to the fourth, and by the fifth bar, he could climb up easily with his feet on the bars.

He'd made it up at least thirty steps when he felt an opening around him. Crawling up, it seemed he'd reached a ledge, but upon further exploration, it turned out to be a horizontal shaft. It was short, maybe three feet high, and three feet wide at most. He crawled down it, low as he could, staying far away from the wires on the left of him.

This was a fantastic hiding place. It was empty, with dozens of possible escape points, and its existence couldn't be very common knowledge. He paused, reconsidering his presence at this meeting. He didn't doubt that there would be a search for him if he didn't show up, but there was no way they'd find him in the walls.

But how long could he stay in there for? It's not as if there would be any exits, and at the least, none he could get to before an alarm was sounded. Not to mention the risk factor involved in simply being in there.... Loose wires covered the wall beside him, inviting him to slip and fall against them, electrocuting him. It wasn't too bad now, but if people were to be woken up, and things started to get powered on, he would be in some serious trouble. No, this wasn't the place to hide. He needed to get out.

And as if in response, the shaft came to an end. Worried that he might have to backtrack, he felt around, looking for where the tunnel continued; he found it, to the left of him. All the wires seemed to follow it, and carefully, he squeezed himself through. Then, significantly less carefully, he fell downward, face first, when the bottom ceased to exist.

And down he went, crashing through the lower part of the ceiling, curling into a ball for protection. He'd fallen enough times from heights much higher than a ceiling to know that the absolute last thing one wanted to land on was their head. He didn't get quite the impact he'd bee expecting, though, because instead of the slam of thin carpet over hard stone, there was a crack and groan, muffled by fluffy, velvety softness that cushioned his landing.

It took him a few moments to process his surroundings. The lights were off, so everything was dark, but there were a lot of very large, dark shapes around him, as well as one under him. He felt the unfortunate object he had fallen on. Squishy, soft, pillowy. It was long, a skinny mattress with raised ends – it was a couch. A very comfortable, very inviting, very broken couch. There were couches and chairs and such everywhere.

And two large windows, which gave a spectacular view of the Bank of Desoria, illuminated by streetlights and the odd lit window inside. The Bank of Desoria was in the very edge of the Ganva district, which was..... south west of the Gabo district, where the Palace was. So unless he was in that corner of the Palace, he wouldn't be seeing the Bank.

Alright, so he was in the right room. What now?

Groans and creaks filled the silence as he pulled himself to his feet. He started walking to the windows, but before he got two steps, he heard a sound. It was faint, just the brush of two fabrics, but it wasn't him. He froze, listening for some other shred of evidence that he wasn't alone.

“You weren't as subtle as I would have liked.”

Yes, it appeared that there was a very good chance he wasn't the only one in the room. The voice was female, but not one he recognized. He turned, casually as he could, toward the chair that he thought the voice was coming from. “Sorry?”

“Well, it doesn't matter now. I don't think anyone heard you, and it's not going to change my mind now. Anyway, it's rather symbolic, I think: You crashing down out of nowhere, no apparent explanation for where you came from, like a miracle from the heavens. Here to help solve all of my problems. Oh, and you're three minutes late, by the way.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, it makes you sound weak, and that dampens my hope that you actually can help.”

This was getting bizarre. Maybe this whole night was a dream. Maybe he was still asleep. That would make more sense. “Help what?”

“Help kidnap me! Oh, and you're the perfect one for it, too. Nobody knows who you are, so they'll have to take you seriously, and from what I've seen, they're not wrong in doing so. You've got the skills to do it, I think. And your timing couldn't have been better! It's practically proof! The Gods want me to get out of here!”

“....What?”

“Alright, so you're a little slower than I hoped. That's okay, we can work around that. And you might just be sleepy, though you've been awake for twenty three minutes already. Twenty four. It doesn't matter. The point is, you're going to kidnap me, and I'm going to make sure you get away with it. I practically have the whole thing planned out already; all I need is a scapegoat.”

“Scapegoat.” This couldn't be happening.

“That's where you come in. See, if I'm going to turn up missing, they'd better have someone to blame, and a great deal of false leads to follow up. Who better than someone without a past?”

Avi stood there, staring at the irritatingly articulate female, whose features were hidden in the darkness. How could she use so many words, and still leaving him wondering what the hell she was talking about? “Who are you?”

“Oh! That's right. The lights are out. Er, hold on... There it is.” The room brightened, to show that he was indeed in a room full of black chairs and couches, and that he was staring at a rather plain looking girl. She was about his age, with straight, long black hair that reached about her waist. Her eyes were black, her skin was very white, and her face was the kind of generic pretty that one could study for an hour, and still be unable to recognize the next day. Yet she stood there, in a limp, lacy white bathrobe, with a smile on her face that assumed he knew exactly who she was.

“Who are you?” he repeated, annoyed that he wasn't being answered.

Her face fell. “I made that little of an impression? Well that's odd. You'd think everyone in the Kingdom would know my face, with a title like 'High Royal Daughter Desori Fika Anafia'. Honestly, it sounds impressive. Shame they want to change it.”

Yeah. Definitely a dream.

Awake.

Still. He hadn't so much as dozed since he'd gotten back to his room. It must have been hours, though he really had no way to tell until breakfast came. He knew he should sleep, knew he needed sleep, because they'd be interrogating him again in the morning, and it likely wouldn't be as kind as the first one. He closed his eyes, relaxing his entire body, one muscle at a time, willing himself to melt into the mattress. It didn't work. He opened his eyes again, surrendering to the insomnia.

And why should he be able to sleep? He had so many things to think about, so many angles to contemplate, that his mind could not stop, could not slow down. What had just happened to him? Was it a trap like he suspected? Could it be real? Could any of this be real? What if it was real, should he go through with her idea? What was her idea, anyway?

Her. Royal Daughter Desori Anafia indeed. He had trouble believing it, the radiant woman who'd sat regally before him yesterday morning, now only a plain girl with an exquisite wrapper. And looks aside, she was still the single most powerful person in the modern world. Or she would be in two weeks. What possible reason could she have for summoning him in the middle of the night to tell him about some ridiculous plan or “running away”?

He went through the sequence of events for the umpteenth time. He'd woke up, found the note, ran down the hall to the conference room, and read it. He'd found the entrance to one of the hollows in the walls, and crashed through the ceiling of the room. There, she'd gone rambling on about how he was going to kidnap her.

She had turned on the light and told him who she was, then gave him a few folded sheets of very large paper, and told him that he had approximately thirty one minutes to be back in his room with the door locked and nothing out of place before someone would notice his absence, as long as he didn't trip any of the alarms on the exits. He'd taken the papers, and climbed back up the hole he'd made, with her promise to clean up the debris from his fall. He'd climbed back down into the conference room, replaced the ceiling tiles, removed the chair from the table, replaced the light, and fled down the halls to his cell, which was (thank the Gods for his foresight) still unlocked with the tape.

Avi shifted himself look at the mirror. He couldn't see it, the room was too dark, but he knew the pages were hidden securely behind them. He'd wanted to read them right then and there, find out what was going on, but the only light was that which came from the tiny window in the door. He wouldn't read them by that if he could, since the guards were checking in his room every half hour. Very efficient, very cautious. Just like the rest of the Palace. Just like the rest of the country.

And what a fantastic country it was. Most powerful in the world for a reason. Yes, the nation of Desoria was well known for the amount of control it had over its people. Any Palace worker could, at any time, pull up a file on any citizen, and have virtually every knowable detail about them right there. Fingerprints, DNA, yearly photos, dental records, home address, telephone number, cell phone number, previous places of residence, place of occupation, job title, the days one has missed work due to illness, what kind of illness, the likelihood that that illness was real, when and where their last vacation was, and even what kind of drink they ordered at the hotel on that last vacation. It was all in there. The only group of people who weren't held up to scrutiny was, oddly enough, the very group of people who were doing the scrutinizing: the Palace.

There were, naturally, people who didn't agree with the Palace's control over it's country. These people had begun to protest, to cause problems, to rebel against the Palace. Thirty years ago, these people had come together, and named themselves the Dissenters. The Palace had done what it could to suppress it, but five years later, it had lost it's last layer of discretion, and the rebellion went public, headed by a man named Nali Koshimo. With the help of his wife, Nali Fama, the Dissenters built up power, and around ten years after first forming, war was almost certain to break out. Then, swift and unfaltering, the Palace had executed the two leaders, along with nearly every other prominent member, and the Dissenters dissolved.

There were rumors, even to this day, that the Dissenters were still in existence, waiting underground, a hand in the black market trade, the assassination of the King several years ago, and just overall crime in general. It was also rumored that they were in league with the Kavas in the south, and they were using them to build up an army. It was a common habit of conspiracy theorists, whenever a major political figure in the Palace gets ill, to immediately blame the Dissenters.

These rumors were the reason for the greatly increased security the last couple of decades. Palace buildings required keycards, identification codes, and three forms of identification to enter. Public transportation such as planes and trains required advance notice for purchasing tickets, and multiple forms of identification, as well as a reason for travel. And as for obtaining fake identities – well, Avi knew firsthand how difficult those were to get a hold of.

The most drastic increase in security, however, was that surrounding the future queen; although for the first fifteen years of her life she wasn't aware of it. As tradition dictated, the first child of the King or Queen at the time was raised as the child of a noble family until they were ready to take over the throne, unaware of it themselves; this was for safety, as well as an attempt at giving them a “normal” childhood. In the case of Desori Anafia, however, the knowledge of who would take the throne was known only to the seven representatives of Galtabo. The seven people represented the seven districts of the capitol: Gali, Gana, Ganva, Goshi, Govi, Gabo, and Gantu. They were also the single most powerful group of people in the nation, short of the King or Queen.

As for her security after the public learned she'd be queen, it was elegantly simple: she had not made a single public appearance, no photo of her had been allowed to be published in the press, and anything more than a vague description of her wasn't known to the general public. Anyone intending to harm her would have had no indication of their target besides a general description and her red and black feathers (which were worn by everyone in the royal family). All of this ended, of course, in two weeks, when her face would fill every newspaper and television in the country.

So how in the world had this girl, who was the single most protected person in the country, in one of the most secure buildings in the world, manage to lose her entourage long enough to meet with a supposedly highly dangerous and elusive criminal, in the middle of the night?

Clearly something to ponder.

Just then, the lights in his room turned on. Someone yelled out “Breakfast” to him, and opened the door, dropping the tray on the desk. The door was closed before Avi could get up, but then, he was getting up a bit slower than usual. He glanced at the food: a bowl of rice and something that looked like it might be fish, if you tilt your head and squint a bit. Yummy.

But he now had a half an hour to look over the papers. He retrieved them from behind the mirror, and sat them on the bed, sitting himself between them and the door. The top page was a blueprint of the first floor of the Palace. It included the entrance hall, the court rooms to the north, the offices that took up the entire east side, and the first floor of the Royal Palace, where the Royal Family lived, to the west. He traced out the hallways to the room where he'd shot the window, the throne room. It seemed that the door at the back of that room, behind the throne, was the only entrance to a clump of five rooms or so; those rooms were unlabeled.

The next pages were smaller, normal sized, and had lists of times on them. Avi didn't know exactly what to make of them, but each list was titled by a floor number and a direction, and there were about six or seven lines in each. He read over all the lists, but couldn't figure out what they were for.

The final page was what seemed to be a list of hallways and rooms in the first floor, with a number beside it: Throne room 7, Entrance 12, Southwest Hall 3, and so on. The unlabeled rooms weren't there either, nor were most of the offices.

Avi studied the papers for a few more minutes before folding them up again and placing them once more behind the mirror. Taking the tray of food to the bed, he thought of the coming day of inevitable interrogation, and how much he wished he'd gotten more sleep.

* * *

Naima had never liked making a new identity. She didn't know definitively why, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the amount of paperwork it required. Every single detail of her new past had to be recorded and filed in the Palace database, and that meant every detail. Bus rides, train tickets, credit history, job history, bank records, anything and everything needed to be on file.

Which was likely why she much preferred to simply steal someone else's identity instead. She could only use it as a starting point, of course, because the identities she stole couldn't be terribly detailed. Anyone with a lot of records would be someone who used their identity quite a bit, and thus would easily miss it if it were to suddenly be stolen. So she was forced to find someone who was a nobody, usually living on the streets and not worth any attention, to take the name of, and then fill in the gaps a bit.

Even with her shortcuts, though, she'd never particularly enjoyed the idea of being someone else. She understood that it was commonly thought desirable to reinvent oneself, become anything in the world, but in truth she had always craved stability. She wanted to be one person for her whole life, and if possible, to just be her.

It was for this reason that she always loved her visits to Anadel. Such a sweet old woman, Anadel, and she was probably the closest thing to a mother Naima had ever had. She was maybe sixty, edging on seventy, and looked and acted like the perfect grandmother. Anadel lived with her husband in a small house on the edge of Galtabo, along with her two young grandchildren. The entire house smelled eternally of cinnamon. Naima had been taken in here when she was sixteen, and since, this had been her home. It was the only place where she was called by her name.

And more to the point, Anadel was a professional forger, if there ever was such a thing. Any identification that came from Anadel was sure to be flawless on sight – it was with the background information, the legwork that Naima did herself, that the problems arose, if ever.

It was the recent problem that caused Naima's abnormal obsession with the details of her new identity. She didn't know exactly what, but somehow, something had been wrong in her last ID. That must have been it. How else could she have been found?

She looked down at the window on the laptop before her. She was supposed to be writing a phone history for the last three months, but she really couldn't concentrate. And how could she, when not even two days ago, she had killed a man! Not just any man, an Orderman, a man who spent his life trying to help and protect others. He might have had a wife; he might have had children! And she had taken him away from them. Who cares if she did it to protect herself? How could she say that her life was any more important than his? And maybe she didn't have to kill him at all; maybe she could have gotten out of it some other way.

It was that thought which had been torturing her nonstop. There must have been another way.... Her rational brain brought up all those lectures from her childhood, from her training, about him-or-you situations. She reminded herself that she had already considered every angle, and in every angle the outcome was the same – him or her. Sadly, she was not always rational – she wasn't her little brother.

And how horrible she felt about bringing him into all of this. She knew he was grown up, she knew he was only a few years younger than her, but she still thought of him as the little nine year old who could never quite beat her in a footrace. And the way he just accepted what happened and helped her, no hesitation, immediate forgiveness, even after six years without speaking a word to each other – it nearly broke her heart.

But now he was arrested. He was rotting in some cell in a Holding House, and she was free to get a new identity, a new life, start over, even though she was the one who should be there. It wasn't fair.

Yes, that was the truth of every situation. Life isn't fair, but that's the way it is. The Orderman shouldn't have died, her brother shouldn't be imprisoned, and she should be allowed to introduce herself as Naima. Life was biased. All she could do was balance out the odds.