She felt a sense of pride walking among the people–people who did not know that she was making their lives better. It wasn’t a sense of identification with these people; she felt as if she were invisible, walking between them as they lived whatever lives these people lived. She did not look down on them. Not much, anyway. She simply regarded them as agents in her experiments, blind beneficiaries of her work. Driving, as many Guides were wont to do, either from desire of speed or a vague fear of the masses, would draw unwanted attention.
She was beginning to feel eyes upon her, though, but it was a fancy, invented by Bron so he could feel useful. The man was dull, slow, and single-minded, a personality better suited to a dog than a man.
The bicycle shop was two roads over. The sun was hot, the people close, and her hip was beginning to ache, a flaw in her prosthetic. This was a main road, narrow but busy, men and cars working at cross-purpose, neither yielding to the other. Stores crammed close to one another, savory aromas coming from many, shoes and clothes and books and groceries sold in others. It was all a bit quaint, actually, with two-story buildings, apartments over storefronts, a far cry from the tall towers of Section Six and the relentless propaganda of Section Eight. It would almost certainly have to change as technology did, but she had no strong opinions on the direction. She’d keep track of the retail, consumer, and architectural evolutions and let them run their course, whatever that would be.
She pressed her way across the street, hoping to lose Bron in the crush. He wouldn’t reprimand her, but she would smirk and show him how little he meant to her. The crowd quickly thinned a block over. Calea looked back to see if she had lost Bron. Three men surrounded her. Two grabbed her arms and the third spoke. “Come quietly. Your expertise is needed. We have much to offer you.” They pulled her into a narrow alley.
Calea was more affronted than frightened. Her mechanical arm easily freed itself from the grip holding it. “You must be from Thyrion. There is nothing I want. Everyone here knows that.”
“You will come, one way or the other.”
Bron stumbled around the corner. Blood ran from his forehead. He unleashed a shot from his gun, but the blast streaked above their heads. He wobbled badly, fighting for consciousness. The leader of the three tilted his head. A brick pulled loose from the wall. Bron collapsed, groaning.
“A non-Select bodyguard. How useless.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Calea answered. “The Overseer naively believes Thyrion will refrain from armed assault on Jalseion. You know, the treaty. The bodyguard’s for more mundane plots.”
“Who says we’re from Thyrion?” He smiled. “Perhaps we’re just in it for the money.”
Bron kept twitching, as if his will refused to listen to his body. “This is a crowded area,” Calea said. “What if I resist? You wouldn’t want there to be an incident.”
The leader snapped his fingers. Fire sprung to life at their tips, taking the form of a miniature sword. Deft manipulation, that. These three were trained in precision. Perhaps the motion was show, but perhaps he still required it to guide the magic properly. “I have found that heating the brain can have lasting effects. Are you willing to risk losing all that precious knowledge of yours?”
“Are you?” Calea projected confidence, but she was beginning to tremble against her will. Panic shuddered through her at the mention of brain damage. Her mind was all she had. Everything else was already broken. “You need my knowledge.”
“We can take your arm and leg. There are many smart people in the world. One of them will figure out how they work. You haven’t shown the world everything, I think.”
She reacted quickly, almost before she had decided what to do. Digging deep from the Well, absorbing the aura of power that surrounded it, she swelled with magic until she wanted to vomit and then forced it out in torrents of raw power. Electricity emanated from her in waves, beating back the thugs. They reacted, pulling bricks down in heaps to bury her, but the electricity sparked into a wall of flame, burning her, scorching her, the blast of its heat knocking the three off their feet and breaking the bricks to pieces. Calea struggled to keep upright as the broken shards fell upon her. Now air hammered the three, keeping them down, choking and compressing them, battering them. She tapped the stone in the brick, throwing aside all her years of technique, and buried the three beneath the rock, melting it into unbroken mounds, where they were trapped, but alive. Probably.
The energy dissipated, emptying her. It had lasted less than a minute. She stood up straight, testing her limbs. A little stiff. She was covered in bruises and cuts. Blood trickled down her cheek, but she didn’t care. She felt barren, with a hint of sorrow and anger and joy somewhere beneath. Nothing else seemed necessary, no action, no thought. She felt she could stand there, frozen, for a long, long time, wanting nothing, needing nothing.
She saw Bron rising to his knees.
“I didn’t need you,” she said. “What use are you? I told you I didn’t need you.”
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