Trellis

10

We took the train. The conductor was unusually cautious, looking at each of our fake identification cards for extended periods of time. When we finally get on, even Cresswell is beginning to worry.

'I should have spent more time on them,' she mutters, chopping off her hair with a pair of scissors that look too blunt for her own good. 'If he's been trained in those matters, we are dead. We're getting off at the next station.'

Ley stretches, yawns from the seats behind us. 'It's fine. Can you please stop with the doomsday predictions for once?'

'I'm just playing it safe.' She flinches when her hair gets caught on a button on her jacket. 

'Relax. You've been working yourself almost to death. You might have superpowers,' her voice drops a notch, 'but you still need to recharge.'

Cresswell opens her mouth, ready to argue, but Yvet looks up and shakes his head. She complies and sits back down, twitchier than ever. I offer to let her look up train routes on my computer to calm her nerves.

'Your name is Rheon Kasseida, is it?'

'What about it?'

She scrolls through the list of routes. 'I remember someone with a name like that. Needed to get past border security from Sermyle into Arcadia, so he got into touch with my family.'

'That would be my father.'

She shrugs and goes back to looking at maps. 'He was one of the most difficult cases we ever encountered. The number of laws we had to break to get him one of those...you have no idea.'

'How are you here?'

'Eh?'

'I thought this program was for highly-esteemed families and their children?'

'I've been wondering too.' She zooms in on a spot that has attracted her attention. 'My whole family are criminals. Probably a mix-up or something. If I ever get out of this, I'm going to find the person who did it and dump their corpse into the Mediterranean.'

Close up, I notice the dark circles around her eyes, the slump of her shoulders. Exhaustion has caught up to her. 

And me too.

I curl up and sleep.

Cresswell wakes me up shortly before we arrive at Station Seven. The four of us step out onto the platform, to be pelted with raindrops. The wind nearly steals Ley's jacket.

'Why didn't you warn me Station Seven was on the top of a mountain?'

Cresswell shrugs and starts moving. We seek shelter from the rain under an abandoned kiosk. Probably a leftover from the twenty-first century. 

Ley immediately starts to dry her jacket over the fire Cresswell has lit. She controlled temperature, and by extension, air pressure, I hear her telling Ley.

'It's still pretty much useless.'

'You don't get to call this useless.' A wind starts in the kiosk and blows Ley's jacket to the edge of the fire. Ley lets out a strangled scream and goes after it.

Rima is curled up in a corner, under his only souvenir of Hallett—a blue sweater. He looks half-dead. I am to blame for that.

I walk over and sit down next to him.

'Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want a distraction?'

'I'll just sit here, thank you very much.'

His tone invites no argument.

We wait for a bit longer, Ley and Cresswell trying to destroy each other in various card games, arguing, trying to kick each other in the shins. Rima just shrinks further back into his corner.

I don't dare move, afraid that I might collapse from the emptiness I am feeling.

I want to go back, to stop myself from stabbing him twenty-odd times. 

And then there is a knocking on the door. Ley jumps, cards scattering everywhere.

'Who is it?'

'The police. You're arrested for identity theft.'

The door gets blasted into dozens of little pieces. The train conductor walks in, pointing to Rima, looking rather liked a frightened hare.

'That's him. He has my name.'

And a squadron of officers enter the house. Cresswell , with her suit on, launches herself at one of them, trying to pry the gun from his grasp. Ley activates her powers too, the wall her fingers brush against turning into dust.

The kiosk collapses, and the last thing I see is the gun aimed at Ley's back, and the crack as the trigger is pulled.