Glitch (The Write Awards 2013 Winner)

Glitch - Chapter 21

The trundling of the van filled the otherwise peaceful still morning had imposed into the air. Freya watched in motionless concentration as the few possessions they had amongst them were carefully packed inside. She didn’t want to ask exactly where they had acquired the vehicle. It was obviously property of the government. An exact replica had once delivered her to Satis. A plain, uninteresting white van.

It was only the logo etched onto the right hand corner of the back door that revealed the source of its ownership. A simple rose. Petals jutting out in sharp triangles, thorns adorning the curving stem. The emblem of Albion.

Freya didn’t want to ask where they had acquired the uniforms they had dressed Bryn and Mat up in either. The government’s colours had transformed the faces she knew into something unrecognisably sinister simply through the medium of negative association. But the disguises were necessary. Government vans were only driven by Patrollers and therefore Bryn and Mat were forced to keep up the charade. It was the only way to get them anywhere near Freya's village.

“We best get going,” Bryn said, while holding the door open and extending a helping hand in Freya’s direction. She accepted the aid with caution; conscious not to maintain contact any longer than necessary. It was acutely obvious that Mat’s attention had been drawn by Bryn’s simple gesture of politeness. And she didn’t want an argument. That was the last thing she needed.

The interior of the van was just as cold and uninviting as her memory recollected. The grey metal walls stung cold into every touch making a position of comfort impossible to obtain. She settled herself next to the pile of hastily packed clothes in the hope of gaining some sort of warmth from their presence; purposefully crawling as far away from the doors as possible in anticipation for her company.

Andie must have noted the intentional distance kept between them. She solemnly took a seat that respected the separation on entering the van. Freya gave one cold stare before the doors shuddered to a close and painted their surroundings in shadows. It was possible to discern the muffled sound of Bryn and Mat settling into the front of the van, followed by the scrape of ignition as the van lurched into motion.

***

For the best part of an hour the only noises to be heard were the products of the van carrying them further and further away from the ghost village. Freya was perfectly content to keep it that way as her mind carefully picked apart the news about her father. She was making a checklist of questions needed to be answered. But as she separated the strands of implications Freya began to build up a store of enquiries that could not be answered by her mother alone. It took her another hour or so to acknowledge the fact. Eventually she could not ignore it. With a sharp briskness she broke the silence. Her tone possessed no indication of a thaw in her animosity. It fell with cold accusation.

“I have some questions about my father.” Her announcement drew Andie from the stare into empty space, void of any expression, she had lost herself in for the duration of the journey. It took her a moment to piece together a reply. As if she needed time to wind up the cogs of her mind that had previously been shut down.

“Don’t you think it best to wait and hear them from your mother?”

“No, these ones are for you to answer.” The only sign of agreement Freya received was the fraction of a nod from Andie.

“He’s dead and yet you are still here. Why?” Her enquiry rattled out in urgent haste. Andie seemed to grimace at the prospect of having to answer before shaking off her reluctance and opening her mouth to speak.

“They deemed his betrayal of the law worse than mine. My timer was still going at the time. He had already found your mother. They didn’t give him the opportunity of a trial.”

“And so they killed him for it?”

“Almost immediately.”

“Did you…” The words caught in Freya’s throat as she felt the rattling uncertainty of tears threaten her ability to speak. She shut her eyes closed, locating a determination to press on with the question. “Did you see how?”

“I heard it.” Tears had begun to crack and unsettle Andie’s ability to speak too.

“What did they do?”

“They took us to Albion City. We were led to the criminal detention centre. There was a room. I only got a brief look at it. It was very small and too dark to see anything properly. It was the smell I remember most. Sweat mixed with the metallic tang of blood. I assume that’s where they took him because he was no longer beside me once I passed it. They kept dragging me along so I didn’t see anything…” There was a pause in her narration, as if unsure whether it was appropriate to progress any further. The story won out in the end. With a sharp intake of breath she continued. “But I heard the gunshot. Only one. No sounds of a struggle or any pain. It must have been quick.”

It had taken years of empty answers to finally hear of the last details of her father’s life. And now, with most of her reserve of irrational grief withered dry, she felt more relief than despair. She had come to terms with her father’s death a long time ago. Freya was only relieved to finally understand how. In the absence of sorrow, anger was the emotion that prevailed. Her father had died alone in a cell thick with the lingering stench of death. Killed without the chance to attempt fighting back. Her next words were alight with a heavy clatter of furious injustice.

“But you are still alive. How did you escape the punishment?”

“It took them a bit longer to decide my fate. Long enough for Glitch to intervene. They had my sentence commuted to imprisonment in an Anomaly Convent. I just had to agree to their instructions. They needed someone on the inside in Satis. I agreed and Glitch managed to spare my life.”

“Anomalies couldn’t possibly have that power. There is no way they could have done that…” It did not take Freya long to discount Andie’s words as a lie. The accusation tore at her throat; fuelled with complete disgust. But the full brunt of her anger stumbled to a halt before having the chance to be heard on hearing Andie’s reply.

“Glitch wasn’t started by Anomalies.”

The weight of the admission demanded absolute silence in its wake. Freya, barely able to scrabble together the time to process the truth, had no words of reply. It allowed Andie the opportunity to further explain.

“There are people with the rare combination of both power and a conscience.”

“People in the government?” There was no hiding the disgust in Freya’s tone.

“People who work within the system as a pretence.”

Freya felt a crawl of detestation stutter across her skin. Even in rebellion it was all just a manipulation of the government. The realisation slammed into her thoughts; pushing aside everything else. A completely new sense of anger flared up. Too overwhelming to hold any rationality. It crept into every open space of her thoughts and coloured her with a poisonous animosity. But there was no clear villain to attribute her hatred towards. Just an ambiguous shadow of manipulation that she had no way of shrugging off. That made it all the worse. The inability to blame a solitary figure for it. There was no route to rid herself of the anger. Instead it was left to simmer inside her. Flooding her with toxic bitterness.

She could feel a stain of malignant anger twisting a permanent position into her mind; shaping her into something she didn’t want to be. For fear of letting the blackening hatred into prominence she shut down; retreating back into the corner as she drew her limbs in close.

“You need to know that I never directly lied to you about any of this.”

“No. But you never told me the truth. And that’s the important bit.”

“Freya…”

“I’m done speaking.” She turned her head away after delivering the concluding utterance. Freya didn’t want the tears of confusion to be seen trickling down her face in a stream of pathetic  misery.