Prologue (And Map of the East)
The Tower, however, was far from natural. Its square stone column climbed out of the Water, the last panes of glass facing to the North, protecting it from the worst of the weather. And it was far from uninhabited. For inside lived a community in hiding.
Mathy Walker and her husband Rodder had been the first inhabitants. After being freed from their supposed ‘grateful service to their Pendrakon and the City’ seven months before. Mathy played the part of being fully recovered – though her sleep was filled with images of her daughter as a Helper, her son and husband still in their pods, and her nothing but helpless to do anything about it. Rodder still believed his legs had been stolen from him, and was unable to do much more than scoot around on his knees unless he was in the wheeled chair he had constructed for himself.
Ranna Bule had been rescued their second night in the Tower. The poor thing, barely fifteen years old. She’d been travelling with her dad, being his eyes as they searched for food to buy. Ended up not only in a pod, but in that handful of days between meeting Denzin and Chimma and the Tower being ready, they’d covered her in that metal membrane. Silver, she’d called it, once she was fully awake and able to tell her story.
It was as if they’d tried to turn her into a machine. From her bald scalp to her toes, Ranna’s body now appeared as metallic as that pod she had been crammed into. They’d only just gotten her out of it in time. Even an hour longer, and she’d probably still be stuck inside the thing.
At least they’d rescued Minda Turner before she’d been Silvered. The poor woman was in a bad enough state without that, too. Designed to be compliant. That’s what Kayda’s notebook said. All those designed at City Infant were, and when they’d designed Minda, they’d seemed to perfect the recipe. Minda sure was the sweetest plum off the tree in that regard. And just as easily bruised.
Councillor Ban Criche was still so angry! She had been at dinner with the Pandrakon himself when she was taken! And Silvered just over a month before she was rescued. That’s why she still couldn’t really walk yet. The bars from the pod were still Silvered to her legs. At least Rodder and Mik had been able to get rid of enough of the metal so she could straighten her legs. The exercises on Kayda’s old tablet were helping. Ban was determined to walk back into the Council Building and confront the Pandrakon in public, wearing all that Silver to prove the point. Oh, Mathy would love to watch that one!
Prime and Dee – known as DEP001 and DEN004 when still Greymen – were such a support to everyone, despite still being in their pods. Prime got his name from being the first ever to be put in a pod! He’d had some kind of Sick, and lost the use of his legs. The pods were developed for people like him to be able to get around. But then, it became his prison.
Dee – she was called that because she couldn’t remember her real name no matter how hard they all tried to help her – probably lost the use of her legs from being in the pod. Eight whole years she’d been in the thing, she reckoned! She said she could even remember the surgery that removed her legs. Must be something to do with the gas, though because every time they serviced her, they were right there in the pod beneath her. She refused to be taken out. But at least she was free from slaving away cleaning the sewers. Somehow, after all those years, she’d only just graduated from working underground a few weeks before Denzin and Chimma found her.
Mik Markson – DEN005 –was another angry one. He’d worked at the docks with Rodder. Vehemence and fearlessness culminating in rage, all bound up inside all that Silver. Rage that he had been torn away from his wife and baby. Rage that he didn’t even know where he was, or how to find them. And rage at being locked up in the Tower after being locked up in his pod. He was from Brum, wherever that was. He hadn’t ever heard of the City until Rodder told him that’s where he was now.
Mathy’s lips pulled from the bow it often fell into as they curled into a smile. Even though he was always so surly, Mik did look cute with that little ring that hung from the Silver frill stuck around his waist. Ranna had one, too. And the councillor. Because of the Silver, the only way to get them out of their pods had been to cut the pods open like a tin of fish. Rodder had used pliers to turn the sharp edges under to make them safe, but they couldn’t get rid of the frills or the rings any more than they could anything else that had been Silvered.
Well, there was Ranna’s face. And Mik’s cheeks. Skin pulled away along with the Silver. Those dreadful scars told their own story. The Councillor refused to have the sides of her mask removed after seeing Ranna’s and Miks’ faces.
The morning sun was finally burning through the mist that had rolled in off the Water overnight. Mathy took one last look out of the window towards the City. Life had been hard there, but she never really thought about how hard. Until she’d heard Ban’s stories, living Over the Hill. Ranna’s and Mik’s coming from somewhere outside the City. If she thought about it, she’d known since she was a child. That day she’d tried to find the end of the Boundary. They’d been nothing but prisoners the whole time, in reality.
Not that they had much more freedom hiding out in the Tower.
But then, anything had to be better than being ‘beetled’, as Denzin called it.
Those in the Tower were such a strange mix. They would never – should never – have met one another. Ever. Except that they’d all been Greymen.
And they had all been rescued by the same two people.
