The Foundry | Part Four | Chapter Forty
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Four | Unmasked; Unbound; Unleashed
Chapter Forty
Rory gathered a small group of pilot’s and had them queued by the instructors break room entryway — the faculties shared space meant for rest and breaths asunder — soon to become a birthplace for Rory’s witnessing of the single greatest expulsion of evil these Foundry walls would ever have bore within them.
There’d not been time to think as she called on those few she might. Echo was out in Scarlet — testing its flight with her newly installed micro antimatter reactor — and Poe had been disposed in a way which called for immediate assistance.
Jem Harrison’s incompetence was never just about their capabilities as an Investigator, that was in-fact compounded by their complete and utter corruption at the hands of their former lover; Vladmir Salus. Their falling out had been so long ago, these two seeing to never speak in public again, and that void between them had taught of mistaken perceptions regarding Jem’s innocence.
Due attention hadn’t been paid, even by the Council’s Consolers themselves; friends who’d seen fit to prove the name bestowed upon them by Poe Halroth most fitting, many times over. She’d been hiding when the stream came through on Rory’s terminal, a storage closet in the back of the classroom.
“That fucking cunt rag, bitch ass, slut fucker.” Poe began the call in full flow.
“Slow down!” Rory demanded.
“Who are you talking about?”
It took a moment for her words to snap Poe back, but something came over them then which Rory had never seen from the girl. She was worried — scared even.
Poe explained what she’d come upon as quickly as she could; Harrison holding captive a group of three initiates nearing their elevation to pilothood. She said there wasn’t time, and Jem had only been waiting for the mixture to settle — concocting some dreadful acidic substance they’d clearly been aiming to murder these hogtied people with outright.
Poe was insisting she’d shot footage of it before taking her shot at Jem, shattering their beaker against the wall, before becoming forced into hiding by the pursuit of their previously unseen ally. Rory felt their terminal vibrate after watching the girl take strokes on the screen below the camera’s lens. She’d not needed to look at their video — trust was earned between these women — no matter how hard it was to believe Jem might be capable of something that devious, in either way that might be regarded.
There’d been a very special bond built between Poe and Rory. That girl reminded her of who she’d been as a child, and there was no chance she’d let that fool touch her.
That’s what she was thinking when Poe had been ripped from the closet. Not by Jem themself, but an enormous goon Rory recognized immediately, having previously seen them prowling the halls, feeling pangs of terrible suspicion at the sight of them.
Rory, as all aboard The Foundry, had elected to trust in her fellows, an effort of good faith onboard, circumventing the horrendous fate which might befall an organization turned upon itself by the weight of suspicion while at war. They’d need to find all the hope they could, and no good would come from casting accusations which might be borne from fear — who none could claim to be entirely beyond.
Yet, there was something different about Rory Tyrell. She learned in that very moment to trust it, watching Poe gripped by her hair and blouse, dropping her streaming terminal as she’d screamed and fought.
She would never fail to trust her gut again, because Rory was right where others were wrong, just as she’d always been. It was an oddest feeling to be the one person who saw dreadful things clearly. Nuance was hard for folks who’d not lived a lifetime fraught of duality, and weren’t made of the grit to witness and act boldly in response to it. They’d feel comfortable in the lies of simplicity and how it provided the ease of cozy ignorance.
That’s why Rory had activated Echo herself, when they’d met so long ago. They were the same, and it had been a most curious notion for Echo to feel herself witnessed for those ways she’d wield wisdom beyond the pale of commonality from her heart. No one had ever done anything but shirk from the harsh truths which would emerge from her, and only ever heard either confirmed or preempted in return by Rory’s own voice. Truth-tellers proved a rarest thing, especially those who’d overcome the suppression of their voice by those lies their societies had forced them to live within.
It would hurt most deeply to believe you’d found one and be failed by them in any way.
More than one traitor had been left behind, and more would be discovered in the time to come. Yet, there would be no cease to the upholding of right-living aboard The Foundry, and there was a trust found amongst the Consolers that it would see them to victory in this war.
With two she’d known so well from her time as an initiate, a chosen pair themselves, Demi Annexa and Jacobi Ebbentide; pilots of Onslaught and Chalice. They were joined by Iris Lirafleur, that very next in line to have their own warship, Cardinal, made real by The Foundry’s workshop.
Rory knew it from within, and was beyond those urges of questioning her body’s wisdoms; there’d be no more time to spare.
She’d fired the blast shards placed around the frame, having spread her team two-a-side, splintering the locked micro-composite door, and failing to watch as its remains launched past into the opposite wall.
First in with her Interrogator Mark IV drawn and stubbed to her shoulder, Rory witnessed the surprising emptiness of that right-angled room — made of cupboards and viewing screens, tables and chairs, refrigeration and heating appliances — from which she’d blasted her entry at its outermost corner.
Fire was thrown first by the enemy occluded at length along the leftmost room-space, exploding chunks of the wall to her right, past her shoulders and the sides of her head and back towards their direction of fire.
Unperturbed, Rory was at full-bore sprint towards the rightmost wing, where she’d known to find the classroom’s entrance. That brute’s inadequate trail of cindered bolts would seek to chase her, embedding the fact of their pursuit down that wall to shred the tables behind her kicking heels.
This failure of patience and tact would prove most deadly the moment Iris Lirafleur had spun around the still smoldering door-frame and found her target marked by the repetitive muzzle flashes appearing over-top his measly cover.
She’d blown right through it with a stuttered release of the chemically-caustic fusion ray borne from an Interrogator — the fizzing, spinning spear of platinum light which could melt through a plywood table like paper — and proved most capable of splitting that man’s overlarge head down the middle.
Iris would continue to show-out as an excellent shot in many scenarios to come, along with her own heroism and rightful place among the Consolers. The ultimate matter of one’s right to join their ranks would be nothing other than the approval of the woman who’d made it all possible.
That one themself; Rory Tyrell — had been first into the classroom, neglecting to hold back for support in hope she’d beat the clock to have a chance at saving her dearest friend.
Seeing what she saw — took the wind right from her.
All three of those which Poe had spoken of were dead. She’d not been exaggerating one bit, nor imagining things in her estimation of what Jem Harrison was aiming to do.
It were their throats which would be hardest to forget, the open view of those inner workings, and how someone had been capable of doing that to one person after another. Jem had forced them to drink, and two watched what they were in for. One of them had to watch it twice.
Jem knew them coming. They’d heard Poe’s call. That’s why they’d had her ripped from the closet in the first place, and their goon stowed in the break room.
Poe had been witness to all three murders, and her face was covered in tears. There was a place in the back of the chamber, opposite corner of that very passage Rory was seen leaving by Echo’s unfocused eyes — a dais built for a conductor — the room most prone to flipping around for The Foundry’s orchestra practice.
There was no angle on Jem, not one in the whole room. These walls were made of layers of that same micro composite which had taken a quartet of blast shards to blow through a single pane of. No hope would be found to find advantage over this one with their back into the corner, holding a beaker of that same amber colored death-mix dripping from the faces of those three Rory would now never know.
She didn’t know what to do. The look on Jem’s face was that of despair. They’d known themselves quite done-for regardless of how they went, and the feeling she’d read off their energy was of rage.
Some part of her thought to place her Mark IV on the floor, large parts of her consciousness resisting the notion entirely. That fool had given such time however, and it allowed Rory the space to realize this feeling she had came from that very same place she’d resolved to trust.
She’d fought her fear to go unarmed — unknowing how it might serve the situation at all, how it could prove to benefit that one she loved before her — doing it all the same.
Those who’d joined her followed suit without command, and what was created had been a window of time. In that stretch, Iris would begin live-streaming with her personal terminal, showing the entirety of The Foundry what Jem Harrison had become, proving witness for all of what would transpire.
Poe had been restrained by the wrists, her mouth covered with tape which hung loose around the sides of her head, caught tangled in her newly pink-died hair, and was being held by one arm before Jem.
Rory could see Poe standing as tall and proud as she could. She’d been hurt though — bruises on her arms — one blackest eye. That mollusk behind her who’d go as Jem Harrison couldn’t keep her contained themself.
That one, such evil in their eyes, back leaning against the corner of this room in their complete and utter cowardice — was glaring towards the camera Iris had upon them — and machinations had clearly been brewing in their mind.
Pulling forward into renewed struggle at last, Poe ripped her hands free of Jem’s grasp, only a few steps from the dais’s edge. They’d reached for her hair and torn hard at that tape their hand found instead. The force spun Poe around part-way, freeing her mouth just enough for her to scream, “Fuck this bitch!”
Rory would have had the shot, but her Interrogator was steps away, and there’d been no way to take it.
Jem Harrison reached up with that beaker, tipping it over as they’d grasped again for Poe with the other hand, and Rory scrambled for her rifle.
Upon its raising from the floor she’d found the shot most unclear — Jem holding Poe by her wrists again. The girl had been pulling forward as hard as she could, and they were ripping her backward with the weight of their body fully leaned back into the corner.
The entire structure of those walls on either side of Jem appeared to dematerialize at once — along with their shoulders and throat — launching their skull skyward in an arch which carried an angle of divine harmony that only one Priscilla Millisceth might recognize, proving to those complete lack of people in the know, who might’ve believed in such spiritually profound synchronicities, the one who had fired the shot.
Just a moment after Jem’s loosest body had fallen, to then gurgle little spurts of blood out for minutes to come, and their skull smashed to the floor and at last proved they did in-fact have a brain, was when the people in that room actually discovered who’d done it.
Rory was the only one who’d recognized what happened before Echo peeked her head through the entryway. They were more concerned about Poe, who’d prove to be okay. She’d been battered by that man with body blows, softening her just enough that Jem could wield unearned power over the girl.
As Echo walked in, facing the shocked stares of those not familiar with the ways of the rail driver, she’d seemed a little embarrassed about it.
“Hey guys.” She’d said with an awkward smile, hugging it to her chest, sneaking a quick peek at the splatter pattern in the corner and hoping nobody knew why she’d done it.
Then Echo saw Poe, and felt it too, what they’d been through. Her smile was gone, and she’d stopped hugging her weapon. There was no time for enjoying the adrenaline still coursing blissfully through her veins, nor the knowing Jem Harrison would never hold down another good person again.
Rory had said it best, as usual with the woman, realizing more than others about not only herself but the hardest truths of any matter; this was war.
Love that Poe is like a representation of Rory’s inner child. :)