They escorted him to the door, everyone giving him final words of caution, and thanks, and encouragement. Then Mister Sun was opening the door just wide enough for Painter to slip out, and the night air was cold – and full of a crackling energy that almost felt alive. The door slid shut behind him, and he drew a deep breath.
To think. Him. Painter. A messenger. He almost laughed as he stepped out into the street.
ELEVEN
For Painter, the first few minutes had been a strange mix of fear and giddiness. The fear had begun to melt away after he’d successfully crossed the first of the major streets in his path. The giddiness wore off soon after. And now, as he crouched in shadow a hundred and fifty yards from the compound, he found himself falling into something like quiet determination. It was almost shocking how familiar it was beginning to feel. Stealing through the night, probing for anyone who might cross his path. He’d done it so frequently before. Before. Only now he was avoiding them instead of hunting them.
A patrol moved down the street, just two guardsmen, and neither of them paying much attention. Painter watched them from his hiding place, his eyes lowered slightly to reduce their glow. The guards seemed soft, somehow. Sloppy. How had he ever feared them? How could they possibly be the ones charged with protecting their city? With protecting Wren? And Cass?
He had been afraid before, truly afraid, when they’d made their way to Mister Sun’s. Borderline panicked. Fearing the consequences of his actions. Not knowing what would happen if they were caught, nor if they escaped. How long would Cass let him stay with them after what he had done? And he’d feared for them as well. For Cass, and for Wren. Painter had feared making another mistake, something that would give them away, that would cause harm to those two and leave him with nothing.
But now, here, on his own, it almost felt like this was what he was made for. His altered eyes could see in the dark, and he could sense the digital pulse of the unaltered. Now that he had calmed himself, it felt right. It felt good. Fear was still there, lingering around the edges, but at his center anger remained, cold and righteous. And as long as he held to that, he knew the fear had no place to enter in.
The patrol moved on out of sight, and Painter slipped from the shadows across a small thoroughfare and into another alley. He paused there, in a nook where the corner of the building protruded in an architectural flourish. Morningside was eerie in its stillness, and out from beyond the wall, he could hear the occasional calls of the Weir, cold and electric. Calls that had once filled him with utter terror. But those sounds had lost that power over him now and free from fear he could hear a melancholy, almost musical quality behind them. Painter couldn’t help but wonder what might happen once he was outside the wall. He hadn’t left Morningside at all, even during the day, since Wren had brought him back. Could he walk among the Weir now? Would they attack Painter, or ignore him? Or maybe even accept him?
For just a moment, he felt the slightest pang of regret. For all the horror, the loss of self – the black harvest – amongst the Weir there had been in some strange way a sense of belonging that Painter hadn’t known before and was unlikely to ever know again. An involuntary shiver brought him back to the moment. No. No, there was nothing good or right about what he had been. But maybe now he could find a way to bring good out of what he had become.
Painter eased around the corner of the building and threaded his way amongst the structures that led towards the governor’s compound. Random patrols were bound to be fewer, this close to a secure location, but that also meant an increase in stationed guards. He’d have to keep his eyes open and his wits about him. His eyes. He held a hand up in front of his face, and judged the moonshine glow cast upon it. He’d been careful to avoid looking directly at patrols. But it was going to be far more difficult to keep his gaze averted when Painter had to scan the walls to locate the guardsmen posted there. And all but the laziest would surely notice the telltale shine gleaming from out of the darkness. Maybe he’d have it figured out by the time he got there. Most likely, he was just going to have to get lucky.
The final fifty yards posed no difficulty, and Painter felt he covered them far more quickly than he’d expected. Undoubtedly it was because he’d been counting on that time to grant him some revelation on how to gain entry. Naturally, there hadn’t been one. The compound stood twenty-five yards away across an open stretch of ground, well-lit and offering few places to find cover.
Cass had said the north-eastern gate was his best bet, since it hadn’t been used for months, but that didn’t guarantee it’d go unwatched. On the contrary, since one or more of Morningside’s disgruntled citizens had trashed the memorial a night or two ago, there was good reason to think there might be an extra guardsman or two stationed nearby. Painter circled around that direction anyway, swinging wide to avoid street lights where he could, and occasionally putting a building between him and the compound whenever he thought he might be too exposed. When the north-eastern gate was finally in view, Painter crouched low and cupped his hands around his eyes to shield their glow as much as possible.