Nameless: Book Three in the Enhanced Series Read online

  Nameless

  The Enhanced, Book Three

  T. C. Edge

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Next Up

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, events, and incidents that occur are entirely a result of the author's imagination and any resemblance to real people, events, and places is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2016 T. C. Edge

  All right reserved.

  First edition: February 2017

  Cover Design by Laercio Messias

  No part of this book may be scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.

  THE ENHANCED SERIES:

  The Enhanced (Book One)

  Hybrid (Book Two)

  Nameless (Book Three)

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:

  THE WATCHERS SERIES:

  The Watchers Trilogy:

  The Watchers of Eden (Book One)

  City of Stone (Book Two)

  War at the Wall (Book Three)

  The Watchers Trilogy Box Set

  The Seekers Trilogy

  The Watcher Wars (Book One)

  The Seekers of Knight (Book Two)

  The Endless Knight

  The Seekers Trilogy Box Set

  1

  My eyes crack open, drawing in the first shards of sunlight. The feel of dried mud breaks on my skin as I lift my head from the riverbank, the shape of green trees coming into focus ahead of me.

  I push up from the muddy shore, my entire body caked in dirt, and immediately feel the heavy throb pulsing in my skull. I struggle to sit up, reaching around to feel the matted lumps of bloodied hair at the back of my head.

  A gash cuts across it, the skin split open from when I cracked my head on the rocky wall. It’s sore to the touch, sending a further pulse of dizziness through me as I sit and cast my eyes back up to the tumbling waterfall.

  Around me, the sun is only just starting to rise, creeping through between the trunks of trees and lighting up the hovering green mist. I must have been out for hours, slumped on this shore some way outside of the city.

  Once more, I look beyond the cliff and see the top of the High Tower glowing in the red sky of dawn, perpetually lit and an eternal beacon visible from so many miles away.

  Across my mouth and nose, the gas mask still lies intact. At least I’d had the sense to put in on before I passed out, lethal as the toxic fumes can be out here beyond the city walls.

  Near the water, however, I seem to be in some sort of safe zone, the toxic air sticking mainly to the woods and marshes that surround me. I turn in all directions to see if I can spot a path through.

  Nothing obvious sticks out.

  I lift my eyes back to the cliff, where the river spurts from the high opening, and see that it extends right across in front of me in both directions, an impassable wall blocking my way home.

  There’s a chill to me, my muscles sluggish as I try to stand. My legs feel weak beneath me, my body badly bruised from my brutal journey down the river. My back aches as I attempt to stretch out my limbs, every joint in me feeling inelastic and brittle.

  I collapse back down to the soft floor, my clothes still damp and wrapping me in an icy blanket. I pull my arms into my chest, my entire frame shivering as I begin to try to rub myself warm.

  My motion is too slow, my body too cold. I raise my eyes to the far side of the lake, where the sun appears to have broken through onto the shore, casting a large patch in an inviting orange glow.

  I rise back to my feet with difficulty, every movement a struggle, and begin shuffling around the shoreline, crossing the trickling river that continues off from the lake into the woods at a gentle pace.

  I manage a scowl at the languid and leisurely motion of the water, so different from the raging beast flowing down from above me. I spare little thought for much else, though, my single focus right now on getting warm.

  Within a few minutes, I’m gingerly entering into the low sunlight, blooming through a gap in the eerie woods. I find a suitable spot on the shore and sit back down, facing right at the sun and closing my eyes as its rays begin to warm me.

  I sit for a while, unable to think or do anything but wait for my muscles to thaw. As the sun continues its climb, its bright light lifting, the gap through the trees becomes clearer.

  I look ahead and see the rolling hills in the distance, drifting far away from the city at my back, stretching into the unknown and dangerous world beyond. Still trembling, I sit and rub my arms and chest, transfixed by the silence and natural features that surround me.

  All my life, I’ve wished to see what it was like beyond the city walls. To discover the smell of trees or the taste of water from a spring. To walk in the high passes of the mountains or ramble through the woods searching out the weird and wonderful wildlife.

  Yet I never imagined that it would happen. And if I had, this wouldn’t be how the fantasy would have gone. Now, as my body begins to wake, my only thoughts turn to escaping this eerie, peaceful place, and returning to the city I’ve grown to hate and longed to escape.

  I manage a small smile at my predicament, and the strange ironies that life throws at you.

  It doesn’t last long, though. I have no idea exactly where I am, or how far the city is. The High Tower is visible, so I can’t be too far, and yet with the cliffs blocking my view, I can’t work out how far the city boundary might be.

  As I work to warm my body, I consider my options.

  Scaling the cliff looks impossible. You’d have to be a professional climber for that, or else have absolutely no other alternative. Right now, neither applies. I’m sure I can think of something better.

  More obvious is the option of working around the cliffs by navigating through the woods and marshes. As I look at them now, they’re fairly dense and look none-too-appealing. Add to that the stories I’ve heard of strange, deformed beasts that roam the wild, and the idea doesn’t seem particularly attractive.

  Yet, I don’t appear to have a choice. Thankfully, I have my gas mask, and a fair enough coating of clothes to shield me, temporarily at least, from the toxic mist. As long as the jagged cliffs ahead don’t go too far, I should be able to work my way around, and hopefully get within view of the city walls.

  Of course, that’s another issue: how to get past the wall?

  Could I climb it? Sneak through some sewage pipe? Creep through one of the gates when no one’s looking?

  Having never been close enough to properly inspect the boundary wall, particularly down here outside the southern quarter, I won’t really know until I get close enough. All I do know is that there are four gates – one for each quarter – that lead into Outer Haven, and that all are heavily and perpetually guarded.

  The same most likely goes for the entire perimeter wall. Even if it’s climbable – which it most probably isn’t – then I suspect it’s constantly watched and patrolled by the servants of the Consortium.

 
None of that will matter, however, unless I can get my body in gear. Slowly but surely, as the sun continues its climb, I feel my aching muscles start to relax just a little. It’s enough for me to be able to stand up, at least, and stretch out my arms and legs in an attempt to improve my current range of motion.

  Yet with the good comes the bad. The brightening light is only serving to intensify the ache in my head, my eyes feeling sensitive again as they did when my abilities first started to manifest.

  This, however, doesn’t appear to be related to my evolving eyes, or even my advancing mental capabilities. Instead, it’s merely a reaction to having my head smacked hard against a rock wall, the gash on my cranium still leaking a little blood.

  With a wince of pain, I step back down to the water’s edge and cup some cooling liquid into my palm. Down on my knees, I begin washing my hair of the dried blood and coating of mud, turning the water around me an unpleasant shade of dark crimson.

  Once I’m satisfied, I remove my jacket and tear off a bit of fabric from the sleeve of the sweater underneath. It takes some doing, my strength still drained, but eventually I’m left with a strip large enough to wrap around my head.

  Washing the rag clean, I tighten it around my skull before creeping back into my jacket, and pulling the hood up over my head for extra protection from the green fog, lurking nearby along the treeline.

  I look at it with a sense of dread. I’ve tasted the mist before, but only in diluted doses. Here it looks all the more potent, a putrid smog that has taken plenty of lives in the past.

  Clearly, this particular area has been deemed unfit for decontamination. That, I’d imagine, is probably due to the sticky marshlands in the area. If the lands can’t be cultivated or built upon, then I suppose there’s little point in trying to cleanse them.

  Elsewhere, large swathes of the outerlands beyond the city have seen very different treatment. The Consortium are constantly trying to detoxify the lands and soils to allow us to expand our reach.

  If what Adryan said is true, and their population is growing as rapidly as he suggests, then space is going to be at a premium soon. And with Inner Haven locked within the centre of the city, and with no way of expanding, I’m sure they have designs of developing other settlements and cities way off beyond our current borders.

  But, here I am, stuck in this little refuge in the middle of the marshes, cold and alone and with no idea how to get back into the city. All I wanted to do was save Drum…and now I might just get myself killed in the process.

  The thought brings the fate of my allies back into my head. I’ve been so concerned with getting warm and figuring out a way out of here that I’d all but forgotten about them.

  Now, however, my body blares with a fresh concern. The last I saw of Zander and Drum, they were charging off down some tunnel in the underlands, a whole squad of Con-Cops in hot pursuit.

  Did they make it to safety? Were they caught?

  A host of worries flutter in my aching head as I stand in my open-air cell, surrounded by green poison. I try to douse them, to calm my mind. Then, focusing, I picture Zander’s face, and bring forth a question to the forefront of my mind.

  Are you safe?

  My brain squeezes against my inner skull, feeling like it’s about to explode out of my ears. I ask the question over and over, but get no response. I try again, concentrating hard on Zander’s face and the words I want to ask him, but fail to keep the image in my head, to clarify it for him to see.

  It’s too painful. My mind is too muddled, too weak.

  I won’t be able to communicate with him.

  I’m on my own out here…

  2

  Before I venture off into the unnerving and silent woods, I double and triple check my gas mask. Removing it, I inspect its outer surface to ensure there are no cracks or breaches.

  Satisfied that it’ll do its job, I then make sure to cover every inch of me to keep the noxious mist from burning my skin. My clothes should be enough to protect most of me, and the extra coating of dried mud will surely be of aid as well.

  My face, however, while largely protected by my cloak, is still exposed. And my hands, although I can hide them in tight pockets, will also be under threat.

  I take inspiration from my muddy clothes and decide to paint my skin in the stuff as well. Scooping up handfuls of soggy dirt, I spread the paste across any bare skin until I’m happy with the shield. Then I wait for a few minutes, letting the wet mud bake in the sun and solidify on my flesh.

  With my body now suitably warm and feeling a little more lively, I turn my eyes back to the cliffs and determine which way to go. By the looks of things, the High Tower is slightly off to the right beyond the rock wall, suggesting that that might be the best route to take.

  Either way, my vision through the woods is severely compromised, and I won’t really know if I’m right until I try.

  So, turning to the right, I move along the shore of the lake until I’m close to the base of the low cliffs. Ahead of me, the woods begin only a few metres back from the shore, the mist swirling about on the breeze and inviting me in.

  It’s strangely mesmerising, and beautiful in a deadly kind of way, a Venus flytrap luring me into its lethal snare. Taking a deep breath to settle my raging pulse, I take my first step towards it, wincing anxiously as I enter into the fog.

  Immediately, it begins to churn and dance around me, creeping up my legs and towards my waist. It’s thicker at the bottom, so heavy it hangs low to the ground, diluting a little as it rises and clears.

  It allows me to see where I’m going as I move across the sodden earth, sludge squelching beneath my feet. Only a few metres in and already I’m feeling a bit more confident about my protective suit of clothing and mud.

  I suck in a deep breath through my mask and feel no burning down my throat or in my nostrils. Tentatively, I creep my hands out of my pockets and drop them into the mire. The green gas surrounds them, desperate to penetrate through my filthy armour.

  For the most part, it fails, only the lightest tingling nibbling at my fingers. I make a mental note to try not to move them too much for fear of the dried up mud breaking off.

  The woods remain thick and difficult to see through as I go, keeping close to the rock wall on my left. Immediately, however, any view of the High Tower is extinguished, the cliff my only point of reference.

  Soon, it begins to curve a little to the right, which I know must be guiding me further south and away from the city. The jagged rock walls, however, appear to be growing smaller, receding a little as I work to the southeast.

  Up near the rock the ground remains steady, if a little soft, the roots of the cliffs doing enough to hold back the marshlands. I cast my eyes into the woods away from the wall and note that it’s far boggier only a little further in, the trees giving way in places to swampy pools of acidic water that I’d rather not fall into.

  I doubt even my suit of mud would keep me safe in there…

  As I venture deeper into the unknown, the light of the sun finds it increasingly difficult to pierce the slithering, knotted canopy of branches above. A gloominess descends around me, one that calls my nightvision into service.

  Far enough away from the thundering waterfall, it’s almost totally silent now. Only the cracking of twigs beneath my feet, or the occasional chirp of a bird, somewhere high in the foliage above, does anything to disturb the spooky calm.

  With the morning still so young, I keep my eyes on the deep woods, stories from the city streets echoing around in my head.

  Over in Outer Haven, the people speak of odd creatures, mutated over the centuries by the toxic air. Adapted to live within it, they stalk the outerlands beyond the city walls, hunting the workers sent out to clear the lands of the poison.

  So rarely are they seen that few consistent descriptions have surfaced. Some have returned from work beyond the wall, speaking of flashes of bear-like beasts. Others have told of wolves or cougars and other jungle cats
, migrating up here from the southern lands to seek out their prey.

  Mostly, however, it’s just shadows the people tell of. Shadows that come from nowhere, swooping from the trees or climbing from the murky marshes, silently snaring unsuspecting victims and dragging them to their deaths.

  The Shadows of the outerlands. That’s what people call them. Some form of mutated human, perhaps, scraping a living from the dirt.

  I’ve skipped from one side of the fence to the other over the years, sometimes believing such stories, and at other times considering them nonsense. Yet right now, as I creep quietly through the swamp, I can’t help but feel a rising fear that something might be out there.

  Whether some strange, mutant human, or raging wild beast, I’d rather not be here too long to find out if the rumours are true.

  I hasten my step, keeping the receding wall to my left as I go, until it begins to crumble and break up. Soon, craggy formations of rock appear, with little pathways through that might just be climbable.

  I reach the first and begin working my way in, making decent progress until I reach a dead end. Around me, several overhanging crags grind up from the earth, all of them out of reach of my fingers as I attempt to jump and climb up.

  I turn back, re-entering the murky woodland with my eyes once more growing keen. Any time a bird suddenly calls out, or a rustle shakes in the leaves, I feel my heart hammering suddenly in my chest, a swell of adrenaline suddenly pulsing through me.

  And, each time, my head pounds harder with the sudden force of blood, my temples throbbing under the bandage that tightly binds them.

  I continue moving towards the next pathway, this one appearing more promising. Up boulders and large tables of stone I climb, moving up and away from the festering marshlands. With a little effort, I work through the small maze of rocks and reach the summit, appearing in another area of woodland above.