The door opened. The gang leader came in with several of his men, a disgusting smile on his face, rubbing his hands as if he had won a prize. "Students of the elite school," he said, walking toward us with heavy steps, the sound of his boots echoing on the stone floor. "You know, for children like you we could get a nice ransom from your families or your school. Or... we could sell you. We haven't decided yet."
Elena's breath caught. I clenched my teeth and secretly tried to force the bindings on my hands, but it didn't work — we had been bound with something special; it was a kind of cuff that blocked my Chi flow, cold and smooth on my wrist.
"My father will find you," said Elena, in a defiant tone despite the tremor in her voice, lifting her chin. "And he'll destroy you."
The man laughed, a coarse, hoarse laugh. "Do you think we care who your father is? In this city money silences everything, little lady."
Another of the men, one who looked younger and more agitated, came toward us, a kind of hunger in his eyes. "Maybe we should take care of them without waiting for ransom," he said, his voice threatening. "Nobody even knows we kidnapped three students."
The gang leader threw him a hard look. "Be patient, Kesh. These three could be the most valuable goods you've ever seen. Don't rush."
The young man called Kesh grumbled and pulled back, but he didn't take his eyes off us; there was something in those looks that made me shudder — as if he already saw us as objects, not as people. And he kept looking at my sister and at Elena.
"Don't worry, I've memorized your name. If I see you again I'll kill you with pleasure," I thought.
One of the men beside him stepped forward, an old, portable device in his hand. "Shall we call their families, Varga? How much ransom will we ask?"
Varga made a show of thinking, then looked at us, his eyes running over us as if making calculations; first Elena, then me, then Elisa. "Let's wait," he said finally. "Maybe someone will call us first."
They closed the door and left; as their footsteps moved away, the sound of the lock rang out in the darkness. In the dark, the three of us sat silently, each of us alone with our own fear; nothing could be heard in the room but the sound of our breathing.
A little later Elena broke the silence. "Kai," she said, her voice still shaky but a little more collected. "Do you think Master Ren can find us? I mean, is he really that strong?"
I didn't know how to answer that question. "I don't know," I said honestly. "But I hope they don't underestimate him." Elisa, still huddled against me, began to speak in a low voice, as though voicing her thoughts to herself. "Do you remember, brother, when I was little, whenever I had a nightmare I always ran to his room? And he never sent me back, he just laid me down beside him, without saying anything. I had never thought about his warmth back then, but I knew he made me feel safe. I'm so frightened, brother." Tears had started pouring from her eyes again.
That moment affected me; my sister looking at me and crying with fear, and me being too powerless to do anything, and on top of that the hatred I felt toward that vile man's looks. These bursts of emotion brought tears to my eyes, and I turned my head away so no one would see in the dark.
"He will find us," I said, and the certainty in my voice was even stronger this time, because at the very least I wanted to reduce Elisa's fear. "I know it."
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From outside, behind the door, we heard footsteps — one of the guards was clearly on patrol. The sounds came closer, then moved away, passing in front of the door. Elena noticed she had been holding her breath and slowly let it out. "This waiting," she said, her voice cracking, "is going to kill me, I'm so frightened."
As for me, strangely, I was thinking about Master Ren. About what I had seen in the warehouse that night, that word "Commander." About how he had limited his strength in the fight. Where was he now? Had they taken him to another room, or had he never been captured at all?
I don't know whether hours or minutes passed. After a while both Elena and Elisa stopped crying and sat silently, knees drawn up to their chests. Elisa had huddled against me, resting her head on my shoulder; with my hands bound there wasn't much way to calm her, so I just laid my cheek against her hair.
"Brother," Elisa said at one point. "Are we going to die?" As she asked this there was a tone in her voice that made it clear she couldn't take any more; her hands were shaking, her eyes darted right and left, she shuddered at every sound that came. Her being in this state and my own helplessness made my heart ache; to comfort her at least a little, I spoke.
"No," I said. "Master Ren will come." I didn't much trust what I was saying either. Was Master Ren dead or not, where was he? I trusted that he wouldn't abandon us, but... I don't know. Right now I had to calm my sister, so I moved a little closer to her.
At exactly that moment the door opened and two men came in. "Get up," said one, pulling us to our feet and shoving us. With our hands bound we were taken through a narrow corridor and brought to the main body of the warehouse — high-ceilinged, with rusty steel beams, a broken crane hanging in one corner.
They chained us to a wall. We weren't alone. Along the wall were other human silhouettes — five or six people, all chained, all waiting. These new chains they put on our wrists were made of a material we couldn't break even with our Chi, and all of us were very tired. The System was not an eye that watched our minds or where we were at any moment live outside the academy's walls; it only measured the Chi in our bodies. Since the cuff reduced the Chi flow to zero, the panel couldn't find any data to report outside either. Because of that, no sudden data would go to the school — maybe if we stayed here a few days and someone got suspicious... And then the state would have to investigate the matter, of course.
Once the men had gone, one of the shadows beside me spoke. "Are you new?"
"We were kidnapped tonight," I said.
The man looked at me and laughed. "I've been here for two weeks," he said. "My name is Marcus. I had a repair shop in the 4th District. I couldn't pay the protection money, they burned down my shop, they brought me here with my family. I had two children." His voice cut off for a moment, then continued in a flat, dead tone. "They did it to both of them. Then they sold their organs. They made me watch them being taken out."
We were all frozen at what he told us, we didn't know what to say.
"Your wife—" Elena began just then. Her voice was trembling; she had asked not because she wanted to hear the answer but because she couldn't bear that silence.
"I don't want to talk about her," Marcus said, his voice sharpening. And he never brought the subject up again.
Another voice joined in from the darkness, a woman. "I've been here three days," she said. "I went to the police, three times. They said 'we've entered it in the records.' Nothing happened. In the 4th District nobody really cares about us."
"Does the state know about these things?" I asked.
"It knows," said Marcus. "The patrols pass through these streets, they pass in front of these warehouses. They don't stop and look. When elite school students like you disappear maybe there's a news story. When a mechanic like me disappears nobody even looks after him. The state only takes an interest in people of the lower class if a very big problem arises; for example if there's an electricity or water leak they'll probably come and fix it, because hundreds of people will make trouble at once, and that means a mass problem. Or if an incident makes the news, if it resonates in the media, or if a request comes from a powerful person, they might look into it. But the absence of one or two people, or of one family, doesn't disturb anyone. And unfortunately the state has no intention of declaring war on the gangs and spending resources for incidents this small."