Elisa smiled faintly with the corner of her lips. It was clear she was weighing the seriousness in what I'd said. "Is this the confidence of being fourth in the school?"
"Let's call it realism," I said with a slight smile. "Also, speaking of the academy... Ms. Laura sent a message today about my absence. I said I was fine, but when I go to class on Monday she'll call me straight up to the board and make me solve Chi vector matrices. Most likely I'll go up in flames in front of the whole class."
Elisa nodded slightly. "Maybe I should come to your school again and sabotage something; and this time I'll open the betting in your class, and we can go to a much nicer restaurant," she said.
I smiled at what she'd said, and she giggled. Then I pulled my voice back to a serious tone and spoke.
"I know," I said. "Just don't wear yourself out too much. If you need time to pull yourself together, take it. But in that process, know that you're not alone, that's all." Elisa let out a deep breath, and you could feel that the heavy load in her gaze had lightened at least a little. "Thank you, Kai... For being beside me and for being my family."
"Don't mention it," I said as I stood up. "Now I need to look over these theory notes, or not even you will be able to save me from Laura's wrath."
When Elisa's gaze turned back to the window, that paralyzing fear on her face had given way to a calmer acceptance. The rain went on outside, but the atmosphere inside the house was at least under control.
When Master Ren came home that evening, I had already made my decision. I put Elisa to bed early — she objected but finally accepted; after last night she didn't like sleep, and she had probably started having nightmares from the shock of the incident. While Master Ren was sitting in the kitchen I went over to him, sat down across from him, put my hands on the table, trying to appear calm, however tense I was inside.
"We need to talk," I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible.
Master Ren looked at me and said nothing for a long time, only looked into my eyes, as if measuring something. Then he took a deep breath and set the cup in his hand aside; it touched the table with a faint click.
"Show a little respect, you brat, whatever it is, make it quick," he said finally, his voice more tired than usual, with the weight of a load carried for years. He set down the book in his hand and looked into my eyes. When he understood that I was determined and that I wouldn't give up this time, he said, "Maybe I've put too much on you two."
"Master, this isn't your fault," I said, my voice softening. "You pulled us out of the wreckage, you gave us a life. Whatever happens, I'm grateful to you for that."
Master Ren closed his eyes a moment, as if these words had affected him deeply. Then he opened them again and looked at me. "Ask," he said. "Ask everything you want to know."
"Was that you?" I asked directly; I had no intention of going by indirect routes anymore, and I was pressing my hand against my kneecap so my voice wouldn't shake. "That night, the man who took off the mask?"
There was a long silence; the water dripping from the old tap in the kitchen seemed to be measuring the length of that silence. Then Master Ren nodded, just once, but that small movement changed everything; it was as if even the air in the room had grown heavier.
"Yes," he said.
My heart sped up, but at the same time I felt a strange relief — at least I was no longer suspecting, I knew; uncertainty, it turns out, is a heavier load than the truth itself. "Tell me," I said. "Everything. I've been put off long enough, Master. My sister and I were kidnapped, people were killed in front of us — or maybe not killed, their bodies were torn apart, their arms and legs came off, I don't know what the difference is — and you were a part of it. You owe me an explanation."
Master Ren looked at me for a long while, as if weighing me, the weight of the past showing in his eyes again. Then he really did begin to tell it; his voice was slow but decisive, as if he were weighing every word before saying it.
"This city," he said, "is not as orderly and safe as it appears from the outside, Kai. The System protected us against the Anomalies, yes. But it never prevented the cruelty humans inflict on humans. Extortion gangs, smuggling networks, underground slave markets — all of it operates right in the 3rd and 4th Districts you've seen, before your eyes but invisibly. The school, the upper administration, the elite class... none of them concern themselves with these problems, because these problems don't affect them or the general public. To them, we're only statistics, background noise."
"And you decided to do something," I said, slowly beginning to understand, my voice softening too.
"My friends and I, and my master too, yes," said Master Ren. "Years ago. My master fell into a depression for a reason he never told us; every day he'd say 'they're too strong, nothing can be done.' Then he said 'how can I change the world,' and together with me he built this structure. We reach the places the official system can't reach and doesn't care about. We punish. We rescue. Calling it 'justice' is maybe too bold, but... I couldn't find another word; I've been looking for years but I couldn't find one."
"How many of you are there?" I asked, my curiosity growing.
"It varies," said Master Ren. "At the very top there's a council of nine people. The core cadre that goes into the field doesn't exceed fifty. But we have a much larger network spread across every corner of the city, undertaking different tasks in different districts. Some only gather information, some provide logistics; I won't tell you the size of that network today."
"Are there groups like yours in the other cities too?" I asked, the nine great cities suddenly coming to mind.
Master Ren hesitated for a moment. "In some of them," he said in a careful tone. "But we don't have communication with all of them, for security reasons. Each group works independently in its own region, and we share information only in very important situations. This is so that if one is caught, the others aren't endangered."
This detail showed me once again how organized this was, how seriously the matter was taken. This was not an amateur group set up by a few angry citizens — it was a resistance network planned over years, carefully structured.
"This is illegal," I said, but there was no judgment in my voice, just as though stating a fact, flatly. "Yes," said Master Ren, not taking his eyes off me, with neither defense nor regret in his voice. "But tell me, Kai — did the law protect the owner of that little market? Did the law save you and your sister that night? Or, in a place the law never reaches, did somebody have to act?"
I couldn't answer, because he was right. This didn't fit at all with the images of an orderly, just world taught at school. But what I had seen was real; that woman's scream, those children's trembling, all of it was still fresh in my mind.
"Why did you never tell us?" I asked; there was reproach in my voice, but not much.
"Because I wanted to protect you," said Master Ren, his voice cracking slightly. "Elisa, you. I thought the less you knew of this world, the safer you would be. But I suppose I was wrong. Not knowing didn't protect you from events like tonight's — it only caught you unprepared."
"How many years have you been doing this?" I asked, my curiosity growing.
Master Ren thought for a long while, his eyes focused on a point on the table, as if counting the years. "More than twenty," he said finally. "This started long before you and Elisa came into the world. When I left my teaching post at the academy, I knew I would spend the rest of my life fighting against the dark face of this city."
"But we knew you as a guard," I said. "That's what the records said on the day you pulled us out of the wreckage too."
Master Ren smiled slightly — a bitter smile. "A name was needed, Kai. For years I've stood in the official records as a retired guard; that identity opens doors for me, keeps people from asking questions. I wasn't in the 4th District that night because I was a guard. We had heard beforehand that the leak was going to happen, and nobody was going to come. I was there because the organization was there."
That sentence quietly hollowed out a story I had believed for twelve years. The man who pulled us out of the wreckage was not a state official who happened to be there. He was someone who had come knowing that nobody would come.
"Why did you leave teaching?" I asked. "What happened?"
A shadow appeared in Master Ren's eyes, the trace of an old pain. "I told you that night," he said, pausing a little. "I kept teaching the removed sections, and they removed me. My master knew this would happen one day; when it did, he was ready."
This answer didn't fully satisfy me, but I didn't press — I knew Master Ren would open up at his own pace, in his own time, and there was no benefit in forcing him.