The Shepherd

The top of Opal Tower was gone. Erased completely.

Bianca crouched on a rooftop about a kilometer away, perched just on its edge, atop the railing surrounding its perimeter. She idly fingered a small device in her pocket, turning its metal chassis over and over in her hands, staring off into the city.

The tower, despite being shaved down seven stories, looked no worse for it, in terms of its grandeur: it still stood opulently above the rest of the dreary city, sticking high above the skyline nearby it. Its windows now scattered the light of the fading afternoon sun all across the city, giving the surrounding area a wistful sheen.

Bianca sighed. It was a necessary sacrifice, she told herself. She repeated that over and over inside since she’d killed her first and only “friend” four weeks before.

The image of May’s face when they were in the observatory, confused, desperate for understanding, flashed through her mind even still. The image haunted her. But the lie was necessary. The escape was necessary. If only she hadn’t blundered as she did—almost revealed herself—the outcome might have been different.

But she had.

She grabbed a loose piece of concrete from behind her, and launched it as far as she could into the city with a grunt of exertion. As though lashing out at the city could restore what she’d lost.

“This doesn’t normally affect you so much,” spoke a voice from behind her, approaching. Rene passed into view soon after, leaning onto the railing on which she now crouched.

“I know.”

“So…”

“It just feels like, if I hadn’t said what I had, maybe I could have…”

“Had your cake and eaten it, too, huh?” He looked out at the city. “We aren’t blessed with that luxury. You were a fool to pursue it.”

“I wasn’t trying to, you understand. It just happened that way, and was convenient for the work.”

“So you could surveil her father? And her traitorous mother?”

Bianca nodded. “That was the idea.”

“Except, you never did that.”

Bianca simply nodded again, remaining silent otherwise.

“Bianca, are you having doubts?”

She remained silent. Perhaps that was answer enough.

Rene shook his head. “I figured. Remember why you’re here?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good.” He pushed back from the railing. “Then get to work. A new zone was detected. Two other traces were generated, too. Staggered. The first will collapse this evening. Get to it.”

“Where?”

Rene started walking away, putting his hands in his pockets. “The location’s been sent to you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Never forget why you’re here. What they did.”

“Rene?” she called after him, as the door was closing.

He stopped it with his foot, inviting her to speak, but didn’t say anything.

“Do you think she lived?”

“...No. Confirmed dead.” The door slammed shut, leaving Bianca with her thoughts again.

With a light groan, she stood up. Just five more months, she thought. That’s all. She drew her new phone from her pocket, finding the locations in her messages. She’d lost her other one in the commotion in Opal Tower, but Rene and his superiors had been kind enough to provide this replacement, though she couldn’t recover her old information.

It would suffice. May was dead anyway.

———

Bianca stepped off the train into the quiet tranquility of the suburban town she’d been sent to. It was in quite a sorry state, especially compared to the sprawling metropolis a two-hour train ride away.

On a surface-level inspection, some might have found it quaint. The platform of the train overlooked the town through a fence that separated it on both sides. The roads that framed the platform were filled with potholes, visible even from where she stood. A row of conjoined shops lined the opposite sides of them, pawning off all kinds of things: food, clothes, records, movies, books, and all kinds of other miscellany. It gave her a strange feeling of nostalgia tugging in her chest, though she’d never experienced anything like it herself.

But the longer one looked, the more apparent its flaws became, though relatively subtle at that moment. First, the town was quite silent. There was far less of the bustle often characteristic of such towns as these in the early evening time that Bianca had arrived. Instead, silence was the norm, interrupted occasionally by the quiet hum of a small car, or the near-silent whirring of bike tires on asphalt. Then, the buildings themselves, along with their visible surroundings, were quite sorry: splotches of green ran up and down the buildings, their facades chipped and cracked, and the relatively sparse vegetation surrounding them was overgrown onto the sidewalk and into the handful of alleyways. It was not even possible to tell which of the two tones on each building was the intended color, and which was the vague discoloration characteristic of a lack of regular maintenance.

Bianca found her way through the station easily—it was quite a bit smaller than the ones in the city—and emerged onto the street on one side of the raised platform.

She checked her phone. The marker showed that the location was just down the street from her. And though it was in the thick of the city, she was certain there would be somewhere good to put it.

She set off in that direction, passing only one person on the way. It was quite… eerie. She’d been to places like this before, but none were as desolate as this, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on the cause. But before she could ponder it long, she looked down at her phone again to see that the marker was just in front of her.

As yet, it was still invisible. Detected a few hours earlier, it might be another half-hour before it manifested. Thankfully, it was in a relatively safe spot—hopefully that meant she didn’t have to move it far. Just away enough from the railroad, shops, and main street to avoid harm.

Bianca took a breath in, drawing a device from her pocket. It was a metal oval, with a few buttons protruding from the front.

With a few taps on her phone, a radius rendered over the map. A notification flag appeared at the top of the screen: “Safe radius has been identified.”

It was small. Unusually so, for one this large: this one was projected to be some 80 feet in diameter. Not unlike the one that had appeared in Opal Tower weeks before.

Bianca gritted her teeth. None of that matters, she reminded herself. I am a shepherd. She repeated the mantra over and over in her mind. It helped to calm and recenter her, but the feeling still lingered.

“Hey, girl.”

“Hello, sir.” She turned around, a narrow smile on her face. Three men stood behind her, the one in the lead being the one that had spoken. She kicked herself for not noticing them sooner.

“You alone?” He ran a hand through his greasy hair and stepped toward her.

“I am.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” he asked, smirking and strutting forward.

“...No, thank you.”

“A beautiful girl like you doesn’t deserve to be alone. You should have a guy like me—”

“I’m in quite a bad mood,” Bianca replied, cutting him off. He stopped mid-step.

“Don’t worry about all that. Just come with us.”

“I have important business to attend to. You would get in the way?”

“What are you talkin’ about? Just get in the car.”

She glanced down at her phone. A couple minutes were left to spare. It would be enough. “Are you members of one of the crime syndicates that have been cropping up?”

He smiled broadly. “You know us already? I guess we’re gettin’ pretty famous, fellas!”

You are a shepherd. Rene’s voice in her mind. The shepherd protects their flock. The shepherd finds the best path; the best place. But the shepherd must also be prepared to protect themself—for the sake of their flock.

Bianca stepped forward, stowing the metal oval and her new phone in opposite pockets. “This won’t take long.”

She clenched her hands to tight fists, and a shadow fell over her face as she closed the gap between her and the gangsters.

———

Bianca glanced down at her phone. She was approaching the edge of the safe radius. It was a good thing that the town was in such stark contrast to the city—she found a patch of trees just nearby enough that could minimize the effect.

She removed the key from the ignition, the car’s hum falling to silence. She stepped out. The smell of the forest air, small though the patch of it was, reinvigorated her. Birds tweeted in the trees above, and she heard the faint first chirps of the nighttime insects emerging now that the sun was hanging low over the horizon.

She had a couple minutes still, which was good. Redirecting it to here would be simple, and wouldn’t require much care or delicacy. There was no one around.

Except who she intended to be.

She popped the tailgate of the SUV the men had been driving. Her gaze was met with the terrified eyes of six men, piled on top of each other. The other three had been in the car, and she’d identified one of them as the sitting leader of the gang of which they were all part.

She’d intended to leave them alive to meet their fates, but perhaps she’d been too rough on some of them. The ones she’d placed at the bottom of the pile didn’t struggle as those above them did.

“It’s strange,” she said. “Looking at you, I feel no remorse. Just as I usually do not. But it’s because I despise every one of you equally, and more than I do most.”

The eyes of the man on top of the wriggling stack—the one who’d first spoken to her—were afraid. As they deserve to be.

“This is for the good of the flock, understand. I guide both humanity, and the calamity befalling it. I’m not even sure which I’m a shepherd for anymore.

“Understand that this isn’t personal. Not really.” She thought about it for a moment. “Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘two birds with one stone?’ I should think you have. That best describes your situation.”

The man’s eyes flicked back and forth. Bianca could see the desperation in them—crazed, searching for any possibility of salvation, anything he could use to free himself or someone else. But Bianca had ensured that there was nothing to find.

With a sigh, she reached up to close the tailgate once again. “Goodbye.”

She locked the car, then tossed its key into the underbrush. She drew the oval device again from her pocket. She pointed it at the car, and pressed a sequence of buttons on it. Though she couldn’t see it or feel it, she knew it was successful when it chirped a familiar tune.

And in that same moment, the air slammed against her on all sides with a familiar pressure. That shaking of the particles themselves dreading their fate. This time it was slightly different than usual, though. It felt… muted somehow. She couldn’t quite place it.

She walked out of the pocket of forest, emerging from the boundary with a tactile pop. Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

R > B, your next task:
R > (Sent a location)

B > Received.

A few more months, she thought. She stopped, and glanced over her shoulder.

The entire forest had disappeared, along with the men trapped inside it. Just as intended.