For the next month they kept the Titan confined within the Garrison premises, relatively close to the gate. They did perform experiments to learn more about Titan behavior, but since the district lacked experts, it didn’t amount to much.
The decision to move the Titan to the plaza was Rita’s.
This monster will become a symbol of order─the thought had come abruptly and without warning one day.
Rita was glad for it.
And here, right now, she would again prove the value of her idea.
She regarded the Titan below, then raised her right hand up above her head. The gaze of the crowd focused in on that single point, her hand. The low chattering had completely died away.
There was only the sound of the wind, and the gentle weeping of the man about to be executed.
He began to struggle again. He squirmed in the arms of the soldiers, frothed at the mouth, shouted incoherently. The soldiers were unperturbed. They were used to it.
Rita swung down her arm.
The soldiers at either side of the man took hold of his waist and shoulders. Hoisting him into the air, they swung him momentarily back towards the district hall before hurling him as far as they could into the plaza. At the same time, the troops next to the winding mechanisms rolled a couple of meters of slack into the Titan’s chains. The metal made a screeching noise as it was unwound.
The Titan was quick to notice its leeway.
It trembled, and its back snapped straight.
The man fell from above, pitifully flailing his arms and legs.
Its own arms granted a temporary freedom, the Titan raised one as if to make a toast, and opened its mouth. The inside was lined with rows of yellowed teeth, each the size of a human fist. A slimy tongue writhed there, and beyond was darkness.
Rita felt as though she’d glimpsed the bottom of a deep well.
With unexpected speed, the Titan snatched at the man from two sides. Its right hand grabbed the man’s head, its left his knees. In one deft movement the Titan flipped the man into a horizontal position and sank its jaw into his still-clothed buttocks.
There was a horrific cry and a gush of blood. The stones below were stained red. The spray of blood also struck the underside of the platform where Rita and the others stood, pattering like rain on a rooftop.
The next sound they heard was the crunching of bone.
The man’s desperate screams had trailed off. He must have fainted immediately.
Already finished with his rump, the Titan was on to the side of his belly. Blood and viscera spattered out. A repulsive rhythm, of the monster masticating, reached their ears.
All signs of life were gone from the man’s eyes. His body freely came apart at the middle.
The Titan lifted the upper half high into the air and supped, melancholically, at the blood and viscera dripping down. Then it tossed the portion whole into its mouth after all.
The lower half met more or less the same fate.
The plaza had fallen completely silent. But it wasn’t over yet.
He was only the first.
“Next!” the cracked voice of a soldier came from behind Rita.
She turned to face it. The soldiers at her side went back into the building. Another two appeared in their place, holding the next man and conveying him forwards.
Unlike the one before him he put up no resistance, nor begged for his life to be spared. He was perfectly at ease; if anything, his eyes seemed to betray concern for Rita. This one also had long hair, but he didn’t come across as louche. There was something of the artist about him. He looked to be in his mid-forties, and his clothes and shoes were old, but in good condition.
Henning Iglehaut.
Rita’s adoptive father. Until recently, she had believed him to be her true father.
The soldiers dragged him until he stood at the edge of the platform. Across from them, the boy soldier raised another sheet into the air. He read out Henning’s name, then began to list the charges.
“…who, in the three months leading to his arrest, facilitated the suicides of at least sixteen men and women by supplying lethal drugs…”
Rita took out a thumb-sized vial and glanced down at it. There was liquid inside, still up to the cork. A depression, wound with a long leather cord, allowed it to be worn around the neck. Henning had been selling them─vials of poison─to all who wished to take their own lives.
As an experienced apothecary, Henning had sometimes prepared drugs to put down wild dogs and other dangerous animals. Making poison capable of killing a man wouldn’t have been any more complicated.
“Why?” Rita couldn’t help but mutter.
She saw suicide as an act of denying one’s current circumstances. In other words, it was a denial of the “ordered world” she was working to build. She couldn’t tolerate anyone who promoted such behavior.
Why had Henning thought to resume his manufacture of the poison? Why did everyone have to betray her?
The moment and scene of Duccio’s shooting death resurrected itself in her mind. Blood and brain matter spilling from his skull, and, beyond, the face of her dear─her once dear─childhood friend…
The boy soldier, his voice turning shrill again, declared, “For these crimes, we hereby proceed to execute him!”
Henning turned his head and said across the soldiers, “I don’t regret what I’ve done.”
Rita gave no answer.
Undeterred, Henning added, “I believe it’s important to give people a way out, if they need it.”
Wrong. It was wrong for anyone to seek a way out. The people of Quinta needed to all come together and work towards the realization of a better world.
Rita lifted her right hand in silence.
“You’re really going through with this?” Amanda asked from behind. She had crossed the railing at some point to join them on the platform.
Rita remained silent.
Henning spoke again, his tone chiding: “You need to forgive him.” He was referring to her childhood friend, Mathias Kramer, who had shot and killed Duccio. “There has to be an explanation. It must have been an accident.”
“Immaterial.”
The soldiers were pretending not to hear, looking away from both Henning and Rita. No doubt, they did know that the two were related. That they were parent and child. Even if they weren’t related by blood, they were profoundly close.
Yet, Rita couldn’t let him go. The soldiers, who were still very young, mustn’t be allowed to think that she’d extended mercy to family.
She let her eyes drop beyond the edge of the platform. The Titan was gazing up with the same despondent look. The area around its mouth was dirty with blood and flesh. There were strands of hair on its lips. The cobblestones beneath were wet with large quantities of milky saliva and scattered with bloody chunks of meat.
The end for those who broke the law.
Titans did not devour people out of hunger. Once they were finished chewing, instead of swallowing they spat out the meat. Nobody knew why.
The Titan stirred. It made to lift its head in Rita’s direction. But the winding mechanisms had pulled the chains tight again, leaving the creature hardly able to budge. The taut links trembled a fraction, creaking ominously.
Rita looked back at Henning.
“Goodbye.”
With that, she brought her hand down.
For a moment Henning looked apprehensive. Not because he feared death itself, she knew. Rather, he feared dying and leaving Rita behind.
Then you shouldn’t have betrayed me in the first place.
The soldiers lifted Henning into the air, but somewhat hesitantly. They were ready for Rita to declare a stay of execution.
But she only watched, silent.
Making up their minds, the young soldiers awkwardly tossed Henning into the air. On cue, chains went slack all across the plaza.
✦ ✦ ✦
With an agility that belied its preceding state, the Titan jutted out its chin and chomped down on Henning’s thighs. Wrenching him downwards with a nod, it gripped his slender frame in its freed hands. Angling its neck, it feasted on the soft belly of a human. The creature was proceeding with its meal much like before.
Henning kept his eyes on Rita until the end. His belly torn open, devoured, that was where his body snapped in two.
Rita watched it all without looking away.