The Killables by Gemma Malley

years ago. And men like Lucas helped him keep it that way.
    He pressed the buzzer on his secretary’s intercom system. ‘Sam, I’m going to have some thinking time. Please ensure that I am not disturbed.’ Then he lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes.

5
    There were different kinds of evil. But the worst was the evil that deviants carried around in their hearts, hiding it from others as they nurtured it and encouraged it to flourish, because they were too weak to fight it and they didn’t care enough about the City. These were the people that the System protected the City from; identifying where evil lived, even if the person housing it didn’t know it yet, even if they were unaware of the dangerous thoughts or feelings deep within their brain. The System knew who these people were, labelled them as D’s, so that evil’s influence could be minimised and these people would know that they had to fight, to strive to rid themselves of their corrupt thoughts, otherwise they would be shunned at best, and at worst . . .
    Evie didn’t like to think about ‘at worst’. ‘At worst’ was when even D wasn’t bad enough. When the label K was given. K meant beyond redemption. K meant that evil had flourished once more.
    She sometimes wondered what her label would be. Eventually. When the System caught up with her. She suspected it already had; she found herself thinking that it was just watching, waiting, to see exactly how corrupt she was before it made its decision. D? Or K? She shivered at the thought, her throat constricting. Not K. Please not K.
    K’s were inhabited by evil; they were evil personified. K’s were taken away and never seen again. K’s were like the Evils who lived outside the City walls. People who had been damaged by the Horrors, people who had been consumed by evil. These people were a constant reminder to the City’s inhabitants of what it protected them from. Evie had never seen an Evil, but she knew they existed because, like every other City dweller, she had heard them. Their terrifying moans and wails carrying through the air at night made her shiver under her bedclothes and promise herself never to transgress the City laws again, to finally rid herself of evil, to be good and pure and everything she should be.
    The Evils wanted to destroy the City; they feared a place where evil had no place. There was no goodness left in the Evils, no trace of the values that those within the City walls considered to be human. For as the Brother reminded them, the values of the City were not intrinsically human values; they were the values of goodness, and humans – other humans – were more predisposed to adopt the values of evil and terror. Without the City walls, without the New Baptism, without the constant vigilance, they, too, could become like the Evils – full of anger and hatred and violence, intent on destruction and devastation. Just like the humans who had started the Horrors. Just like most humans that had ever lived.
    The Evils didn’t come to the City very often. They knew that there was no point, that they would never get in. The City was too well guarded, its four gates too heavily armoured. But not with weapons of destruction, like the pistols and revolvers and other tools of violence that humans used to rely on, the scary, unfamiliar objects they’d been shown at school. The City was protected instead by the strength of its walls, built by its citizens and continually reinforced. By a volunteer police guard who patrolled the wall at night when intruders tried their luck. And by four key holders, men known to be valiant, brave and good, who kept the keys hidden, safe, so that no one passed in or out who wasn’t sanctioned by the Brother himself. Because people still came to the City, people from far away looking for a new future. And a very small number were let in. Once a week the South Gate would open and a few lucky new citizens would enter, embracing the New Baptism and the