Dreaming spires

I unfolded my life like a pocket handkerchief; unfurled and hung it from the tops of the great Sentinel spires.
I climbed like Quasimodo to the tip of the gothic tower and danced around on top, my features blacked out by the sun at my back, my shadow cast long across the great square below. It looked so strange to see my silhouette, maybe 30 foot long, dancing a jig upon the plaza, with a dumbfounded crowd looking on.
And then I plunged inside the statue’s head, this sentinel of the tower, and felt that inside was the warm squish of a living brain.
Without hesitation I ripped it from its casing, from its stimulating wires. But only a portion of the brain came free, and it tore apart like raw minced beef. I had to scoop the leftovers out and hold it above my head. Grey matter rained down about me, but the crowd started to cheer and with one almighty heave I lobbed the brain out, away from the tower and listened for it to splatter satisfyingly upon the building’s steps below.
And then, seeing the cheering crowd scatter, to be replaced by Authority forces with weapons trained on me, I took the decision to step off my platform. And as I saw the great steps racing up at me, I was laughing at the thought that soon they wouldn’t be able to tell the bits of my brain apart from Mackenzie’s.
Mackenzie, the founder of Lacroix, the first Sentinel; how I laughed. In fact, I woke up laughing.
Now I sit, awake and sweating. Will Authority be coming for me? How far can the Sentinels see? Do they read my dreams for dissent? Will Mackenzie himself be sleeping with me tonight?
I dare to flick a glance out of my window; I dare to quiver, but the city is still tonight.

This tale is related to an earlier piece called The Sentinels.

The Sentinels

The four towers stretch high into the air above the city of Lacroix. Upon the summit of each stares down a forefather of the city, keeping watch forever over his citizens.
And far below in the city there is rarely unrest because the children know that their fathers are always watching them, and they will react with swift vengeance, should one step be misplaced.
Construction of the tower of the first sentinel began just five years after the city was sacked and captured. Renamed Lacroix, it became the capital of the new republic of Cedon, but the mixed cultures of the city warred on, and no amount of official force was able to keep the peace, or spot each atrocity the disparate gangs of rebels plotted.
The first tower took ten years to be completed. It was supposed to be a marvellous tribute, a monument to this great new city of the future, but the authorities had immense difficulty just keeping the great tower from being bombed.
It was then that the Sentinel was placed atop. An all-seeing eye, watching over the city and able to pinpoint crime or any sign of unrest and neutralise with immediacy.
All that was needed was a human head to fill the cavity inside the great statue, real eyes to see and a brain to decide on reactions to potential aggressions.
The city’s founder became the first Sentinel of Lacroix, and his head maintains control over his city long after his body is dust. Officially, the records state that the decision to reside in the Sentinel was decided upon his death bed. However, folklore passed down through generations of townspeople tells that he, Mackenzie, a man of just fifty years, actually asked for the honour of crowning the Sentinel, despite being in full health. He asked for his brain to be removed from his fully functioning body and placed inside a statue for all eternity, so that he may see and perhaps know everything.
Mackenzie’s almost instant success in silencing the disquiet in Lacroix meant the building of tower two was not long to start.