The Significant (23 page)

      
“But she’s a
dictator
,” Kailynn said strongly. “And, in Trid, we’re sure that
the Elites are running the show and just using Venus as an excuse to do things.
People can’t see or interact with her, so how can she be expected to lead this
planet?”

      
“She does exist,” Isa said. “And the fact
that no one can interact with her is the reason she created the Elites. The
Elites obey her, and they give a human face to her orders. That’s why she won’t
get rid of the Elites. The data showed that people were more willing to follow
the orders when given by Elites rather than Venus.”

      
Kailynn sighed and flopped onto her back,
staring up at the ceiling. Isa turned onto her side and looked at Kailynn
seriously.

      
“Did I upset you?”

      
“No, it’s just…” Kailynn groaned. “It’s
frustrating.”

      
“Yes, it is.”

      
“So, she looks at the Elites as just
extensions of herself,” Kailynn said. “You’re not your own person? You’re just
part of her?”

      
Isa hesitated, her eyes showing pain
hidden deep below the cool exterior.

      
“No,” Isa said. “I am my own person.”

      
Kailynn looked at Isa, hearing the agony
in the Elite’s voice.

      
It was as if Isa was trying to convince
herself that she as not merely an extension of Venus.

      
“I’m really happy you’re back,” Tarah
said with a smile as Kailynn finished her breakfast. Kailynn chuckled nervously
at the elated look on Tarah’s face.

      
“Why?”

      
Tarah shrugged, her smile widening.

      
“This place just feels different when
you’re here,” Tarah said. “And Isa’s happier, too.”

      
Kailyn paused.

      
“You think so?”

      
“I know so.”

      
“Tarah,” Kailynn started, turning to her
almost-empty plate and shifting the remaining pieces of food around, “can I ask
you a question?”

      
“Sure.”

      
“Were you around when Isa and Remus
split?”

      
Tarah’s eyes shot wide and she blinked a
few times, stunned.

      
“She told you?”

      
“She told me she and Remus were partners
for a while, and that things just ended between them.”

      
Tarah let out an exasperated chuckle,
raising her eyebrows.

      
“Eight months in the hospital is what
ended the relationship,” Tarah grumbled. “I was around, yes.”

      
“Were you also around when Venus found
out about them?”

      
“No.” Tarah shook her head. “Why?”

      
“I was trying to figure out how Venus
found out about them,” Kailynn said. “Are there cameras around the level?”

      
“Yes.” Tarah nodded. “For security
reasons, there are cameras everywhere.”

      
“Then Venus probably already knows about
us?” Kailynn hissed, horrified.

      
“If she knew, she would have said
something by now,” Tarah assured. “I’m sure Rayal is doing a good job keeping
the camera feeds from Venus. They don’t go directly to her, anyway. They filter
through the Intelligence Agency before they are processed into her computers.
Rayal is probably deleting them.”

      
“You mean…he can see when Isa and I…”
Kailynn stopped, not wanting to continue.

      
Tarah chuckled.

      
“I guess so,” she said. “There is a
camera in Isa’s bedroom.”

      
“Does she know that?” Kailynn asked,
nodding to the guest hallway to indicate Isa, who had disappeared into her
office twenty minutes previous.

      
“Of course.”

      
“But that’s not how Venus found out about
them?”

      
“No.” Tarah shook her head. “According to
Rayal, someone leaked the information to blackmail Isa.”

      
“I thought you said that no one would
harm Isa,” Kailynn said quickly.

      
“This was over five years ago,” Tarah
murmured. “Politics got ugly. It wasn’t a caretaker, it was someone else that
had stumbled on the information.”

      
“Was he caught?”

      
“Yeah,” Tarah said, though her voice
trembled on the word. “He was punished.”

      
Tarah stood and started collecting the
dishes, smiling weakly.

      
“Are you finished?”

      
Kailynn wandered around the level of Anon
Tower, remembering the month she had stayed and how much the job had changed
her life. She had grown up hating Venus and the Syndicate Elites. She never
thought that meeting the Golden Elite would change her perception so drastically.
It was if there was some otherworldly power to Isa that drew people closer. It
was a feeling of security and strength that was addicting to all that came in
contact with the Elite.

      
Kailynn started watching the clock,
waiting for Isa to finish working. She had gone in to see if she could speak
with the Elite—she did not have anything in particular she wanted to talk
about, she just wanted to be with Isa—however, she found the Elite in BCS mode
with the ring glowing blue and a hologram curtain of various-colored boxes
slowly rotating around the chair.

      
The Significant had to wait.

      
However, when Isa finished up her work,
she found Kailynn and asked if she wanted to swim. The two spent nearly two
hours in the pool, talking lightly about nothing in particular. At one point,
Isa cornered Kailynn and began kissing her passionately. Kailynn’s eyes were
rolling back into her head as Isa’s hand descended into the water to gently
touch her when Tarah opened the door to the pool area, startling both of them.

      
The caretaker turned away, blushing at
the scene she had stumbled upon.

      
“So sorry to disturb you,” she said
quickly. “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes.”

      
“Thank you, Tarah,” Isa said with a
smile, clearly not as embarrassed as Tarah or Kailynn. When Tarah left, Kailynn
let out an exasperated groan.

      
“How can you be so damn calm about
everything?”

      
Isa chuckled. “Practice.” She stepped
closer to Kailynn again, her hands gripping the Significant’s hips as she
smiled. “Where were we?”

      
Kailynn was a little embarrassed to meet
Tarah’s eyes at the dinner table, knowing what she had stumbled upon in the
pool. She sat down nervously next to Isa, who seemed to not be concerned at
being caught earlier.

      
However, before the Elite could start
dinner, her phone chimed and caught her attention.

 
     
She
stood and grabbed the small device, looking over the screen.

      
“My apologies,” she said, her face
creasing with concern. “An emergency. Please continue dinner without me.”

      
Isa made her way into her office once
more as Kailynn watched. When the Elite was out of sight, Kailynn turned back
to Tarah, worried about the emergency. The younger woman shrugged.

      
“It happens. She’s called away all the
time to deal with emergencies.”

      
The two ate their dinner. Tarah brought
up conversation to dispel the tension between them. As they were doing dishes
together, as they had done during Kailynn’s previous stay, Tarah finally
brought up what she saw.

      
“I don’t want you to be embarrassed,” she
said, though it was clear that she was embarrassed herself.

      
“Oh…” Kailynn dropped her gaze, running
her cloth over the already-dry, washed dish. “Yeah…sorry about that.”

      
“Don’t be,” Tarah assured. “It was just a
surprise, that’s all.”

      
“You seemed embarrassed about it,
though,” Kailynn noted.

      
“It’s…it’s just strange to see Isa like
that, that’s all,” Tarah murmured. “I was not around when she was with Remus,
but Rayal told me that he walked in on them a few times in different rooms.”

      
Kailynn blinked, surprised.

      
“They had sex that often?”

      
“From what I heard,” Tarah affirmed.
“Rayal said he used to call them his teenagers because they could hardly keep
their hands to themselves when they were here together.”

      
Kailynn was startled to hear that Isa and
Remus had been so sexual with one another. She had always believed that Isa was
restrained when it came to their sexual relations. There was another feeling
pooling in her gut. She was irritated to hear that Isa and Remus had been so
close. It made her feel like she was not as close to the Golden Elite as she
believed herself to be.

      
Tarah glanced at the silent Significant
and saw the jealousy written on her face.

      
“I wouldn’t let that get to you,” she
said quickly. “Just promise me you won’t do that to me. I don’t know if I could
handle finding you two doing it in every room of the house.”

      
Kailynn chuckled.

      
“Could give you some ideas with Rayal.”

      
Tarah’s jaw dropped to her chest and she
turned to Kailynn with horrified eyes.

      
“
What
?”

      
“Oh, come on, everyone here can see what
a crush you have on the guy,” Kailynn teased.

      
“He is
fifteen
years older than me!”

      
“So? You like the guy, don’t you?”

      
“That’s not the point!”

      
“Why not?”

      
Tarah’s cheeks burned hotly, and she
turned back to unloading the dishes from the dishwasher, handing them to
Kailynn, her eyes cast down.

      
Kailynn leaned over and smiled
devilishly.

      
“Why are you pouting?”

      
“I’m not.”

      
“Yes, you are,” Kailynn laughed. “It’s
not a big deal, you know.”

      
“Yes, it is,” Tarah murmured. “I
mean…I’ve never even been kissed before.”

      
Kailynn smiled.

      
“Not even when you were in school?”

      
“No,” Tarah said quietly, still pouting.
“I finished my schooling here in Anon Tower. The three years I went to public
school, I never even spoke to my classmates outside of the NCB chairs.”

      
Kailynn tried not to roll her eyes.

      
“Right, I forgot. No one here talks to
one another,” she mumbled. “Well, then ask Rayal to take you somewhere. You’ve
been in this tower too long.”

      
“I have been out of the tower. I’ve been
to the Syndicate Building,” Tarah defended.

      
“By highway, I’m sure, which means you
were underground. That doesn’t count.”

      
“Why not? It was—”

      
A shrill alarm sounded, causing them both
to jump. Kailynn looked around quickly, not sure of the meaning of the alarm.

      
“Are we under attack?” she asked quickly.

      
Tarah gasped and ran out of the kitchen,
Kailynn following her.

      
“Tarah? What’s wrong?!”

      
“It’s Isa!” she called as she ran through
the pool area.

      
Kailynn did not ask for more explanation.
Her heart stopped temporarily in fear before she forced herself to run even
faster to the Elite’s office.

      
Tarah opened the door and the loud alarm
sounding through the house increased in volume. Kailynn stopped dead in the
doorway, terrified at the sight.