The Significant (51 page)

      
Isa stared at Dienne confidently, though
her body did tense immediately at the command. Dienne chuckled.

      
“You never were one for rules, were you?”
she said. “I never taught you, of course, and my father was out of the Academy
when you were yanked from your incubational tank, but I heard all about you and
your gang of merry misfits—destroying school property, organizing rebellions
among the prototypes, hacking systems and trying to make yourselves out to be
the next revolutionaries. I’m surprised you weren’t all taken out back and
shot.”

      
“Dienne, I am here to discuss what
you
did, not what I have done in the
past.”

      
“Do you know what happens when Elites
have children?” Dienne growled. “All that shit, all those beatings, they
continue
. You’re programmed. You don’t
rationalize. And you don’t change. You never do.”

      
Isa merely stared at the woman, waiting
for the silence to become too heavy for Dienne to bear.

      
“What do you want from me?” she finally
hissed.

      
“I want to know to whom you sold those
prototypes,” Isa said coldly. “Each of those B-Class prototypes were worth
sixty-eight thousand credits. Collectively, they were two-hundred seventy-two
thousand credits.”

      
“Well, then, those bastards certainly got
a deal. I only got one hundred thousand out of the exchange,” Dienne said,
smiling sickly.

      
“One hundred thousand credits was worth
the lives of four children?”

      
“
Children?
”
Dienne snapped. “They were Elite prototypes. They were
machines
. You know better than anyone, Isa. No emotion, no tears,
no weakness. We drill that into your brains from the day you turn up at the
Academy. You are cold, mechanical, and heartless. That’s what you’re built for.
You can’t pretend their children when it’s convenient for you and then claim
that you’re superior because you’re
not
human. That’s not the way it works!”

      
“Dienne, to me, they were not just
machines. I stood on those grounds. I know what it’s like.”

      
“
Do
you, though?” Dienne challenged. “You were always treated special. Special Isa,
always able to bend the rules. Trying so hard to save everyone in your little
group of friends. Still, that little brat, whatever his name was, you got him
killed because of your rebellion. Yet, I bet you never cried for him. The rest
of the school went on, as if he had never existed. He was just one of many.”

      
“Aren,” Isa said darkly. “His name was
Aren.”

      
“He got off easy,” Dienne said. “In my
opinion, I did those brats a favor.”

      
“How do you see that?”

      
“They are dead. They don’t have to deal
with the Elite Academy anymore. Is it true that you always hated that place?”

      
“How could I not?” Isa whispered. “What
they made us endure was torture.”

      
Dienne smiled.

      
“You mean what
Remus
, your lover, endured,” she said. “I was wondering why your
attack dog wasn’t here, but I’m sure you don’t want him close to anyone from
the academy.”

      
“Was the money worth those children’s
lives?”

      
“It was never about the money,” Dienne
hissed. “I want to see every Elite
dead
.
You motherfuckers are not worthy to rule. We teach you, we program you, we
build you, and it’s time we shut you down.”

      
Isa started forward, grabbing Dienne’s
throat and pushing her head back against the wall. She glared at the teacher,
her fingers tightening around the woman’s neck.

      
“I will not be threatened, and I will not
stand by and listen to you speak so lowly of us. We may be programmed and
built, but we feel pain, we bleed, and we die. We have a living body, and we
deserve more respect than being sold for one-hundred thousand credits.”

      
“
Clearly
…if
I lost out on over two-hundred…fifty thousand on those…fuckers…” Dienne choked,
cringing against Isa’s hand.

      
“Were the men you sold those prototypes
to from Gihron?” Isa growled.

      
Dienne gasped, her eyes rolling back in
her head. Isa ground her teeth together and released the woman’s neck,
immediately reaching for one of the wall restraints. She released Dienne’s
right hand and pulled it to her. The teacher struggled, trying to get her hand
back from the Elite, or try to strike her, but Isa grabbed her fingers and bent
her hand backward, twisting it. Dienne let out a pained cry and tried to move
her body to ease the pressure on her hand.

      
“This is a very simple question, Dienne,”
Isa said, her tone dangerous. “But I understand if you need to take some time
to think about it.” She forced Dienne’s hand back further, her fingers
tightening around the teacher’s.

      
Dienne cringed and ground her teeth
against the strain.

      
“I’m waiting,” Isa warned.

      
“Does it matter?” Dienne growled. “Gihron
is not the only planet that hates the Elites and Venus.”

      
“It matters to me,” Isa hissed, leaning
closer.

      
“Fuck off!”

      
Isa’s fingers tightened further and four
of Dienne’s fingers snapped under the strain. She let out a blood-curdling
scream and her entire body shook in pain. Isa tightened her fingers further
when Dienne tried to get away, causing the teacher’s scream to echo again in
the cell.

      
“Why don’t we try that again?”

      
Dienne shuddered, her eyes closed tight.
She turned her head to Isa, spitting at her, though she missed the Elite.

      
Isa smiled and leaned closer, her other
hand reaching for Dienne’s forearm.

      
“Allow me to explain something to you,”
she said quietly. “My patience has been very thin lately, and I am in no mood
to play games. This is the only question I have for you, and I am not giving
you the option of not answering. Therefore, if I have to, I will break every
bone in your body other than your jaw until you answer. The only variable is
your schedule this afternoon. Mine’s clear, so I have all the time I need.”

      
Dienne stared at Isa in horror, silent.

      
“No? Not convinced yet?” Isa asked. She
began pulling on Dienne’s broken fingers, her other hand bracing Dienne’s
forearm, straining the bone. “I’m sure you know, since, as you have stated,
Elites are built, that we have superior physical strength to humans.” Isa
looked at the teacher’s arm. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”

      
Almost immediately, Isa broke Dienne’s
wrist.

      
She screamed and collapsed against her
other restraints, her body trembling violently.

      
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes! They were
Gihoric! They were!”

      
Isa released her arm.

      
“I’ll have you know that, even if I were
to let you live, those hundred-thousand credits would not be enough to repair
this damage,” she said, motioning to Dienne’s hand and fingers. “Something to
ponder in your final moments when you are dwelling on your hatred for those
children.”

      
Isa swept from the cell, leaving the
wounded prisoner half-hanging in her restraints, sobbing in agony.

      
When Isa returned home from work the next
day, she had to search the level for Kailynn. She finally found the younger
woman in the entertainment room, watching a news broadcast.

      
“What are you doing in here?” Isa asked.
“You never watch the news.”

      
“There was a lot of talk around the
Intelligence Agency today,” Kailynn said.

      
“Talk of what?” Isa asked, sitting next
to Kailynn as the Significant muted the sound of the report.

      
“That the Elite kids were sold by one of
the teachers at the Academy,” she said. She looked at Isa seriously. “Isa, you
haven’t been eating, and you aren’t telling me what you’re dealing with at
work, and that scares me. So, I wanted to see if I could hear anything on the
news that would explain what seems to be bothering you.”

      
Isa gently passed her fingers of Kailynn’s
cheek.
   

      
“Isa, I just want to understand what is
going on,” Kailynn murmured, leaning into the touch.

      
“It was a young teacher at the Academy,”
Isa said, looking over Kailynn’s face, taking in every detail. “She harbored an
immense hatred for Elites, and she wanted them dead. So she sold them for one
hundred thousand credits to some people from Gihron, who killed them to make
their statement.”

      
Kailynn sighed heavily.

      
“The Academy beats the Elites, and even
kill them at times, and now have
sold
them
to the enemy…” Kailynn shook her head. “And the news said something about it
not being the first time that a teacher has done something like this. Is that
true?”

      
“The teachers at the Elite Academy do
horrible things to the students,” Isa said, her hand dropping as she turned her
eyes to the floor.

      
“They mentioned Remus,” Kailynn pressed.

      
“Yes,” Isa said with a nod. “Remus was a
spectacle for over a year due to a horrific event that happened between him and
a few teachers.” Isa said. “Remus…is a degenerate.”

      
“I gathered that, but I don’t see how. He
seems like he’s a normal Elite.”

      
“Well, for the most part, he is,” Isa
agreed. “Remus has managed to overcome some incredible obstacles, far more than
most realize. I’m not sure if you know this, but Elites, when they are created,
are already determined to be part of a class.”

      
“Yeah, the Gold, Silver, and Bronze.”

      
“Yes, A, B, and C class,” Isa clarified.
“But, as always happens, some prototypes do not turn out as expected. There are
errors that occur, or spontaneous mutations…in any case, some prototypes that
have these problems are killed immediately. Others are tested for degeneration,
and if they’re degeneration level is deemed safe, they are kept alive for…I
guess you could almost call it spare parts for the other prototypes.”

      
“Wait, really?” Kailynn asked, her eyes
going wide. Isa nodded.

      
“Yes,” she sighed, “the X-Class. They’re
the mistakes. And that was Remus’ class when we started at the Academy,” Isa
explained. Kailynn’s eyes went wide again, surprised. “His level of
degeneration was deemed safe. I have to admit, I do not know exactly how this
works, but, apparently, his brain can only react to certain stimuli, which
evokes an angry response. His temper is…” Isa shook her head, trying to find a
way to explain. “He has worked very hard to keep it under control, but under
the right circumstances, he can cause an incredible amount of damage.”

      
Kailynn blinked, surprised that the Elite
she had seen remain relatively calm was a degenerate Elite that could feel only
anger.

      
“Remus and I are the only class-jumpers
in history,” Isa murmured. “But it was a very difficult transition for Remus.
To go from X-Class to B-Class was something that no one else in the school
deemed acceptable. One of the teachers and his wife, another teacher at the
Academy…they believed that Remus needed to be terminated.”

      
“They tried to kill him?”

      
“No,” Isa said, shaking her head. “They
tried to break him. They psychologically tortured him for several months in an
attempt to reverse the decision that he would jump to the B-Class.”

      
“How?”

      
“They provoked him intentionally, and
then told him he was broken, and wrong, and he would be killed if he continued
to act out. Then they would provoke him to act out again as evidence of the
severity of his degeneration. They even told him that, if it wasn’t for me, he
would have already been killed.”

      
“Is that true? That’s what Maki said.”

      
Isa sighed heavily. “I guess it is,” Isa
said slowly. “I do not like to think of it that way, though.”