The Significant (87 page)

      
General Decius’ eyes were bright with
anger, his hands gripping the arms of the chair.

      
“I wish to speak with Elite Isa alone,”
he said darkly.

      
The shiver that ran through the room was
felt by everyone.

      
“That is out of the question,” Remus said
strongly. “It is against our customs to leave Elites alone with other planetary
leaders.”

      
“No, it is not,” General Decius snapped.
“My brother was alone with her often.”

      
Remus’ nostrils flared and his body
tensed. However, Isa quickly put a hand on Remus’ arm.

      
“Wait outside.”

      
Remus hesitated, his eyes locked on General
Decius, but he obeyed, standing with the other Elites. General Decius nodded to
his men and they, too, walking out the conference room.

      
When the door was closed, General Decius
turned back to Isa, who sat silently at the opposing head of the table, her
eyes cold.

      
“I was raised hating Venus and the
Elites,” he stated, his eyes dark as he stared at the other leader. “And it was
something I never questioned. Now that I have had the opportunity to meet with
you and work in person, I realize that there is a reason for that hatred.”

      
“You hate me because I tell you that you
have a choice on how to run your planet?”

      
“You have no respect for humanity and the
way it operates,” General Decius growled. He was silent for several long
moments, his eyes going to his hand as he drummed his fingers along the arm of
the chair. “Let’s cut the bullshit right here,” he said, leaning forward and
clasping his hands on the table as he looked at Isa seriously. “You understand
that everything Gihron did to you and your planet was under my order. I was the
one who ordered the Pulse Virus be put on your chair, but I was only able to do
so once our best coders and programmers were able to discern the information my
brother left us about what he had done to your NCB chair.”

      
Isa was able to keep her face straight,
staring at General Decius coolly.

      
“When Amori was murdered, I started to do
my research on what was going on here in the months before he died. Your planet
was under a great deal of stress, with the catastrophic failures of so many
systems that resulted in many deaths. You even were involved in a horrific
accident the day my brother was found dead.” He raised his eyebrows. “How do
you think that looks?”

      
Isa did not respond.

      
“It looked to me like you were trying to
frame Gihron,” General Decius said darkly. “You were trying to bully us into a
position where you could impose the Alliance on us and destroy our society so
that we would be under your thumb.”

      
Isa could not help but react to the
statement in shock.

      
“Pardon?” she said. “You believe that I
was trying to
frame
Colonel Amori?
That I ordered him dead?”

      
“I do,” General Decius said. “He was
unwilling to yield to your demands, and so you began to frame him. Why else
would he want to send an encrypted message to me telling me about how to send a
Pulse Virus to your personal NCB chair? He was trying to tell me that he needed
help, but I was too late to save him.”

      
“You’re wrong, General Decius,” Isa told
him. “I stood to gain nothing from framing Gihron, and I still gain nothing
from allowing Gihron to join the Alliance. I am not in need of Gihron’s support
or submission, as you seem to believe.”

      
“Then why did you order my brother dead?”

      
“I did not order your brother dead,” Isa
said strongly.

      
“He was trapped on this planet for
months, trying to reach me, even though our communications had been knocked
out, and every time we spoke, he would tell me these cryptic things that told
me that I needed to save him, but I ignored them. He knew his life was in
danger.”

      
“His life was in no danger until
he
put it in danger,” Isa snapped.

      
She stopped, forcing herself to control
her expression. General Decius stopped, blinking several times.

      
“What do you mean?”

      
“Your brother brought forth radical ideas
about changes to the Altereye System. Surely as a politician, he knew the risks
of that.”

      
General Decius let out an exasperated
laugh.
  

      
“You really did have him killed…” he
whispered. “I
knew
you were behind
his death. How can you call yourself a compassionate leader for your people if
you are killing leaders when they do not serve your agenda? You put out this
message to your people that you want Venus destroyed when that same desire
caused you to kill my brother?”

      
“Perhaps if you had listened to that
message and not let your hatred blind you, you would come to realize that the
destruction that occurred on my planet was due to a madman that hacked into
Venus’ computers and weaponized her.” She leaned forward. “Do you want the
truth, General Decius? Your brother was the one who hacked into Venus’
mainframe, reprogrammed her, threatened the lives of everyone in the Syndicate,
destroyed Tiao’s food supply, killing one hundred thousand of
my
people, and killed nearly one hundred
members of the Syndicate. Had I ordered his execution, I would have had plenty
of reason to do so.”

      
General Decius stared at Isa, his brain
turning over the words.

      
“You’re lying.”

      
“Your brother kidnapped me, beat me,
mentally and physically tortured me, and you have the gall to call me a liar?”

      
“My brother is dead because of you!”

      
“Your brother is dead because of
himself!” Isa snapped. “Your brother thought that he could control me, but he
forgot exactly who he was dealing with, and he brought his fate upon himself
when he threatened to rape me and force me to watch my people suffer while he
had
you
invade and destroy my
planet.”

      
General Decius stared at Isa, silent,
surprised.

      
“You’re right, General Decius, I am not
human. You cannot intimidate me and you cannot control me. If you try, you will
meet the same fate as your brother.”

      
“Admit to me that you ordered his
assassination,” General Decius hissed.

      
“I did not order your brother’s
assassination,” Isa growled. “When your brother was beating me and threatening
to rape me, I defended myself, and your brother ended up choking on his own
blood.”

      
General Decius stared at the Elite’s
eyes, convinced in those moments that they were not the eyes of a human or an
Elite, but the eyes of an animal that had sighted its prey and was circling it
with malice.

      
“My brother would never harm anyone,”
General Decius breathed.

      
“You clearly did not know your brother,”
Isa said sharply. “I believe that I knew him better than anyone, because I saw
the side of him that he would never show to anyone other than someone he
believed would not survive. His own men probably didn’t even suspect him when
he murdered them and strung their bodies up to rot in their room for nearly a
month before they were discovered. You think you knew this man you called your
brother, but he was a monster starving for power, and when he tried to take it
from me, he found himself in over his head.”

      
General Decius stood quickly, but
stopped, bracing himself on the table, forcing himself not to attack the leader
of Tiao in the Syndicate Building. Isa remained seated for several long moments
before she stood.

      
“You wanted the truth of your brother’s
death,” Isa said, “and now you have it. Does that change the terms of your
surrender?”

      
“Yes,” General Decius said darkly. “We do
not surrender. We will continue this war until I put a bullet in your brain
personally.” He turned and angrily punched the button to open the conference
room doors. He stormed out between the slew of spectators, the others of his
delegation following him in confusion, asking what had happened.

      
The Elites quickly went to Isa who sat
heavily in her chair, cradling her head in one hand.

      
“What happened?” Remus demanded.

      
“We’re still at war,” Isa murmured. “He
knows the truth now.”

      
“You…you
told him
?” Chronus hissed. Isa nodded.

      
“He’s very much like his brother,” she
said. “I know that he’ll try to take over while on the planet. Our advantage at
the moment is that he is furious, and he will act out in anger.”

      
“How is that to our advantage?” Anders
asked, exasperated.

      
“He’s more likely to act rashly and make
a mistake,” Isa said. “Let him make the mistakes.”

      
Kyle, Rei, and Jamen carefully cut a hole
next to the door sensor pad for the Syndicate Building, glancing at the wires
within. The three Gihron delegates were hesitant to go through with the plan,
feeling that they had not had proper time to develop the technical aspects.

      
Kyle carefully cut two of the wires,
which allowed Rei and Jamen to pry open the doors of the back entrance of the
Syndicate Building. The three slipped into the darkened rooms, carefully
holding their bags full of explosives that they intended to put around the
building. The General had said that he did not care if they killed any Elites
in the Syndicate—he was partial to killing them off one-by-one to avenge his
murdered brother.

      
Rei was the most opposed to the plans to
destroy whatever they could of Isa and her Elites. He was infuriated that Isa
had not faced proper charges for killing Colonel Amori, but he knew that
General Decius’ younger brother had been a horrible ruler that had always
blackmailed anyone he could for power. Rei was also haunted by the words of
Elite Isa, and wondered why they were holding so close to a system that clearly
did not benefit their planet.

      
However, he had to follow orders.

      
“Let’s tear this motherfucker down,”
Jamen chuckled. “Fuck these Elites. They think they know war?”

      
“Let’s show them what Gihron can do,”
Kyle agreed, reaching into his bag and pulling out the explosives he had
brought with him.

      
They spread out to different areas of the
room, each preparing to set the first charge when the lights of the building
snapped on and blinded them temporarily.

      
“Freeze! Get on the ground!” several
voices bellowed. Officials and police robots swarmed the room, their guns
pointed at the Gihoric men.

      
Slowly, confused and terrified that they
had just been caught committing acts of terrorism, the three fell to their
knees, their hands extending above their heads. Even as they wondered why their
reconnaissance team had not warned them of the Officials in the Syndicate
building, they did not believe that the other delegates who had been at Anon
Tower to monitor their rash operations were being hauled away by another group
of Officials.

      
At Anon Tower, Colonel Ikan slowly pushed
open the disabled door to Elite Isa’s home. He glanced around before nodding
once to General Decius and walking into the home. General Decius quickly
slipped inside, keeping his eyes on every corner as he crept around the living
room, slipping into the doorway that led to the guest hall.

      
He slowly moved through the house,
knowing that Isa’s office was somewhere in the back of the level, though he did
not know where,

      
As he passed through the pool area,
Colonel Ikan entered the guest hall, looking at the doors on each side. He
stepped in front of the first one to his right and it slid open, barely making
any noise. Keeping his gun drawn, he stepped inside to find the bed neatly
made, as though it had never been used.

      
Colonel Ikan left the room and went
across the hall to the first door on his left. It, too, slid open quietly. In
the bed, he saw what appeared to be a sleeping figures, back turned to him.
With a dark smile, he started forward, moving slowly so that he would not be
heard.