Unison (The Spheral) (58 page)

She examined the middle ridge and turned to me, surprised. “It’s Kai.”

I checked my holologue for the time. It was 10:15. “It’ll take him a little under thirty minutes to get here, and he’s not only after me.”

“Kai would never do anything to hurt me.”

Resisting the urge to elucidate further, I crossed my hands on my lap and said nothing.

“Is this some kind of reintegration test?” Flora marched towards the stairs, and I pulled her back.

“He’ll see you,” I said.

“He knows I’m here.”

“If you want the truth, you must do as I ask.”

“Why don’t you run?”

“Everything I’ve done yielded a similar outcome. I want to see what happens when I do nothing.”

“He’ll arrest you for the assassination of the Overseer.”

“He’ll do far worse if you don’t follow my instructions.” I unclasped my holologue and gave it to Flora. “The map to New Athenia is in here, along with my journal of what to expect. My passcode is A5673. Did you get that?”

Flora reached for my holologue, but I didn’t let go. “Repeat it,” I said.

“A5673.”

“Again.”

“I said I got it!” Flora grabbed my holologue.

“A5673—keep repeating the code until you remember.”

“You may have left Unity a maroon sleeve, but you act like a typical paranoid purple sleeve.”

“Paranoid, yes. Typical—not me.” I smiled.

“I’m leaving now.” Flora headed down the stairs.

“Happy journey, Unity Guard.”

She turned to face me, appearing as if she was in the midst of remembering something. I saluted and probably would’ve been able to knock her over with my breath had she been standing nearer.

“Isn’t it peculiar how a moment in your life can leave you feeling as though it happened before?” I asked.

“Why are you doing this? Kai will never let you go, and if you really have something on him, he’ll—”

“Kill me?”

Flora studied me as intently as she did on the crail, the first night we met.

“I’m glad to see you’re finally concerned about my well-being,” I said.

“Not concerned.” Flora cooled and placed her hands on her hips. “I’m just stating a fact. Kai will never let you get in his way of being the next Overseer.”

“Thank you…for sharing.”

“So are you coming with me?”

I responded with a closed smile.

“It’s your slocking life.” She turned and walked away.

“It stopped feeling like it was mine lifetimes ago.”

Flora halted and swiftly swung around to face me. “Are you
sure
you don’t have the scourge?”

I smiled again, and Flora creased her forehead. “Kai accused you of many things, but he never mentioned you were this annoying.”

I held onto my silence.

“I’ll do what you say,” Flora said, “but if you’re wrong—”

“I won’t be alive to see you gloat.”

Flora opened her mouth and when I saluted her again, she turned around and walked away.

Kai approached with his plazer pointed at me. I went to grab mine, but I remembered I left it inside in response to a dream I had the night before. Flora emerged from the other side of the tunnel. I wasn’t with her, but she looked happy. I heard Sutara’s voice say, “Listen and do nothing until the time is right, and you will save your friends.” Admittedly, I had my doubts regarding my interpretation of the dream, but my plazer failed to get me out of trouble in my last six incarnations. I was so desperate for a favorable result that I would’ve even confessed to killing the Overseer if it led to Flora’s survival.

Kai stopped a few meters in front of me. “After a mouse’s home was discovered by a snake, he searched for a vacant hole to live in. He found one near the base of a large tree trunk. The mouse moved in, confident he wouldn’t be discovered. But he didn’t take into account that his own footprints led back to his home.”

“Clean up your prints or lose your strategic advantage—but how are you so sure you’re not the mouse?”

“I’m the one with the plazer.”

“I had a perfect view of you on the ridge. You wouldn’t be standing here if I wanted you dead.

Kai looked around nervously. “Where’s the guard?”

“On her way to a new life. You’ll need to find someone else to blame for the murder of the Overseer.”

“I already have.” Kai aimed his plazer towards me. “I’m looking at him.”

Shisa came running from seemingly out of nowhere and jumped on Kai, who reactively fired his plazer. The beam nailed me in the abdomen.

Kai got onto all fours. He tried to reach for his plazer, and Shisa nipped his forearm.

“Shisa fetch!” I placed my hand over my wound while cursing myself for leaving my plazer in the cabin over a dream.

Shisa stopped her attack on Kai and clamped the plazer between her teeth. She ran over to me, and dropped it on my lap.

“Leave now, Kai.” I aimed the plazer at him. “Before she really gets mad.”

Kai tried to run, but a shot to his leg brought him back down.

Flora stood at the door of the cabin with her recently fired plazer aimed at Kai. She rushed over to me and lifted my hand. “That looks pretty bad. I’ll get the med kit.”

I grabbed her hand when she went to leave. “There’s no time.

“If I don’t get this bleeding to stop you’ll—”

“You have to hear the truth now.” I glared at Kai. “All of it.”

Flora aimed her plazer at Kai. “What are you doing here?”

“Unity is justice, and you’re its deliverer. Have you forgotten your promise?” Kai asked.

I looked at Kai and then at Flora. Both used a similar phrase. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Flora grabbed her head and appeared confused.

“Don’t listen to him. That phrase is a post-hypnotic suggestion.”

Flora looked at me with a blank expression, similar to the one I’d seen before she killed herself in my first incarnation.

“Unity is justice,” she repeated.

“That’s right Flora. Unity is justice,” Kai said. “Don’t let an Outsider corrupt your mind and stop you from delivering it.”

Flora aimed her plazer towards me.

“You don’t have to listen. This was programmed into you during reintegration,” I said.

“I wasn’t reintegrated.”

“They can do it without you knowing, and Kai already admitted it to me once before.”

“He’s lying,” Kai said. “I never spoke to Damon about you.”

“Did you ever experience any missing time?” I asked Flora.

Flora pointed her plazer at Kai. “What happened to me after dinner?”

“You know what happened. Your implant malfunctioned, and you passed out.”

Flora looked back at me. “I woke up the next day with no memory of what happened.”

“You know how much I care for you, Flora,” Kai said. “I would never do anything to hurt you. It’s Damon who’s the enemy. He wants to destroy Unity.”

Flora walked to Kai with her plazer still pointed towards him.

“Unity is justice, and you’re its deliverer,” Kai said.

“And I will. I’ll contact Unity Forces to come get you—after you answer all my questions.”

Kai got on to his knees. “How can I trust you’ll keep your word?”

“I never back down on a promise. You said that was my best attribute after I passed the loyalty test to become your personal guard.”

Kai nodded his head.

“Did my implant really malfunction?”

“No.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“Damon can be influential to an impressionable mind like yours.”

“But he does it out in the open, unlike you. Did you reprogram my mind in reintegration?”

“I had to ensure you’d complete your mission. After you destroyed the tower, I knew you couldn’t be—”

“How did you know it was me?” Flora asked.

“You really did that?” I asked both surprised and impressed.

“It was part of my initiation into the Strikers.”

I looked at Kai. “Answer her question.”

“Are any of the Strikers with you?” Flora asked Kai.

“
All
the architects are with us, as are most of the appointers.”

“Why would you put some Unitians in reintegration for staying outside too long and then help others escape?” Flora asked.

“Most Unitians are easy to control. Make their life appear comfortable, and they’ll go along with everything we tell them. But a small percentage of you who insist on living by your own rules need to be diffused, so we give you the illusion of fighting back.” Kai faced me. “The only reason Ingrid was killed was because you reported her. Had we known you wouldn’t be coming back, we would’ve allowed her to continue the transports. Your disappearance slowed us down for a while.”

“The Unitians will find out about this,” Flora said. “I’ll make sure of—”

“Even if you record our conversation and play it back on all the city screens, no one will believe me. They’ll say I was infected with the scourge.”

Flora slapped Kai’s face, and he turned his head to the side.

“Do you like how that feels?” Flora asked.

Kai glared at Flora. “You see me as something evil, but I used to think like you and lord of the wilderness over there. As a boy, I questioned everything—including my own mentor, Master Torrin.” Kai turned to me. “I would’ve followed Torrin anywhere, but when the rest of the Chosen turned on him, I realized all his talk about independence and autonomy was impossible in Unity. After Torrin was humiliated and stripped of his color, he destroyed the towers and disappeared. I had one choice to make: continue Torrin’s teachings and meet his end or join the ranks of those whom I despised, where I could enjoy an influential and successful life. My choice should be obvious.”

“You’re worse than all of them,” Flora said.

“Yes, and I have no problem admitting it because I made the conscious decision to play along. I no longer recognize the weak, pathetic, idealistic protege I used to be. People need to be led and controlled. Without us around to tell you lower colors how to think, you’d be running around like wild dogs, slaughtering each other.”

“While you’re looking out for us, who’s watching out for you? What makes you better than us?” Flora asked.

“Nothing.” Kai laughed. “All I had to do was give the illusion of surrendering my individuality to the right purple sleeve, and now I’m on my way to being the next Overseer.” He laughed again. “It’s slocked up, I know it is, but that’s how everything works—how it always worked, and how it’ll continue to work, whether you…or I like it.” Kai stared at his holologue for a moment and unclasped it. “There is no way out of what we’ve become.” He gazed reflectively at Flora and handed his holologue to her. “See for yourself.”

“Bring it to me,” I said.

“What you want is impossible,” Kai said. “When you admit it, you’ll live easier.”

Flora cried. “Do you?”

Kai gazed at Flora but said nothing.

Flora brought me the holologue, and I turned off the camera. I called Kai’s recent contact. Roth’s face showed up on screen. His locator signal revealed he was in Unity.

“Your visual isn’t coming through, Master Kai. Do you need assistance?”

“Who do you see?” Flora asked.

I closed the connection. “When Kai said most of the appointers were with them, I suspected Roth was as well. I had to find out for sure.”

“He may not be with them…I wasn’t.”

“Each time Kai made his way down this face of the ridge, the motion sensors never picked him up. Roth must have told him about their location.” Shisa laid her head on my lap, and I petted her. “And in my last incarnation, I was going to head out to New Athenia for a year. Roth delayed my last transport because his appointer was supposedly compromised. If all went according to schedule, I wouldn’t have met up with you.” My breathing became more labored, and I couldn’t produce much volume with my voice. “He wanted me here because that’s what Kai wanted.”

Flora kneeled next to me

“When Unity Forces showed up earlier than I anticipated, it should’ve been obvious. Typical of me.” I laughed and followed it up with a few coughs. “Too late to learn and too late to undo what’s been done.”

“So my appointer—the one who asked me to fry the tower—”

“He set you up,” Kai said.

Flora turned around and faced Kai, who kneeled at the base of the steps.

“Why?”

“To test your loyalty,” Kai said. “Once we established whose side you were on, we used you to service our mission, and when we didn’t need you anymore, you were retired.”

“That’s how you became Kai’s nonessential,” I said.

Kai gazed at Flora. “It was another Chosen who viewed you as nonessential and brought it up for a vote. All nine agreed; I had no choice. Even if I abstained from the vote, the outcome would’ve been the same.”

Flora glared at Kai as tears streaked down her face. “Why is the Corporate Hierarchy so brutal? Why can’t they honor the Sacred Oath and live up to their promise of Unity for all of us?”

“Unity is as much a fantasy as the Sacred Oath.”

As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with him. What we both want, what we’ve fought so hard for, is unattainable. I used to think it was the Overseer that was the problem, but it’s everyone who supports him that keeps the Unitian myth alive. Without his supporters, the Overseer would have no power over anyone. Unitians continue to follow him because they’ve confused their privileges for freedom. It’s easy to see why; compared to Unity, life as an Outsider isn’t glamorous. There’s no one to give you credits for your servitude or places like the pleasure room to help erase the emptiness you feel. Out here, you won’t find Unity Guards protecting you from bandits who exist in large numbers because there’s no reintegration. You only have yourself to rely on, and yourself to blame if you don’t plan wisely. But even with all that, I’d never go back to Unity.”