Unison (The Spheral) (11 page)

“In case you’re looking.” Wade raised an arm in the air. Three holologues were strapped to his wrist. He extended his other hand and waved my plazer. “You gave me no choice. I didn’t want you to turn her in.”

“Your regret is touching. Where is the old woman now?”

“I told her to leave.”

I grabbed the edge of the counter and slowly lifted myself to my feet.

“I can’t feel anything, except for the stun from the implant,” Wade said. “Harmony stole everything else.” Wade stood and faced me. His eyes were vacant. “The most gloomy revelation came to me while you were unconscious.”

“If I had my holologue I would’ve recorded it to honor the day my best friend attacked me to save an Outsider.”

Wade placed his forearm in front of his mouth. “PC 1328-256…in triplicate. A day of confusion, admission, betrayal, and remorse. Anything else you’d like to add?”

“Think you covered everything.” I pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat.

“I’ll begin with my confusion as I’m sure that’s the one that’s most glaringly obvious. This world is alien to me. I have no clue how anything works here. The Corporate Hierarchy is turning us into machines, and almost every Unitian is accepting it with a smile on their face.”

“If you kept Harmony’s signal, you wouldn’t feel that way. You’d see how it’s making us better than we were before.”

“I feel worse.”

“I thought you had the signal terminated.”

“My desire and longing for Nasia never returned…until we got out of the range of the transmission towers.” Wade walked over to me. “Take a reading of my implant. I’ll bet it’s searcing for Harmony's signal.”

“Return with me to Unity, and I’ll run a complete diagnostic.”

Wade pounded his fist on the table. “Next comes my admission. I’d rather die than go back to Dome Dungeon. The Overseer is tracking us like a herd of animals. By the time he’s done nothing will be ours, including our own thoughts.”

It’ll never come to that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

When I couldn’t think up an answer, I recalled the woman who interrupted my induction with a similar question. I had no answer for her either.

Wade took a deep breath and softened his voice. “If the scourge is a lie…that means they killed Nasia.”

“You have to stop this, Wade. You’re highly respected and have a favorable future ahead of you. Don’t throw it away on an unproven theory.”

“Credit, power, and worship from the lower colors aren't enough for me.”

“What else is there?”

The COR alarm sounded, and a chill surged within me.

“Something I can never have.” Wade turned off the alarm, unclasped my holologue from his wrist, and handed it to me along with my plazer. He walked towards the door. “There’s no escape when everyone wants to live in a prison.”

Wade ran out of the cabin, and I contacted Unity Forces. Moments after I disconnected, Old Woman came in with her plazer aimed at me. Shisa ran in behind her and growled when she saw me.

“Sit, girl. It’s okay,” Old Woman said in a gentle voice.

To my surprise, the beast listened. I grabbed my backpack and edged back towards the door.

“Leave now,” Old Woman said. “I won’t give up my cabin to you or any Unity Guard.”

“Unity Forces will soon be here to arrest you, and you’ll answer for your crimes in front of the confessor.” I staggered out of the cabin and fell down the porch steps. My motivation to continue returned when I caught sight of Wade heading towards the top of the ridge.

I found Wade pacing along the edge of the ridge, mumbling to himself. I slowly crept towards him.

“Stay where you are. I’m not finished yet.” Wade pointed to the holologues strapped to his forearm.  “These two are still recording.”

“You can stop this. You don’t have to—”

“I’m finished with confusion and admission, so I’ll move on to my betrayal, which is also my remorse.”

“This is about Nasia?”

“It’s always about Nasia.” Wade laughed and then stopped. “No…that’s not true. It’s about me being a coward.” Wade raised three fingers. “On to my betrayal. Nasia is dead because of me.”

“Unless you gave her the scourge, I don’t see how that’s possible.”

Wade stopped pacing and clenched his fists at his side. “There’s something I never told you…Nasia planned on crossing the old tunnel, and I was supposed to go with her. The night before we were supposed to leave, I changed my mind. I didn’t want to risk my assignment placement. Nasia was so angry with me that she left. Apart from her request for death, that was the last time I saw her alive.” Wade raised up four fingers. “And that’s my remorse.”

“If you went along, you would’ve also filled out a request for death.”

“Or we might’ve made a life for ourselves in New Athenia.”

I continued to move closer to Wade.

“Stay back!” he yelled.

I stepped back. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t give Nasia the scourge.”

“You’re not getting any of this, are you? They lied! Nasia didn’t die of the scourge. They killed her because they wanted to silence her. I’d bet my life that what Nasia saw on the other side of the old tunnel was New Athenia.”

“If they wanted it kept secret, they never would’ve let Nasia speak after she submitted her request for death." The sureness of my response vanished when I recalled the frivolous debate over Nasia’s hair and how Wade was never permitted to meet with her. “Don’t do this, Wade. If you don’t want to go back, I won’t stop you.”

“I’m always going back, and I can’t stop. Every night, I remember Nasia’s last words to me. Do you know what they were? Sleeve-worshipper. I was so angry I let her leave.” Wade’s eyes filled with tears. “I let her leave! I abandoned her!” He softened his voice and extended four fingers. “Remorse. I should’ve been by Nasia's side.”

My holologue beeped, and I quickly glanced into the optic. Unity Forces replied that they were on their way.

“Now I know why I got so mad at her,” Wade said. “She was right…and you’re about to be as well.”

“I’d prefer to be wrong.”

“Why fight destiny when it’s deserved?” Wade smiled and extended his arms to his side. “We both know how this must end.”

I ran towards Wade as he let himself fall backwards. Just as in my vision, I stared down at my friend, lying dead on the ground. I screamed until my lungs ran out of air. A scan on my holologue revealed COR was still present. It had been since it showed up in Old Woman’s cabin. When I caught myself deliberating over a comparative data report, I became disgusted with myself for focusing on my work after Wade had just died. How had the human brain evolved into something so dysfunctional and self-serving? Wade and Old Woman were wrong; the scourge was real. There existed an unyielding sickness inside the brain that triggered an unquenchable addiction. The more I tried to stop myself from wanting, fantasizing, and desiring, the more intense those feelings became. I vowed never to rest until the scourge was confined to an entry in the Unitian Medical Encyclopedia.

I made my way down the ridge, clinging to my last few strands of faith that Wade’s accusation was wrong. I tried not to look down at his body while I ran a diagnostic on his implant. My heart sped as the results splashed across the screen. Wade was correct; Harmony’s receiver was active.

DANGEROUS KNOWLEDGE

B
y the time Unity Forces stormed Old Woman’s cabin, she was long gone. I suspected she escaped to the other side of the old tunnel. After reading through the incident report, no mention was made of either her or Torrin. I conducted a search in the citizen database. There weren’t many Torrins on file, but I discovered his designation when I found an image of him standing beside the last Overseer.

Torrin was Master of Reintegration Technology. He was almost killed after his office was blown up by Strikers who were against his invention of the implant. They never found who caused the explosion, but things settled down once all the Unitians were chipped. After the last Overseer died, Torrin was elected among the Chosen to become the next Overseer. The night before his induction, he was accused of stealing credits from the treasury, and he disappeared before his reintegration hearing. Looking for Old Woman was futile as I didn’t know her emergence year. I inspected over three thousand images of female purple sleeves born between sixty to seventy years ago. None of them was a match, and I gave up the search.

The feeling of having met Torrin before followed me to the crail stop where I was struck by another vision. Torrin lay on the floor, and Old Woman was beside him, weeping. They were in a narrow room lined with long benches. All the windows were dark, and a row of handles hung from the ceiling. Two doors, similar to those on a crail, slid open. Sutara entered and said, “Return to the cabin.”

The COR alarm rang, jolting me out of my vision. A woman, who showed up at the stop while I was consciously unavailable, stared at a two-seater crail that just pulled up.

“Are you waiting?” she asked.

The same vertigo I experienced during my induction returned. Everything around me swirled in a nebulous stream of colors.

“Are you okay?” The woman asked. She appeared like a splotch, barely distinguishable from the background. “Should I call a medic?”

I heard her, but my brain wouldn’t give me the words to respond.

“I’m late for my shift,” the glob said. Would you mind if I—”

“You can take it if you shut your slocking mouth,” I said.

The glob conceded to my request and floated into a larger glob that drifted away.

“Six begin, Six alone, Six unite,” Sutara’s voice called out.

I stood and lost sense of where I was. The spinning sensation in my head worsened. I must have passed out because I awoke in the hospital and had no idea how I got there. My assigned doctor kept me overnight for observation after a brain scan detected my pineal gland was enlarged. He suggested I get some sleep, but my concern over the extra brainwave being detected kept me up all night.

The next morning, I received a visit from Kai who knew more about my condition than I did.

“You’ve mystified all the doctors in this wing,” he said. “The second scan revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Your doctor says you’re in perfect health and will be discharged today.” He handed me a complimentary credit card for the pleasure room. “You’ll get at least a dozen rounds of mystery date with this. If you’d like, you could take the rest of the week off.”

“Thanks, but I’m ready to come back.”

“As you wish. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Kai made it as far as the door, but I stopped him with my next question.

“Why was Harmony still transmitting to Wade’s implant after he requested it shut off?”

Kai tapped the door frame with his hand and turned to face me. “This is difficult for me to tell you.” He pulled one of the chairs near to my bed and sat. “Master Lyle had him under suicide watch. He thought it made sense to keep the signal active.”

I knew Wade suffered from depression since Nasia’s death, but I doubted Kai’s explanation.

“Considering what happened, that was a wise decision,” he said. “As a psychological engineer, I’m sure you agree with his diagnosis.”

“I do. Master Lyle is an exceptional doctor.” What I really wanted to say was, “I don’t believe a slocking word you said,” but I had to pretend to be a sleeve-worshipper for a while longer. Purple sleeves expect their proteges to demonstrate complete faith in them. Knowing I didn’t mean what I said gave me the strength to continue my charade.

“Concerning the beacons—”

“I couldn’t leave Wade. I had to go along to make sure he didn’t hurt himself.”

“No further explanation is necessary. I read the report and see no need for a reprimand. In fact, this may lead to another promotion. You helped us stop a threat to Unity.”

“What threat was that?”

“The woman in the cabin helped the Strikers by leading Unitians across the old tunnel. We found her contact, and he's now being reintegrated.”

“Who is the woman?”

“Her identity is not permitted to be disclosed.”

“Why?”

“No one cares about some old eccentric woman in a cabin. If we reveal her name, the Strikers will use her as a martyr.”