Unison (The Spheral) (49 page)

“Why do you think you can remember your past lives?”

I have my theories, but I can’t prove them. It’s frustrating at times because I’m mostly alone, and I sometimes wonder if I’m deluding myself.”

“Tell me, and I’ll let you know.”

“I’m certain you will. You’ve never held your opinions back before.” I tuned my E-string which sounded a little sharp. “I find it refreshing that I can talk about this with someone less gloomy than Tyrus.”

“Master Tyrus believed you?”

“Right after he started remembering his own past lives.”

Flora widened her eyes.

“I’m serious,” I laughed, “and I probably looked as you just did when I first found out.”

“Can you take me to him?”

“I’m not sure where he is, but I know our lives will intersect again.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Whenever I walk alone in the woods, I sense this surrounding calm that ties together everything I perceive in the physical world. I couldn’t comprehend the significance until I lay near death in my last incarnation—after being attacked by bandits. Although my eyes were closed, I saw the brightest light I had ever seen. When it exploded, I dispersed along with it and plugged into something so immense and powerful that it seemed as if it could fuel everything in existence. ‘Time is relative to sound,’ my own voice said back to me.”

“I did pretty well in physics at school, but nothing you just said made sense to me.”

“It didn’t to me either, until I related it to music.” I plucked the E-string on my violin. “All atoms vibrate and produce a sound. Without this constant action and reaction, nothing would exist.”

“Not sure I like the idea of being played by a hand I can’t see.”

“Technically, we’re plucking ourselves.” I picked up my bow and played “Beyond Today.”

“We’re all music performed by a timeless orchestra. We each have our own constant frequency, which is always in existence within what I call the Progenitor. Our strings independently vibrate, and the tone resonates in unison to our constant, which exists within the Progenitor. All that we do in this life is uploaded and stored in our constant through something I’ve come to know as COR. It’s our personal conduit between us and our constant frequency. When we’re reborn, our prerecorded data is downloaded back to us, and all our newly formed experiences are uploaded to our constant and recorded. This cycle can go on infinitely.” I stopped playing. “Of course this is only a theory.”

“Hope you’re wrong. Participating in events most of us aren’t even aware we’ve participated in before makes life sound predetermined. I like to think I’m in charge of my own actions.”

“You are.” I put my violin in the case. “Every calamitous decision I made in my previous incarnations is my constant reminder.”

Flora smiled. “How do you do it?”

“What?”

“Hang on to your sense of humor?”

“One thing I’ve learned throughout my lifetimes is not to take anything seriously. I prefer to laugh at all the nonsensical, inconceivable, impractical, preposterous developments in my life than worry over having to relive through my most difficult memories.”

Flora eyed me with pity. “I just realized what you must be going through. Maybe I’m better off not remembering,” she said.

“What keeps me going is that with each passing lifetime, I realize how little I know—how little anyone knows. The quest for understanding the implications of that truth is both maddening and thrilling.”

“Why?”

“I always had an insatiable appetite for puzzles, especially unanswerable ones. I know I’ll never solve this one, but I won’t give up because of the quest itself. It’s a constant reminder to me of what it means to be free. I can pursue what’s in here,” I tapped on my head “and speak out about what I’m thinking, without the fear of breaking a law or being condemned for merely asking questions, disagreeing or expressing doubts. I kept myself enslaved in Unity—and not by the Overseer. Out of fear of getting demoted and Kai taking over my project, I said nothing to challenge him. I failed to foresee that my silence would unleash my fears onto Unity. Kai’s now in control of Harmony, and it’s being used on the most innocent among us.”

Tears crept out of Flora’s eyes.

“That admission is enough to keep me going, and I won’t stop until everyone in Unity has the opportunity to feel what I feel. Freedom is too powerful a force for the Corporate Hierarchy to contain.”

Flora smiled with tears still running down her face. She moved closer to me. “Even though I can’t remember you, there’s something familiar about you.”

“You said that to me when we first met in Unity.”

“What else did I tell you?”

“You really want to know?”

Flora smiled.

“We went to the observatory, and you told me you went there whenever you needed to relax. I asked why you found it so calming, and you said you pictured yourself as one of the stars…distant, unnoticed, and beyond capture.”

"You speak the truth.” Flora placed her hand on my cheek.

I placed my hand over her hand. “When you spoke those words, I found them disturbing, but now, I find them comforting.”

“Why?”

“I understand their meaning…and I feel the same way.”

Flora leaned back, took hold of one of her braids and slowly started to unravel it. “I don’t ever want to be bound again.”

I held Flora’s other braid and slowly unwound each strand. This maneuver still aroused me even though I’d been out of Unity for a while. The smell of sandalwood filled the room as her hair cascaded down past her elbows and on to the floor. There, under the lantern light, Flora became the embodiment of Venus as visualized by Ancient artists.

Flora leaned towards me, and we kissed. When she wrapped her arms around me, a surge of energy shot throughout the whole of my body. Since I’d seen the internal light, all my senses intensified, but I didn’t want to rush things. We had the rest of our lives to look forward to.

“I love you,” I said. “I always loved you.” I held her in my arms. “I’m starting to think that’s why my memory returns only when I see you.”

“Kai always told me I’m hard to forget.”

“Sometimes I wish you were, especially the you from my first incarnation.” I held Flora’s hand. “Now that we’re together again, I want to be honest with the present you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“I’ve had visions since I was a boy. In my first incarnation, I had one of you lying dead on the floor from a plazer blast. I didn’t tell you about my vision because I believed it was I who killed you. I also wanted events to play out naturally, so I could prove my theory about COR. Not long after that, we got into an argument, and you confessed to interrupting my induction. You shot yourself after I almost choked you to death, after which I had the audacity to think you were the one that needed reintegration. The only thing I managed to prove to myself on that day was that I had no conscience.”

“But you didn’t kill me.”

“I pushed you to it. I could see the look in your eyes when I mentioned reintegration. The life from you drained before you fired your plazer. It took your death to make me realize what I did to you…along with how much I loved you. I carried that feeling through every encounter we had since then, and it was difficult because I carried it alone. Each time my memory returned, I was a stranger to you…and I still am.”

Flora cupped my face and kissed my forehead. “Thanks for being honest with me. It must’ve been difficult.”

“Feels good to get it all out. I lost track of how many nights that day replayed in my mind.” I kissed Flora’s hand. “Forgive me for placing my ambition above you.”

“There’s nothing for me to forgive. I don’t remember anything, so there’s no reason to feel bad anymore.” She smiled. “And I
insist
you don’t.”

“No point in arguing with you. Once you’ve made up your mind, there’s no changing it.”

“You need to tell me more about yourself. It’s not fair you know more about me than I know about you.”

After answering several questions about my past histories, Flora and I fell asleep in each other’s arms. It was the soundest sleep I had in years, until the motion detector alarm woke me. Shisa ran out the door that was left ajar, and Flora was gone.

WORLD WITHOUT JUSTICE

I
approached a small group who were awakened by my alarm. They spoke in a language I wasn’t familiar with, and I gestured long flowing hair with my hands. A young woman’s eyes widened. She turned towards her mate and spoke excitedly. He pointed towards the western side of the tunnel.

“Did he get away?” Sephroy approached holding out his lantern.

“False alarm,” I said. “My travel companion tripped the alarm.”

“That was no false alarm. Someone just tried to break into my ‘let. I met him with this.” He held up his gun. “Must’ve scared him away.”

I thought about Roth’s encounter with the bandits and worried Flora met the similar fate of his passengers. However, I woke up when the alarm sounded. I would’ve seen something, and Shisa would’ve caught them at the pace she ran out of our ‘let. Instead, I found her outside, waiting for me.

The man who pointed to the western side of the tunnel spoke with Sephroy.

“What is he saying?” I asked.

“He came out to smoke a little over an hour ago. Said he saw a woman who was crying. When he went to check on her, she yelled at him and ran towards your side of the tunnel.”

“That has to be my friend,” I said relieved. “I’m going to look for her.”

“Bring that firearm of yours, Chap. The tunnel is crawling with men who would love to have that lovely lady of yours for themselves.”

I whistled for Shisa.

“If you need any help, knock on my door. It’ll be a while until I fall back asleep.” He slapped his chest. “Heart's racing faster than the last time I chased a bandit out of here.”

I ran to my trainlet to get my plazer. Before I could get to it, someone grabbed me from behind and shoved a knife under my chin.

Shisa snarled and lowered her head. My attacker grazed the blade against my skin and said something in a language I couldn’t recognize.

“Sit, Shisa,” I said calmly. Any slight movement and that knife would’ve damaged me beyond repair.

Shisa continued growling and stopped when Flora entered.

Flora gripped her plazer and aimed it toward us. “Let go of him, or I’ll shoot!”

“Leave now. They never work alone.”

“Let him go!” she yelled.

My attacker’s accomplice snuck from behind Flora and wrapped his arm around her neck.

Flora’s eyes widened, and tears surged from her eyes. She fell to the floor.  A large knife handle stuck out from her back.

I clutched the forearm of my attacker, who writhed and yelled as though I had caused him grave pain. He dropped the knife, and I flipped him onto the floor.

The man who stabbed Flora headed towards me and backed off when Shisa snarled at him. He ran out of the trainlet with Shisa in pursuit. Screams, growls, and the clanking of trainlet doors reverberated against the walls of the tunnel.

The man who attacked me got on to his knees, and I was about to stab him with his own knife. I froze when he lifted up his arms; my hand prints were burned into his skin.

Sephroy showed up and halted in front of the door. He faced the murderer who gagged and then went silent. Sephroy next directed his deadly stare on my attacker who gasped, grabbed his throat, and fell to the ground.

“Now you only have one thing to worry about,” Sephroy said.

“I’ll ask how the slock you did that later.”

I got my med kit and ran to Flora, who had already lost a lot of blood. There was nothing I could do but keep her comfortable. I cradled her in my arms, and Shisa came inside whimpering. She sat next to Flora and licked her hand.

“Guess that wasn’t you that set off the alarm,” I said.

“Slipped right past it. It was an amateur job.” Flora petted Shisa.

“You should’ve stayed away.”

“Then we both would’ve died.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“Don’t humor me.” She coughed. “I hate that.”

“You were always too smart for your own good.”

“I recorded a visual message on my holologue. I left it in your pack. It’ll explain everything.” She coughed again. “After it’s finished, I want you to know I changed my mind. That’s why I came back.”

I looked at Sephroy. “Can you do anything for her?”

Sephroy shook his head.

“You killed two men by looking at them. If you can take life so easily, you must be able to give it back.”

“I’m the careman, not a god.”

I faced Flora and smiled. I wanted her last moments in this lifetime to be as peaceful as I could make them for her.

“Tell me what we’re going to do when we get to New Athenia,” Flora said.

“Who’s humoring whom now?” I kissed her cheek.

“I don’t want you to see me as something that’s about to end because that’s not how I see myself. When I left here, I ran until I passed out and had a dream. Kai slapped me, and I escaped to the observatory to look at the stars. A woman with dark skin and long unbraided hair came to me and said, ‘like the stars, you’re not the only one. There are others that shine like you.’ Something inside me turned on. All my life I did things for others, and now I thought about everything I wanted to do for myself.” Tears streaked down Flora’s face. “I saw so many possibilities and woke up feeling as if I was reborn, and that a whole new life lay ahead of me.”