Reintegration

by Eden S. French

  “That’s enough, please. I believe you.”

  Lexi let the stolen thoughts collapse and returned to the reassuring world of a single mind. “You’re going to get into trouble for this.”

  “Perhaps. But if you don’t go into hiding, we’re all in trouble.”

  Indignation pulsed hot in Lexi’s chest. “Go into hiding? Are you serious? My life is damn good right now.”

  Mineko glanced over her shoulder. “For your sake and mine, you have to take me seriously. I can’t sit here all night and try to convince you. It’ll be noticed if I stay out any longer.”

  “Then get moving.” Lexi reclined into the couch and yawned. Mineko’s mind had been exhausting, full of tense repression. “I’ll take your warning under consideration.”

  Mineko rose to her feet with obvious reluctance. “Please.”

  Lexi waved her hand dismissively. “Like I said. Under consideration.”

  “They know where you live. They know the clubs you frequent—that’s how I found you. For all I know, there may be agents closing in.”

  “Consider me scared, okay?” This was getting too weird, and it was beginning to test Lexi’s composure. She needed to get away from this paranoid shut-in and back to the life she understood. “Hurry home now.”

  Looking miserable, Mineko vanished into the crowded club. Lexi sagged on the couch and exhaled a long, tired breath. Now she was the one in need of cheering up, and no number of party hats would do the trick.

  * * *

  The jilted girl’s name turned out to be Katrina, and after thirty minutes in Lexi’s lap, the girl’s bad mood had well and truly left her. As had most of her lipstick.

  She chattered as they walked toward the depleted bar, and Lexi nodded despite being unable to hear a word. Kat—she had insisted on being called Kat—seemed a little quirky, but quirky was something Lexi could handle.

  Kat’s friends had abandoned the bar, leaving only the woman who had first approached Lexi. She sat surrounded by empty glasses while turning a blue party hat in her hands.

  “Put it on,” said Lexi. “It’s your color.”

  “There you are!” The woman pointed the party hat in their direction. “You abandoned us!”

  “I was being cheered up,” said Kat. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yes, but we didn’t expect you to run away and become a lesbian. How are we supposed to hang out now?”

  Lexi settled on a stool and kept an arm around Kat as she perched on its neighbor. “You have something against lesbians?”

  “It’s not like that.” Every slurred word came accompanied by a drunken, forceful hand gesture. “I love lesbians. It’s just that I didn’t think you’d go and turn my best friend into one.”

  “I’m not your best friend,” said Kat sternly. “And I’m not a lesbian, either.”

  The woman attempted to put on the party hat but found herself unable to navigate the elastic. “I know what this is. You’re experimenting on the rebound, that’s what this is.”

  Somebody swore nearby. A familiar unattractive figure forced his way across the dance floor, pushing through the spinning, thrusting people in his path. The Cobra—no, the Viper, that was it—brushed aside a final dancer and stopped before the bar.

  “What’s wrong?” Lexi exaggerated a sympathetic pout. “Girlfriend ditched you?”

  “The boss really wants to see you,” said the Viper. “Like, tonight. Not tomorrow, not next week, but tonight.”

  Lexi’s amusement gave way to irritation. The Zookeeper didn’t get to order her around. “So he can come out here and drink with me. He’s not usually a snob.”

  “He wants to see you in his office, Lexi. He ain’t coming out.”

  “But she has.” The blue-hatted woman indicated Kat. “She’s a lesbian now.”

  The Viper stared at her for several bewildered seconds, shook his head, and returned his attention to Lexi. “It’s no big deal, nothing personal. He just has a headache tonight, doesn’t want the noise.”

  Complying, though inconvenient, would at least be better than having this dumbass on her case all night. “Sure.” Lexi released Kat and dropped from the stool. “I have to see the Zookeeper, sweetie. I’ll be back.”

  She followed the Viper to a stairwell recessed in the corner. With each step nearer the dark opening, doubt nagged at her. She was on good terms with this gang, which was one of the cleaner ones in the district, a tough operation that specialized in moving recreational drugs—no prostitution, no extortion, just happy pills and powders. She shouldn’t be worrying. Yet there was something weird about this. What if that shut-in had been right about her life being in danger?

  “Hey, Viper,” said Lexi as they reached the bottom step. “You sure I can’t put this off until tomorrow? I don’t want that girl to walk out on me.”

  The Viper gave an amused snort. “Sure. Like any woman ever walked out on you.” He climbed several steps, stopped, and looked back. “C’mon, don’t keep him—”

  Lexi gripped him by the jaw, sinking her fingers into his flesh, and he grunted. She looked into his eyes and drove straight into his thoughts, tearing and scattering anything in her path. There it was: the boss himself, seated behind his desk, tapping his fingers in a patient rhythm. Go fetch her. In the corner, two shut-ins wearing black overalls. The Viper didn’t know what the fuck they were doing there. Sure as hell wasn’t going to ask. Not his problem, and besides, maybe Lexi had it coming. The queer bitch was so fucking full of herself…

  She let go, and he stumbled back, rubbing his chin. “What the fuck!”

  “He’s sold me out.” Lexi flexed her fingers. “You really are a snake, aren’t you?”

  The Viper stared at her. “How the hell did you…”

  He was afraid, and that gave Lexi her opportunity. She lunged, caught him again, and focused. The fear expanded, a black, trembling cloud that swallowed up every other thought and feeling. The Viper moaned and sagged, held upright only by Lexi’s grip.

  “Don’t move from this spot,” Lexi said. “Or you die.” She released him, and he sank to his knees. “I’m serious.”

  He closed his eyes and whimpered. Gratifying, but the effect wouldn’t last long. Lexi hurried back to the bar, where Kat was helping her friend straighten the blue party hat.

  “You know, this place is boring me,” said Lexi, smiling to conceal her anxiety. Her heart was pounding, but otherwise she was holding it together. Not even a trace of sweat. “Tell me, have you got a nice TV?”

  “Sure, I have a nice TV.” A bright smile animated Kat’s face. “Are you saying you’d like to see it?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Maybe we could watch a movie together.”

  “That would be cool. I have a nice couch, too.” Kat gave Lexi a shy look. “You could sleep on it if you wanted to stay the night.”

  Despite her agitation, Lexi couldn’t resist a knowing smirk. Yeah, like she was really going to end up on some couch. “Could do.”

  “Hey!” The friend wobbled to her feet, slipped, and landed back on the stool. “You can’t ditch us. We came here to cheer you up. Lexi, tell her.”

  No time for being nice. “Get a fucking clue,” said Lexi. “You loved that she was upset, enjoyed every heartbroken second. You weren’t here to cheer her up. You were feeding off her misfortune to make yourself feel good.”

  The woman stared at Lexi, mute and bug-eyed.

  “Come on.” Lexi took Kat’s hand. “Before your so-called friends make you pay for all those drinks.”

  They hurried to the entrance hall. “I can’t believe you spoke to her like that,” said Kat, disbelieving, as they walked down the poster-lined corridor. “She’s always been nice to me.”

  “Trust me. I’m good at figuring people out.”

  The exit neared, and Lexi braced herself. Her escape depended on whether the bouncer had been clued in on the double-cross. It didn’t look good for a gang to be caught working with the shut-ins, so
it was possible not every goon had been informed.

  The bouncer was lounging against a wall, arms folded across his massive chest. He gave Lexi and Kat a curt nod. Lexi relaxed—seemed she was in the clear—and took the stairs at a casual pace while Kat trudged beside her.

  The street was lit from end to end by mingled, multicolored neon lights. “You live far from here?” said Lexi.

  “On the east side. I’m only a few minutes away from a station.”

  Lexi put an arm around Kat’s shoulders and steered her down the street. It couldn’t have been much later than eleven, and the entertainment strip was still doing plenty of business—nightclubs concealed beneath colorful frontages, movie theaters displaying animated marquees, brothels with hazily-lit windows, small eateries exuding the aroma of deep-fried food. A fun section of the city. Too bad, really. If the reigning gang had turned on Lexi, she wouldn’t be seeing it again any time soon.

  “The east side, huh,” said Lexi. “You must be doing something right.”

  “I’m a nurse at one of Contessa’s drug clinics.”

  Not a bad gig. Foundation’s crime lords poured a lot of money into private clinics for treating those enforcers who got a little too close to the product. It was expensive, but nobody wanted to rely on thugs so doped up they couldn’t even fart without freaking out and shooting each other.

  “They say you’re the best broker in the city,” said Kat. “That you have all the connections.”

  “I bet that’s not all they say about me.” A bit of deadpan comedy, wasted on this wasted girl.

  Kat shot Lexi a sidelong look. “Why are you leaving with me? You could have anyone you want. I’m nothing special. Do you just feel sorry for me?”

  Lexi squeezed Kat’s shoulder. “That’s the kind of thinking that’ll end up with you depressed, lonely, and wearing a stupid hat. This is your chance to sort your life out. Don’t waste it.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Kat stared at the pavement as she tottered across it. “You think I should try dating girls? Maybe you’d like to…I mean, if you’re available…”

  It was adorable when they started crushing. And it had to be shut down as soon as possible. “No, I’m not. Just enjoy this while it lasts, and it’ll be the best fun you’ve ever had.” Lexi kissed Kat on the ear. “Now hurry up. The shut-ins are hunting me for the top-secret, mind-reading cybernetic implant I have embedded deep within my brain.”

  Kat rested her cheek on Lexi’s shoulder. “You’re funny.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Judging by the gray glow passing through the branches of the tree outside, it was a little after dawn. Tempting though it was to fall asleep again, it was Tuesday, and Mineko’s Social Ethics lecture started at seven.

  She pulled back the warm sheets, stripped off her underwear, and washed under the heated spray of her little shower cubicle. As steam rose around her, the tension in her muscles eased, and memories of the past night returned. Foremost among them was Lexi Vale, the louche goddess who had lounged at the heart of that frenzied bedlam of colors and sounds.

  This morning, Mineko’s regulation uniform looked duller than ever: a navy-blue, one-piece overall with five golden buttons concealing a zipper. She hooked each button through its loop and smoothed down the sleeves.

  Her modesty regained, she stood by the window. From here, the great walls that protected the University from the untamed city were obscured, though not concealed, by the trees in the ornamental garden below.

  Several students had gathered on the benches to eat breakfast and read notes. Loneliness stirred, and Mineko looked away. They were also the children of privileged families, but she was a Tamura. No matter how modestly she might present herself in public, everyone knew the power her parents wielded. She was as far removed from the young men and women below as she was from the people living in Foundation’s districts.

  It was time to move, yet her body didn’t want to respond—it felt too heavy with dread, sadness, and the knowledge of her own betrayal. Hard to believe that the night before, she’d dared walk the streets of Foundation, leaving for the first time the sanctioned boundaries of an enclave to enter an alien world where the Code didn’t apply.

  For now.

  * * *

  Five minutes before the start of the lecture, Mineko dashed through the theater doors and across the top tier of seats to her usual place in the corner. Most seats were filled, nobody being brave enough to risk a late arrival, and the heads below were attentively turned to the stage.

  Mineko set her tablet in front of her, scrolled through last week’s notes and checked the message bank. It was filled with messages from Kaori, who sent family updates daily, behaving as though her daughter were on the far side of the planet rather than a half-hour train ride away.

  The ethics lecturer stalked onto the stage and took his place behind the podium. As always, he was exactly one minute early, and he spent that minute inspecting each chair while the students sat in tense anticipation.

  “Nobody is late,” he said. “Good.”

  He clipped a microphone to the collar of his blue-gray uniform and fell into his hypnotic, pacing stride. That constant motion across the stage was the only visual distraction available to a bored student. Social Ethics lectures took place without slides, video recordings or any opportunity for questions. Not that anyone would have dared pose any. This was a secular sermon to an audience who had no choice but to believe.

  “Today is our second lecture on the Ethics of Social Cohesion.” The lecturer waved a finger in the air. “Remember, what you learn today will be relevant in the coming exam.”

  The dreaded word hovered in the air, and the students seemed to shrink before its presence. Today’s material in exam, Mineko typed.

  The lecturer resumed pacing. “Remember the basics. The Third Moral Code is premised upon the total destruction of social atomization by adopting a moral form of hierarchical collectivism. Previous attempts at collectivism have foundered due to their flawed foundations—a basis in religion, for example, or nationalism, economic doctrine, and so on. The Code prospers because it collectivizes on the basis of moral human endeavor. We have learned from the basic error of libertarianism, the horrifying consequences of the free market, the facile naïvety of socialism. We have seen the destruction of our planet’s environment due to industrial interests coercing states into willful ignorance. We have outlived partisan wars of ideology and religion.”

  Mineko straightened in her chair as she held back a yawn. Falling asleep in class was an ethical breach. Even coughing was a breach if it interrupted the lecturer during a passage he was especially proud of.

  “Most human ideology is anarchy masquerading as harmony. Our founding premise is a biological model instead. In nature, every part both constitutes and organically defines the whole. We cannot function as single organisms any more than an organ of the body can survive apart from its greater structure. Thus, moral law is the law of biological survival. Overly permissive and fatally deluded societies have ignored this law, leading to chaos. Codism is right because it exists as the antidote to these failures. It is the healing doctrine for a dying Earth.”

  The lecturer rubbed his hands together, which meant he was about to delve deep into the pious, ethical drudgery he so reveled in.

  “In the pursuit of social cohesion, the Code has twice been revised to account for the inability of a single person to recognize their actions have consequences for the greater body. As a rule, we hold that no body ought to destroy a part of itself when it might instead preserve it. Therefore, the solution to the destructive individual is re-education. The challenge is that not every psychology is amenable to gentle means.”

  So that was today’s subject. Mineko pushed her tablet away and propped her head in her hands. It would be better to fail this question on the exam than sicken herself with the pretense of conviction.

  “The Third Moral Code approved a neural procedure you will have heard referred to as ‘wiping.
’ This term is pejorative, and I suggest you not use it. The entire procedure, which includes both medical and pedagogical components, is properly known as Reintegration. Refer to it otherwise, and you will jeopardize your final grade.”

  The lecturer stared into the distance. Mineko took the opportunity to glare at him—only for a second, but it was liberating nonetheless.

  “The ethics of this process were debated. That debate is now over, settled by the fact that what is moral serves the whole. The so-called ‘rights of the individual’ inevitably lead to the fragmentation of society. Reintegration maintains perfect cohesion by salvaging an individual who might in more brutal times have been imprisoned or even executed. No ethical objection can in the end stand against it. The alternative is to endorse a flawed society primed for self-annihilation…”

  * * *

  The end of the lecture brought with it a sense of relief that lasted only until Mineko stepped through the theater doors. A black-uniformed man waited in the hallway, standing against the wall to avoid the departing throng of students. He was lean, dark-skinned, and expressionless, and his features, though handsome in their chiseled symmetry, were as hard as his eyes.

  As students filed into the hall, they whispered while glancing at Mineko. After all, who else would a Code Intel agent be here to see? The man beckoned, confirming the universal suspicion, and Mineko’s heart jolted. She couldn’t run, of course, but she certainly couldn’t ignore him.

  “Ms. Tamura,” said the agent. “I’d like a word.”

  “Yes.” The numb, one-word reply was all she could manage.

  Mineko followed the agent down the corridor, keeping her head low so as not to meet the eyes of the students milling around her. He stopped before an unoccupied classroom and tested the handle.

  “This’ll do,” he said, and he ushered her inside.

  The agent shut the door behind them, and Mineko took a deep breath. She could always lie, force him to prove his accusations. Her father would never let her be punished without considerable evidence.

  “Relax.” The agent walked between a row of desks to stand before the window at the classroom’s far end. It overlooked the wall of a neighboring building; not the most scenic of views. After a moment contemplating the masonry, he turned back to face her. “I’m not a Codist. I only wore this uniform so people wouldn’t be suspicious of me talking to you.”