Reintegration

by Eden S. French

  “True,” said Lexi. “But it was a fantastic shot.”

  Giggling, Riva laid her head upon Lexi’s shoulder, and Lexi tightened her hold on Riva’s waist. Their bodies fitted in such a way as to connect them shoulder, waist and hip, and the motion of Riva’s breath and the warmth of her skin quickly became so sensual—so comforting—that to be parted from her was as horrifying an idea as pulling back a blanket on a winter’s morning.

  A guilty thought broke through Lexi’s contentment, and she peeked at Callie. There was enough envy in those lonely brown eyes to rouse even Lexi’s sympathy.

  “I like this song,” said Lexi. “What’s it called?”

  Callie perked up. “Burned by Injustice. The bass line is catchy, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I can’t make out what they’re singing, though. All that growling and screaming. Are there any lyrics?”

  “Of course there are.” Callie deepened her voice to a ludicrous rasp. “Burned by injustice! You can’t trust us!”

  Lexi raised both eyebrows. “That’s the chorus?”

  “It’s the entire song. Those two lines, repeated over and over.”

  Lexi laughed. There wasn’t a trace of tension left in her, not one nervous knot, not one lump of remorse. What a great fucking feeling that was.

  “You might enjoy the rest of the album.” Callie sat cross-legged and beaming, her mood entirely transformed. “It’s awesome. Right, Riva?”

  Riva gave another of her endearingly self-conscious giggles. “Right.”

  “There’s this one track at the very end. It’s acoustic, which I usually don’t get into, but it has this amazing riff.” Callie strummed the air, humming what was presumably the amazing riff. “I’ll play it next.”

  All it had taken to cheer Callie up was to bring her into the conversation. That was how friendless the poor kid felt. Living out on the edge of Foundation, staring at the badlands, believing she was forever alone…

  “Tell us a story, Roux,” said Lexi, and Callie’s eyes lit up further. “What’s the furthest you’ve ever gone in that van of yours?”

  “I went way up the coast once. Took me two weeks. Every morning, I stopped to recharge the batteries. I didn’t take the highway, just these old dirt roads cut through the rock. I’d look up each evening and see the silhouettes of coyotes on the cliffs.”

  “Was it frightening?” said Riva. “Being so far out by yourself?”

  “No, it was peaceful. Sometimes I’d be driving in the shadow of some canyon, and time would seem to stop around me. So silent, you can’t imagine it. There are places in Foundation where it’s almost dead quiet, but you can still hear those shut-in trucks, or a distant generator, or the factories way off. And out in the desert, the old farmland, you’ve got the buzzing of insects and the wind sifting the sand. But down in the canyons, the air is totally still. I’d stop the van and sit a while on some boulder, listening to my own breath.”

  “Did you find any towns? Cities?”

  “Lots, all swallowed up by dust. Sometimes I explore, but mostly I steer clear. You never know what you’ll disturb.” Callie twirled her hair, an absent mannerism that was quickly becoming familiar. “I thought the coast would be beautiful, but it wasn’t. It’s like a long, chalky graveyard.”

  “Don’t get morbid,” said Lexi. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Tell me about all the cool shit you’re going to do.”

  “I’ve always wanted to fly a plane. That way, the mountains won’t stop me. Even the ocean won’t stop me.” Callie closed her eyes and smiled. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy for spending so much time in the wasteland. But until you’ve been out there, you’ve never seen the sky. Those ruined cities, they only make you think of death, but that sky…”

  “Do you think you’ll ever go back?” said Riva.

  “I hope so. I’d love to hold a girl while stretched out under that sky. Listening to her breath and mine, nothing in the world but the two of us.” Callie brushed her lashes—another familiar gesture. “I’m sorry. I’m such a baby sometimes.”

  Before anyone could reply, the door shuddered beneath an inimitable barrage of knocks. “Come in, Amity,” said Lexi, and the door cracked open. “What’s up?”

  “I have a call for Callie.” Amity opened the door wider, revealing the phone in her hand. “It’s from Blue.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Above her, a light panel emitted a steady electric buzz. Outside, insects thrummed in the night. Within her, each breath came slow and steady. As she meditated, memories rose and confronted her. The rubbish strewn over the street outside the Tofu Palace. The highway flying beneath a cloudless sky. Kade’s brooding eyes and his wiry, unkempt hair. Lexi’s slinky way of walking. Callie’s winning smile.

  Mineko opened her eyes. At this late hour, the study lounge was nearly abandoned. It was just her and a gangly young man who peered at his reader with studious intensity. That suited her fine. She needed solitude, but she wasn’t ready yet for the grim familiarity of her room.

  Though the lounge was quiet, it was irritating in its opulence, a reminder of Codist extravagance. A plush carpet spanned a floor of creaking oak, polished walls displayed gilt-framed portraits of Codifiers, a chandelier glittered on the ceiling and ornate water features trickled in the corners. A pair of sliding glass doors overlooked white trees clustered in a courtyard. Beautiful. In theory.

  But there was no real beauty in Codism. Only ugliness beneath a veil, just as Kaori’s puckish face concealed repellent bigotry. The Codifiers had insisted—Mineko often imagined them hissing their decrees with tongues purpled and swollen—that procreation was the organic aspiration of the species. Anything else was the aberrant invention of cultural anarchists who wanted to create chaos through complexity.

  But Mineko knew better. She had ceased to believe from the moment her tutor had been wiped and Codism’s cruelty had been laid bare to her. She had seen confiscated videos, read banned books. She knew that other societies existed beyond the decaying borders of this one.

  And last night, she had kissed a woman.

  The sliding doors opened. Of course it would be Lachlan Reed, as if summoned by the strength of her emotions to torment her. He crossed the carpet with his usual measured stride. His hair glistened beneath the lights, as did the teeth revealed by his insincere smile.

  “So diligent,” he said. “Studying at this hour.”

  As quietly as he’d been studying, the other student stole from the room. Lachlan chuckled. “Do you think he’s afraid of me?”

  “What do you want, Lachlan?”

  “You’re so brusque.” Lachlan towered over her, but she met his gaze with no trace of fear—or so she hoped. “Have you seen Dr. Wren yet?”

  “Yes. How did you know I would be here?”

  “An intuition. Tell me, did anything interesting pass between you two? Something you might want to inform me about?”

  Did his phrasing imply a hidden provocation, or was Mineko being paranoid? “She’s fearful. She knows that failure would mean serious repercussions.”

  “The poor thing. But I can’t imagine she’ll fail us. She has a solid record.”

  Even that sounded like a threat, and Mineko’s anger redoubled. No one person more represented the hypocrisy of Codism than did this hunter in black. He was the agent to whom the law only applied in daylight, the thug who bloodied his hands so that her father could attend government meetings without any stain on his own, the cyborg whose very existence was in clear contradiction of the Third Moral Code.

  Perhaps it was the lingering exhilaration of her treacherous thoughts. Perhaps it was the rage smoldering in her gut. Perhaps it was the thought of Valerie Wren alone in her apartment, studying the night from her balcony. Or perhaps it was only Mineko’s wish to see patterns in the stars as the sun melted over the mesa. Whatever the reason, defiance took hold of her, and it spoke through her without fear.

  “Project Sky is wrong,” she said. “It’s imm
oral. It needs to be stopped.”

  Lachlan shrugged, his slight smirk still in place. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Was he taunting her? “The Code makes clear that Codism is voluntary. To force it upon others is a betrayal of our values.”

  “The First and Second Moral Codes suggested as such, yes. The Third, however, clearly states that only a society adhering to the Code can be considered civilized.” Lachlan spoke without any trace of reprimand. Just insubordinate amusement. “You’d almost think there’s some agenda in all of this, wouldn’t you?”

  “I want Codism to succeed, just as you do.” It wasn’t true, but Mineko wasn’t about to turn this into a confession—that would be like a sheep admitting to a wolf that they fantasized about being eaten. “But not some corrupt form of Codism that is only a reflection of our basest impulses.”

  “If you follow your father, you’ll be on the Committee someday. Perhaps you’ll help write the Fourth Moral Code. I’m sure you have many ideas. But I’ve known you a long time, Mineko. Why don’t you just speak your mind?”

  “I am speaking my mind.”

  Lachlan’s smirk became a predatory grin. “I don’t think you are. Why don’t I just say it for you? The Code is a baseless, contradictory doctrine designed to control an unwitting populace. Say it. I won’t bite.”

  It was as shocking as if Lachlan had removed a mask and revealed himself to be Lexi in disguise. An unformed reply trembled on Mineko’s lips and died. What was she supposed to say to that?

  Lachlan laughed. “Yes, it’s quite scandalous. But we’re the enlightened ones, you and me. Do you know what amuses me most? In moralistic works of literature, tyrannies are always so very seductively sinister. They consume free thought, they dominate the individual, they crush every last trace of will. People are reduced to spiritless organisms, to labor units, to entertainment. Yet what do we have? A bunch of miserable people in uniform eating regulation soy food. Not much of a brave new world, is it?”

  “You don’t believe in the Code?”

  “Oh, I believe. I see it in operation every day. And I suppose wiping people’s memories is fairly compelling as far as dictatorial evil goes. But still, we’ve a long way to go before we’re pushing old people into grinders and using them for food.”

  It was surely a trap, a way to bait her into an admission. “You’re talking nonsense, Lachlan.”

  “And you’ve been talking to my old friend Kade August.”

  The warmth drained from Mineko’s face. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Good-looking fellow. Five-ten, about one hundred and forty pounds. Dark skin, brown eyes, black hair. Tends to go about in an old trench coat. Seems serious at first but lightens up when you get to know him.” Lachlan gave an ironic smile. “Sound familiar?”

  As if conjured by survival instinct, the words came easily. “I think I know the man you mean. He told me he was with Code Intel, and I believed him. He took me aside and revealed he was a journalist seeking the truth about Project Sky. I told him I didn’t know anything. When he insisted that I must, that my father would know everything, I told him I wasn’t my father.”

  “And you never reported this encounter?”

  “He threatened me. I was afraid that if I told anyone, he’d come back and hurt me. I know I should have mentioned, but…”

  Lachlan gazed at her, his expression unreadable. “Angelo Abramo began a famous treatise with the following line: ‘Breathing is our first act of defiance.’ His daughter Beatrice later offered the following commentary upon that line: ‘Breathing is involuntary; true resistance must be chosen.’ A obscurer thinker, but rather sharper. Much less florid than her father.”

  Had she tricked him or not? What was he babbling about? “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you?” Lachlan’s chuckle was so self-satisfied that Mineko’s anger reached unendurable limits, enough to impel her to stand and draw to her full—if unimpressive—height. “Please, don’t get up on my account.”

  She’d had enough of being meek. “Don’t taunt me, you son of a bitch.”

  “Now that’s language I don’t usually hear from you.”

  “I’ll speak to you as I please. I won’t be your toy any longer. I’ve denied who I truly am to play the role of the puppet you all intend me to be…” Mineko had lost control, but it didn’t matter—Lachlan’s startled look was reward enough. “You leave Valerie the hell alone. She’s frightened of you, the way we’re all frightened of you, but I refuse to be scared anymore. You’re my father’s lackey, and when I tell you to heel, Lachlan Reed, you will heel.”

  “You see? Honesty’s not so hard after all.”

  Mineko pointed to the glass doors. “Get out.”

  “Naturally. It’s late, and you need rest. We’ll talk soon.”

  As he strode from the room, Mineko contemplated picking up a vase and throwing it after him, but her anger ebbed as quickly as it had risen. What had she done? A lifetime of composure squandered in an instant of rebellion.

  Exactly, perhaps, as Lachlan had intended.

  * * *

  Mineko sat on her bed and pressed her shaking hands together in her lap. He knew. It was the only explanation for his flippant, taunting heresy. Perhaps he even knew what had happened between her and Valerie. But if that was so, why didn’t he turn her in? Was his love for scheming and plotting really such that he’d risk crossing her father?

  Whatever his motives, there was no escape from this battle of wills between her and him. And he would win, of course. She didn’t dare do anything that might draw the ire of her parents, and so he would continue to mock her as he had done today, using her as a piece on his board.

  Mineko took the watch from her pocket, and the trembling in her hands eased. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the scent of Callie’s hair, the warmth of her arm. They’d spoken together right here on this bed, in this lonely room…

  Someday, I’m going to take you for a ride. You’ll love it.

  But I don’t know how, she’d said, her heart squeezed tight.

  It’s easy. You just sit behind me and hold on.

  It only took seconds to retrieve the radio phone from its hiding place. Mineko inhaled a deep breath before depressing the call button. “This is Blue. Is anyone there? This is Blue calling.”

  The static cleared. “Acknowledged, Blue. Please hold.”

  Silence again, ominous. The breeze moved through the branches of the tree outside, rustling its white blossoms, and Mineko watched as several petals fluttered loose. Had the petals been freed or had the blossoms been shredded? Did it make any difference?

  “Good evening, Blue.” She recognized the calm, reassuring voice, though the name took a second longer to come to mind—Nikolas. “Are you well?”

  “I want to talk to my friends.” Mineko’s voice wavered. She took another breath. She hadn’t realized how close she was to falling apart. “Please.”

  “Have no fear. As promised, I’ve arranged a way for you to contact them. I’ve merely been awaiting your call.”

  “I can talk to them now?”

  “I believe so. It’s a little complicated, but suffice to say I’ve established a relay. You will talk to the radio here, and the radio will transmit your call across our rudimentary cellular networks to the phone of a colleague of mine. There may be a slight delay, and it’s not secure on our end, but it sounds to me as if you have an urgent need. Isn’t that so?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me.” There was a quiet click over the line. “I’m putting you through. All the best, my friend.”

  The phone dialed, and Mineko waited, tense, as it produced six beeps. The line clicked again.

  “Amity,” said the stern voice of an older woman.

  “Um, this is Blue. Nikolas said I could—”

  “Yes, fine. He’s explained it to me. I assume you want to talk to Lexi.”

  Mineko eased her grip
on the phone. If she wasn’t careful, she’d break the precious thing. “Yes, but I want Callie first.”

  “If you insist. I have to walk down a corridor, so be patient.” A series of noises ensued—footsteps, a door opening, the steps returning with a touch of echo. A series of thunderous knocks. “It’s Amity.” The sound of heavy music became audible. “I have a call for Callie. It’s from Blue.”

  A voice replied, too distant to be made out. “She asked for her specifically,” said Amity.

  Lexi—it could only have been Lexi—blew a wolf-whistle. Somebody laughed, and a door swung shut.

  “Min?” Callie sounded worried but hopeful. “You there?”

  “I’m here. I’m—” Mineko’s throat tightened, and she swallowed. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time.”

  “No such thing. We’re just chilling out; me, Lexi, and Riva. You haven’t met Riva yet, but you’d like her. She’s really cool.” Callie’s voice softened. “I’ve missed you, Min. I worry about you all the time.”

  There it was again, that weight on her chest. “I’ve missed you too.”

  “Lexi, quit it!” Callie laughed. “She’s making kissy-faces at me. Thinks she’s funny. Riva, can you turn that music down? I can hardly hear the phone…sure, that’s better.”

  Mineko steeled herself. She’d explain everything, and she wouldn’t let herself cry. “I’m in trouble. Lachlan knows what I’ve done, and I think he’s threatening me with exposure.”

  Callie drew in a sharp breath. “Then that’s the end of the line. You’ve got to get out now, whether you like it or not.”

  “It’s not so simple. Fleeing the enclave will mark me as a traitor to the Code, and I can’t stand the thought of letting my parents down. I know it’s ridiculous, but…” Mineko wiped her eyes, trying to keep her tears at bay. “I know I can’t have both. I can’t be their daughter and still be free. But I love them, Callie. I don’t want them to hate me.” A sob broke free, leaving her helpless and ashamed. She’d said she wouldn’t cry, yet here she was. “I’m pitiful.”