Suddenly, Councilor Floyd leapt up from his seat near the dais. For a moment, Malcolm had the awful, sinking feeling that his most loyal councilor was about to denounce him. Instead, Councilor Floyd raised a fist and shouted, “Bravo, Chancellor Malcolm.”
It was as if Councilor Floyd had released a floodgate. Within seconds, the entire hall was on its feet, cheering and clapping in a wave of jubilation that literally shook the foundations of City Hall.
It was fully five minutes before Malcolm could restore order to the assembly.
“Ethosians!” He shouted over the din. “Fellow Ethosians!”
At last, some semblance of quietness returned to the hall as people began slowly to retake their seats.
“The Constitution of Ethos grants me as Chancellor the power to pass decrees with regard to the expansion of civil rights, with or without support of the Immortal Council. I am announcing today the creation of a special committee to investigate the needs of the Bereft communities of Ethos and to offer its recommendations to me for civil rights legislation. I will pass whatever decrees the committee recommends to ensure that Bereft receive equal treatment and protection under the laws of Ethos. And to show my good faith, this committee will be led by a hero of the Flint-Detroit Conflict and a Bereft, Commander Nev.”
A wave of movement passed over the spectators’ hall as necks craned to search for Nev. David, his heart hammering in his chest, spotted her, still at the back of the hall, surrounded on all sides by other Bereft, who were clapping her on the back and reaching to shake her hand. She was beaming, her lovely face radiant with emotion. David’s heart swelled. He felt his ethos veritably surging within him. His love for both Malcolm and Nev was back in alignment now.
But just as quickly as the celebratory atmosphere had broken out among the small cluster of Bereft at the back of the hall, the mood among the Immortals darkened.
Councilor Kashay stood from her seat among the Immortal Councilors on the right side of the dais.
“You cannot do this, Chancellor Malcolm!” she shouted. The hall fell silent, and all turned to hear her. “We will follow you in your championing of unity at this important time, when the republic is vulnerable and we are forging forward with a new government. Yes, we celebrate your call for solidarity between Immortals and Bereft. Why not?
“But a unilateral decree without support of the Immortal Council? You overstep your bounds, Chancellor Malcolm. Your edict flies in the face of the traditions of Ethos and violates the will of the people.”
“Which people?” Malcolm rejoined immediately. “Do you speak for the Bereft?”
“No,” Councilor Kashay replied icily. “Nor do they speak for me. I will not allow you singlehandedly to orchestrate a Bereft takeover of the institutions we Immortals have sacrificed so much to create.”
Without warning, a cheer erupted among the Immortal Councilors.
“I stand with Councilor Kashay!” someone shouted.
“We’ll resist tyranny!” another cried.
Malcolm raised his hands over his head. “I said nothing of a takeover!” he exclaimed. “I speak of equality. It is time for the Bereft to have the same representation, the same rights, and the same privileges granted automatically to the Immortals. This does not grant them power over Immortals. It merely offers them the same freedoms and rights to self-determination that we have always had.”
A volley of arguments shot back from the Immortal Council.
“Immortals built this city!”
“Ethos belongs to Immortals!”
“We won’t be overrun by Bereft!”
Again, Malcolm raised his hands over his head, seeking, now futilely, to calm the rising tide of rage spreading rapidly through the ranks of the Immortal Council and beginning to be picked up by the Immortal spectators in the gallery, even dispersed among Bereft as they were.
“Please! Fellow Ethosians!” Malcolm called. “We have not yet heard the findings of the committee. Let it proceed with its work. Hear its recommendations. I believe we will find them just and necessary. Let’s wait to pass judgment until we hear what changes are recommended.”
Now Councilor Kinnion stepped forward from where he had, until now, been standing quietly at Malcolm’s side.
“We backed you,” Councilor Kinnion said, “in the transition to a unified Ethosian government.” He spoke so loudly and forcefully that the vibramp picked up the vibrations of his vocal cords and spread them, virus-like, through the hall. “When the question of Ethosian leadership was raised, there was not a dissenting voice against your administration. I stepped aside willingly so that you might lead us into a new era of peace and prosperity. And you repay our trust and confidence by acting unilaterally. By behaving as a demagogue. I reject the findings of this illegal committee out of hand, and I refuse to comply by any decree passed without ratification by the Immortal Council.”
The Immortal Councilors were on their feet in an instant, a roar of agreement rising up to the domed ceiling of City Hall. Only Councilor Floyd, pale and wide-eyed as usual, remained seated.
“I call for a walk out!” Councilor Kashay shouted over the uproar. “This assembly is illegitimate.”
That was all it took. The Immortals in City Hall began, en masse, to file out of their seats, pushing Bereft roughly aside as they went. Within mere minutes, they were gone. The tiered seats of the Immortal Council were empty, except for that of steadfast and true Councilor Floyd. He, Malcolm, and David were the only Immortals left in City Hall. They faced the still-gathered Bereft of Ethos, who gazed back at them in stunned and heartsick silence.
Nev stepped forward.
“Thank you, Chancellor Malcolm,” she said, her voice ringing out through the hall so that all who remained could hear her, “for your bravery today. We will not disappoint you. We will work with the Immortals of Ethos to make this city greater than it has ever been. The Immortals will see the righteousness of your actions, and they will stand with us again. We will stand together as one unified Ethosian people.”
Malcolm felt gratitude and respect for Nev rise in his chest. And then, much to his astonishment, he watched as David leapt down from the dais, ran toward Nev, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her passionately.
The Bereft—and Malcolm and Councilor Floyd—broke into raucous applause.
“Let me get this straight. You’re getting remarried?”
“Yes.”
“To a woman who is genetically . . . ‘different’ from you?”
“Right.”
“And who lives . . . in the future?”
“That about sums it up.”
David and Malcolm were sitting with Lila in her den. After David and Nev’s reconciliation on the day of Malcolm’s declaration of the rights of the Bereft, things had moved quickly. The two of them had decided that, amidst the sea change of new rights and privileges for the Bereft, they should make their relationship official and marry. Intergenetic marriage was currently illegal under Ethosian law, but everyone expected Malcolm to legitimize it as part of his decrees supporting the Bereft.
It was David who insisted on returning to the twenty-first century to tell Lila of his intention. Yes, their relationship since the divorce had been strained, but he felt he owed it to her as Malcolm’s mother and his former wife to tell her about this major step in his life. And to explain to her why she might see a lot less of him in twenty-first century Flint.
Malcolm had taken a while to come around to the plan. He still hadn’t told his mother about his time traveling, much less that he had become a major political figure in the future. But finally he had agreed to accompany his father to talk with Lila. He wasn’t particularly hopeful that she would react well to his new life circumstances, but the prospect of a reconciliation between his parents was too important to him to pass up.
Now he sat with his hands clasped as David, in a measured, careful voice, explained to Lila how he had first chanced on the Flint of the future by passing through a
portal in her very basement. He then ticked off the history, political context, and genetic characteristics of the future world in much the same way Malcolm had once explained the same details to him. He had, by all evidence, become something of an expert on Ethos in his own right.
Lila was looking at both of them, mouth agape.
“But—is this safe?” She asked finally, turning from David to Malcolm.
“I mean, to be honest, Mom,” Malcolm said, speaking for the first time since David had begun his story, “we’re both probably safer in the future than we ever were here. We’re Immortal now.”
“Oh, right,” Lila said, still wide-eyed. “Immortal.” She repeated the word as if she had never heard it before in her life—and, in a sense, she hadn’t, since she had certainly never heard it discussed in connection with anything approaching biological reality.
But then she said something that almost knocked both Malcolm and David off their chairs.
“Can I come visit?”
“What?” Malcolm stammered. “Visit . . . Ethos?”
“Sure,” Lila said. “The two of you get to traipse off to the future and become Immortal and get elected leader of the world and fall in love and all the rest, and all this time I’m here at home mowing the lawn and paying taxes. Why do you get to have all the fun? I want a pet pterodactyl, too.”
“He’s not my pet, Mom,” Malcolm began, exasperated, but David was grinning ear to ear. This was the Lila he had once loved—the spunky, driven, organized woman who had led the charge on almost everything the two of them did together. Since their divorce, David had watched much of this spunk dissolve into bitterness and frustration. He had seen Lila retreat from the world, narrowing her scope to her home life with Malcolm and her work at the elementary school. He hadn’t ever harbored any ill will towards her, and it had broken his heart to see her withdraw so deeply into herself.
“Yes!” David cut in before Malcolm could say anything more. “Of course you can visit. I want you to officiate the wedding.” “What?” Both Malcolm and Lila spoke in the exact same instant.
“There’s nothing that would make me happier than to share this with you,” David said earnestly. “And, Lila, I don’t think there’s much else that would make you happier than to know what life is like in Ethos. If there’s anyone in the world I know who is perfectly suited to Ethos, it’s Malcolm. He was born to find his ethos—and he got that from you, Lila. That drive, that passion, that focus—none of that comes from me. It comes from you. I think you’d fit in in Ethos better than anyone else besides Malcolm.”
Malcolm, despite himself, found that he was nodding enthusiastically. His dad was absolutely right about his mother. And more than that—this was exactly what he had hoped for. In fact, it was more than what he had hoped for. This didn’t just signal a detente in their testy relationship—this could mean a healing of old wounds. There was no way the two of them would ever get back together, but this was even better. This meant that they could forgive each other and move forward with their lives—into something better than they had ever known when they were together.
“Good,” Lila said, clearly pleased to have negotiated a position for herself in this new world. “When is the wedding?”
“Ah,” David said. “Good question. Time is a little hard to measure on either side of the VR portal. Technically, it’s two days from now in Ethos. But we can’t really be sure how much time will pass in Ethos while we’re here with you in Flint.”
Lila considered this for a moment.
“Sounds to me,” she finally said, “like we better leave right now. I don’t want to risk missing the wedding. And it certainly won’t hurt me to spend some time getting used to Ethos.”
A few minutes later—after Lila had taken just enough time to change into some loose, comfortable pants that she thought would be best suited to trying out a ride on her son’s pet pterodactyl—the three of them gathered in the basement.
Malcolm went first, strapping on the VR headset . . . and disappearing instantly.
Lila and David exchanged a look.
“It’s really real,” Lila said, her face shining with the kind of delight and wonder David had not seen in her since they were very young and first dating.
“Yep,” David said, a little proud to be sharing something so spectacular with her. “It’s real. You wanna go next?”
Lila nodded. She put on the VR gloves, clipped herself onto the treadpad, and pulled the goggles over her eyes. Then she vanished.
David, his heart expanding with a sense of ease and hope for the future, followed.
David and Nev stood facing each other under a small trellis covered in thick, luscious green vines. David wore a black jacket with a mandarin collar, and Nev wore a cream-colored gown that swept the floor in gauzy folds. Between them was Lila, wearing a blue dress with an asymmetrical neckline in the typical Ethosian style. Malcolm was standing to the right side of his father, hands clasped solemnly before him.
There were no other witnesses. Nev had acted fast on gathering data and formulating recommendations for the Bereft Civil Rights Decree. She had succeeded easily in persuading Malcolm to integrate the Ethosian schools, open the Immortal hospitals to Bereft, and to initiate a program of affirmative action in Immortal universities and professions that had historically been closed to Bereft applicants. The Bereft would also have proportional voting representation on the Immortal Council.
But the one thing that Malcolm worried would be pushing the limits of Ethosian tolerance too far was reversing the ban on intergenetic marriage. There hadn’t been enough time to conduct thorough genetic research to refute the longstanding claim that Immortals were genetically different from Bereft even before discovering their ethea and becoming Immortal. But this belief was tenacious in the society and formed the foundation for a resistance to mingling of Immortal and Bereft bloodlines. Immortals feared that the offspring of an Immortal and a Bereft union would be less likely to find an ethos—or worse, would declare some kind of compromised and undesirable ethos. And so, for generations, the practice of intermarriage had been banned.
Malcolm, already fearing a backlash to his executive decree, which still had no support among the Immortal Council, did not want to test the limits of his goodwill with the Ethosian people any further than he already had. Accordingly, he had drawn up and issued the Bereft Civil Rights Decree without any mention of a new policy on intergenetic marriage.
This of course did not mean that he himself had any moral qualms about the practice. When David and Nev had decided to proceed with their marriage in secret, with Lila as officiant, Malcolm had wholeheartedly agreed to attend as witness—although doing so was certainly an impeachable offense.
Lila, in her two short days in Ethos, had visited much of the city, ridden in a glider, and fired a biotoggler at the shooting range. Her only disappointment with this new world had been in learning that Dactyls allowed only their particular Immortal masters to ride them. So Lila had simply resolved to become Immortal and get her own Dactyl.
Now, she was radiant and genuinely happy as she read the Ethosian marriage contract to David and Nev.
“David,” she said to her former husband, without a hint of hesitation in her voice, “do you swear to have and to hold Nev, to love, protect, and honor her, for better or for worse, from this day forward to the edge of your immortality?”
“I do,” David said. His eyes were locked with Nev’s, and he held her hands steadily in his own.
“Nev,” Lila continued, “do you swear to have and to hold David, to love, protect, and honor him, for better or for worse, from this day forward until death do you part?”
As far as anyone present knew, this was the first time the Immortal and Bereft vows had been combined in one ceremony—the only difference between them being that Bereft vows referenced the possibility of separation due to death.
Nev’s eyes were shining. She, too, held David’s gaze unblinkingly.
“I
do,” she said.
“By the power invested in me by the Chancellor of Ethos,” Lila said, “and under solemn vow not to reveal what has transpired here today to any civic authority other than the Chancellor, I now pronounce you married under the laws of Ethos.”
Malcolm let out a whoop as David and Nev leaned in and sealed their union with a kiss.
avid woke with a start. The room around him was completely pitch black, and his pupils strained against the darkness. He was certain that he had heard a sound coming from the front entrance of the loft.
He remained very silent and still, but the sound did not repeat itself.
After a few minutes, David’s body relaxed, and he rolled over, reaching toward Nev where she slept beside him. His hand met only empty bedding and a still-warm depression in the mattress.
David sat up with a jolt. Where was Nev?
He sprang out of bed, one hand flailing clumsily for the heat-activated pad on the wall that triggered the overhead lights in the bedroom. It took him several blind swipes before his fingers finally found the pad, and light flooded the room.
“What are you doing?” A voice hissed.
There was a flurry of motion to his right. He barely managed to register Nev rushing across the room before her palm slapped against the light pad and the room went dark again.
“There’s someone here,” Nev breathed.
David felt his blood run cold. The two of them stood motionless in the blackened room, barely daring to breathe. They could only hope that the brief flickering on and off again of the lights had not drawn attention to their bedroom.
Finally, when they heard no further stirring, David ventured, “Who do you think it is? What do they want?”
It crossed his mind that this might be a run-of-the-mill burglary. But, then again, he had moved into Nev’s small loft in the Bereft Quadrant, and breaking and entering was virtually unheard of here. The Bereft had very little worth taking.
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