The Assumption Code

by Melodee Elliott

  Margi sobered with those words.

  The man went to her carton and set his hand upon it as if it were an extremely fragile object. “I warn you, above all else, do not venture to Meno.”

  “Why? Not that I’m going to,” she added as the man stood over the selection of Great Adventures.

  “Your Path would change irrevocably. It almost did when you assumed Rivner’s body. Holan’s technology is volatile. Luckily, we found your core Path, and you are safe.” He paced. “Know that our technology can go only so far to retrieve you.”

  He made his way toward her. “Remember who you are,” he said and caught her gaze as she turned to him. He raised an eyebrow to hone the point.

  Tolman interjected, “We’ve arranged for you to have a dedicated driver. Use him wisely. He’s waiting outside.”

  At first she didn’t move. The two men reserved themselves from her, indicating that it was time for her to leave. She took her carton and turned to go. She could feel them watching her, especially Tolman.

  On the other side of the door the driver was waiting for her with a vehicle—a limousine by any standard, polished and ready. She slid into her seat and began her journey back to Stavon.

  The trip gave her a few precious moments to think. She gathered that The Ward was larger than a few mere renegades. They were even a part of DanuVitro, waiting for opportunity. She was to give them their prize.

  The driver brought her to the base of the penthouse’s structure and gave her a small communicator, older than the current technologies, that when pressed would contact him when needed. She was done with this day and hoped it was done with her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Night’s darkness turned to day as the two moons crossed. This, Margi could rely on. Stavon kissed her and disappeared into his garage with the hum of his car soon to follow and silence. Only then did she emerge from her bed.

  She stood in the main room. No studies, no notes. She was free that day. She got herself ready and contacted the driver.

  Within minutes, he came. She had one mission, and that was to find answers.

  “Tolman’s studio,” she said.

  The car lifted, and they sped in the opposite direction of the studio, presumably to shake anyone who might follow. She was growing accustomed to the lifts and dives of the hover car and watched the driver navigate the switches and steering rod as he aimed for his next direction. It reminded her of video game joysticks back home and she wondered if Earth, too, would someday have such hover cars that flew like occupied drones through the skies.

  Soon, she recognized the glowing streets of the Kalgare section and pondered the damage that the open-source code of those holograms had wrecked. Would a day come when Stavon would open-source his Great Adventures to Meno? Everyone with means would assume the client role and seek out any disadvantaged soul as a participant through which to carry out their own dreams of self-awareness, self-fulfillment.

  The worlds of Danu and Earth weren’t so different, she realized. Only their resources and freedoms to act upon their desires were. She couldn’t write an exposé. The Stavons of Earth would seek out its technology. Others would become frightened to their cores. She didn’t know which was worse.

  Fear lurked beneath both extremes. No, there must be another way to advance the knowledge of the collective human endeavor. Danu had The Ward to meet its level of need. Such times warranted it. Earth needed its own solution.

  The hover car coasted into Tolman’s back alleyway. She emerged to the firm ground and saw the car lift into the distance.

  She heard noises inside the building. Tolman was there. She knocked on the door and waited. The noise stopped. She looked each way down the alley to see if she was being watched. She saw no one. Her breathing eased until she heard footsteps approach from the other side of that door.

  A space in the doorway opened. Tolman peeked through, then after a long moment opened it wide to let her in. Once she entered, he glanced one more time down the alley and locked the door behind her.

  She stood facing him as if he would say something. Yet she was the one who came and so must offer a reason.

  “I want to speak with you,” she said.

  He wiped his hands with a rag and retreated to his workbench. She followed.

  “What happened with you two?” she asked.

  “With who?”

  “With Rivner. I need to know,” she tested.

  He knelt and continued to work on a large panel resembling an amplifier. His slowness of movement gave away his mood.

  “She knew she disappointed you.” Margi said the words, attempting to apologize on Rivner’s behalf though she didn’t know why.

  “Disappointed me?” He tossed a tool onto the bench.

  “I’m trying. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she confessed. She didn’t want him to hate her, nor did she want to defile the memory he had of Rivner, no matter how tainted it was to begin with.

  “Don’t be her.” His words carried heavily through the air.

  “Easier said than done since I was brought here to be her. Every action, every tour I give, every speech.” She threw her hands up in defeat. “Every time he makes love to me.”

  He gazed up at her and looked through her to somewhere for something she did not have, save for the resemblance of Rivner that would provide a mock-up of that which he could mourn or make right or whatever he needed that she couldn’t reach.

  “What happened?” she repeated.

  He rose from his knees. “You best put your energies in finding how to use Stavon’s weakness.”

  She approached a table. “He loves his wife, I think.” She pondered it aloud as she ran her fingers over the objects on the workbench.

  “I loved her.”

  Margi searched for words. She’d conducted many an interview in her career but none that managed to work against her in this way. No amount of words would suffice on Danu. Still, it was her only weapon, her resource, her redeemer.

  “I’m sorry” were the only words that satisfied.

  “What do you have to be sorry for? It was her choice.”

  “She regretted that choice.” She proceeded cautiously. “Stavon gifted her first Great Adventure. She assumed the body of a teenaged boy. Named him Welser.”

  Tolman looked away.

  “Apparently, she knew the boy and couldn’t carry it through. She ended her life on Meno for it.”

  Tolman cleared his throat and waited as if for her to say more.

  She knew better.

  “That’s what Stavon does,” he finally said and went to another bench, ignoring her otherwise.

  “Rivner knew she lost your respect.”

  “She lost my respect way before that with the choices she made.”

  “And that’s why you want me to remember who I am,” she said with the realization that he might actually care what happened to her. Someone caring—anyone, was a notion she hadn’t dared present to herself as she had never truly known it could be. Even back on Earth. The Tolmans of the universe, the nice ones who she’d chance to meet, were ever unattainable, being simple and kind and unknown to her.

  He approached her again, so close that she felt his magnetism.

  “Rivner forgot who she was and willingly became someone Stavon wanted her to be: his wife and the voice of DanuVitro. If you follow her, you will, too. Your Path will unravel and The Ward will not be able to use you.”

  The rebuke swallowed her like an animal that gulped its prey whole.

  She nodded to acknowledge the hurtful words in the hope that he would stop.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t deserve that.”

  “I need to know his weakness.” She tried to keep to script. It was all business with Tolman though he hid a very personal past with Rivner. She may need to go blindly into Stavon’s world without it.

  Then, she realized Stavon wouldn’t care about his past deeds. Only the common bond of those souls bearing a co
nscience dealt in one’s past and the past of others who were held hostage by misdeeds.

  No. Stavon dealt only in futures. A quest of sorts. No wonder the man told her that Rivner was his weakness, not a weakness of guilt but of conquest.

  “What does Stavon want?” she asked.

  “To destroy. Everything comes at a price with Stavon. Be careful,” he said. That time, she thought he meant it, caring, that is. His gaze lingered on her face, but she knew that Rivner was the person he saw.

  “I’ll try.”

  “You try and you lose. Stavon will not submit to being tested. He’ll consume you before you get your chance. You strike, and you strike hard. Don’t ask for permission.”

  “Okay,” she said to satisfy the tension.

  He went to a console and touched a graphic. “Rivner needs her driver.”

  A voice responded affirmatively.

  He quickened his pace back to her. He had a natural way about him that made the towering structures seem so small and insignificant.

  She lifted his hand and held it between her palms. They were the hands that fashioned his creations during his days and had caressed Rivner on long-lost nights.

  He had a look in his eyes that only a poet could explain, not so much for rekindled memories, but for newness. She hoped she had touched him in that way.

  “I will find a way to use his weakness,” she said.

  An engine hummed beyond the side door. She lowered his hand and walked away.

  As she gripped the latch, Tolman’s mellow voice reached to her. “Welser was my brother.”

  She turned back to him and could feel the pain shared by Tolman and Rivner. She could only bow her head in respect at such a confession. Words would offer no better. She left for the hover car.

  Rivner had been trapped in an unthinkable situation, helpless, hopeless with her mandate to live out a lifetime, possibly trying to bring back the dead in all that she would do. No wonder she ended it all, unwilling and unable to undo all that she had done that brought her to that time and place.

  She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the notion that felt eerily familiar. So much trying and too much hate had stood between her and the reach for everything.

  The driver took her to the penthouse, in a seemingly short time. A hazard of being lost in one’s mind, she thought.

  As she stepped from the hover car, an idea struck her such that she stopped cold. An idea so insane that she was sure Stavon would approve.

  “You need help?” the driver asked.

  “No,” Margi replied. “Wait here.”

  Mere moments later, she emerged from the penthouse with the carton of selections for her couple’s Great Adventure.

  “Take me to Stavon’s office.”

  At first the driver didn’t respond when she sat back in her seat. Then, he angled the car toward the sapphire sky.

  She had but a short time to finish her plan—a plan that could eventually call her bluff.

  * * *

  Margi marched up the marble corridor to Stavon’s palatial executive suite.

  His assistant looked up from her work as she approached.

  “Yes?” the woman inquired with the cool politeness of a CEO’s gatekeeper.

  “Stavon,” Margi uttered. It was all she should need to say as his wife, if any at all.

  The woman spoke into her communicator and listened.

  “He’ll see you now,” she said.

  Margi took hold of Stavon’s door and entered, her stride long and disregarding the mere distance to him. She was seeing beyond. After all, this was her adventure now and all others were mere participants.

  He rose from his chair to greet her. “Everything okay?” he asked as he came to her.

  The notion caught her attention. She was certain that Rivner never came to Stavon’s office without an invitation. That was about to change. She was a New Yorker.

  “Of course,” she replied and kissed his cheek.

  On the next beat, she paced to the bottomless section of the floor and set the carton on the table.

  He followed her, giving her ample space as if to observe his wife in action.

  She lifted the lid from its base and reached for a device.

  He now stood by her side.

  “This one.” She placed her selection in his palm.

  He grinned in a way that she had never quite witnessed in anyone. He was already playing his part.

  He opened it to display the woman with kohl-lined eyes perched upon her gilded throne.

  “I see this in you,” he told her.

  She wanted to reply that he could only dream of the adventure in store for him, that he would come to know his wife in a new way, and that he would never be the same man again. If only she could believe this herself. Instead, Stavon was about to draw the wolf of Holan from his lair and strike upon his misstep. The Ward would need to wait.

  She smiled a wry smile, the tease of a smirk for mischief that someone like Stavon wouldn’t think was meant for him but for others.

  She turned to make a dramatic exit and paused. She looked back at him. “I’ve been thinking of Ferli,” she stated as if having an off-the-cuff thought.

  “Yes?”

  “I would like to replace her.” The statement floated out as both a question and a command.

  “We’ve discussed this. She’s my sister. I cannot.” He wrapped his arms around her as he breathed upon her neck. The dampness of hot ego now bothered her. She stepped away.

  “I understand.” She let her hand fall away from his, flashed a smile, and left the room as she felt him looking on.

  She navigated the corridor as quickly as she could, leaving behind the events that she’d set into motion. Her plan would be harder than she thought. She still had Ferli to deal with. So much she didn’t know. Stavon’s sister after all.

  She understood Ferli now and that she must be of much the same character as Stavon, having accumulated a certain savvy from living out multiple lifetimes of deceit that Margi would have to navigate.

  Fear washed over her. Her mind went blank. What had she done? She’d placed herself as bait for the most evil people in the galaxy and possibly beyond. She didn’t even know where she was. Perfect.

  Margi reached for the communicator to summon her driver.

  She met him at the landing pad. “Take me home,” she ordered.

  Her mind raced through the entire evening and even into sleep. She must pretend to be the happy Rivner. She calmed after that recognition. Her new directive made the task easier to assume the persona. For a time, she told herself. Not forever.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The following morning, Margi had her driver take her to the clients’ waiting room. Margi was struck by the never-ending stream of would-be assassins coming to take their Great Adventures. Someone always followed in a predecessor’s wake, and more and more passages to Great Adventures were booked.

  She looked upon the group that she would tour and counted the souls that would need also be lost as participants. She would avenge them if she could. No sacrifice was worth the money a participant’s family received.

  Yet she imagined the conversations that families would have in the dimness of night, save for the holograms shining through their windows when they should be resting along with the plotting. The budding of such a notion to offer oneself up to DanuVitro or possibly another under the same roof allowed no rest of conscience. Once posed, one could not hide from the awareness that one would consider such a deed. And such inclinations were never hidden from others in the light of action.

  If she could bring down Stavon and his DanuVitro, she would bring a day of reckoning for those whose inclinations could go no further. But it would be too late for those who were sacrificed—convincing in their argument or not, they would know it would be their last. She had seen that day. And she had insulted them. Had they known her own plight, she would surely have earned their forgiveness. She wasn’t here by her own accor
d. But as life advanced in the scheme of it all, no one would ever know the remorse of others whose lies remained to be consumed by the next group.

  “Come this way,” Margi said. The group followed.

  * * *

  After the tour, Margi led the group back to the waiting room where a client services team stood ready to advise them on their next Great Adventure. She bid them farewell to make her way to the café and Tolman’s artwork. She’d relax with a drink and watch the pedestrians play with the sea creatures.

  As she walked along a DanuVitro hallway, a hand gripped her elbow with the strength of a vise. She spun around to see Holan at her side bearing the expression of a man gone mad. He pulled her into a room and shoved her away from him. She caught her balance against a desk and righted herself.

  “You stupid girl.” He spewed the words at her.

  She straightened her dress. “Can I help you?” she asked with a lilt in her voice elevating above her irritation.

  He stepped forward. “Do you know what would happen to you if you went to Meno?”

  The rashness of hate puffed his face, and a vein pulsed in his temple. Such energy with nowhere to go would provoke a misstep not of his choosing. Only oneself could determine the hour of one’s demise. She set her intentions to bring a brisk resolve in him.

  “You think I’m going to Meno.” She laughed. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Stavon thinks so. You chose the Adventure.” He forced the words through his teeth.

  “Do you have a question or are you kidnapping me? Oh yes, you’ve already kidnapped me.” She waited for his response.

  “You think you can manipulate me? Do you know what I can do to your body on Earth?” he threatened.

  “Do you know what I can do to yours on Danu?” she replied.

  “You can try.”

  “I don’t try. I do,” she countered. She channeled Stavon the best she could, hoping to infer all else Stavon would do, that Holan would assume.

  Holan tilted his head back and stretched his neck. “What do you want?”