Stavon had deeper cruelties than he had yet to discover. If she committed suicide in the here and now, would she return to Earth? After all, her body was in a coma far away.
“What would happen with my body on Earth?” she asked, remembering the cautionary words from Holan
“Does it matter?”
“Does it matter!” She yelled loud enough even Stavon flinched.
“That’s my body. Not this!” She glanced down at herself. “Or that!” She looked to the body bobbing in the vat. “The body you fashioned for yourself! That’s not me!”
“Too many words.”
Margi stood speechless, the void of humanity too great between them to reach understanding. The citizens of Danu had that commonality with her, she was sure of it. It was as if Stavon had managed to strip himself of what should be common to all living things. He was a creation unto himself, defying nature.
He came to her like a spider examining its prey in a web. Her hands strained against the cuffs. She took one step back.
“You and I make a good team.”
“What?” she asked, more to herself, trying to make sense of the statement.
“That Earth body is a distraction.”
“It’s who I am.”
“Are you not here?” he asked, his expression strained with incredulousness.
“Against my will” was all she could offer.
“But you are here, and you adapted. The matter is moot. You are here in this body or that body,” he said pointing. “And another body I have waiting for you. You will gain some perspective soon.”
Margi felt like he had unleashed all the fluid from Rivner’s standing body onto the floor. She couldn’t move or think. Her future became an opaque blank in that room, being fashioned by another; she had no recourse just as Rivner had none.
Stavon had such a strong sense of self that no other person mattered. She was no more real to him than Rivner had been. His ambition alone had become the body he assumed. He was in a trap without limit.
She remembered Holan’s words once again. A body is no match for an idea. Her only hope was that the idea that she and The Ward had offered to the people of Danu would suffice. If truth was an idea of a higher order, then, truly, anything was possible.
“Come,” he ordered and headed for the door.
The guard braced her cuffs and pushed her forward. She followed Stavon down the hallways and through the laboratories. They eventually entered a hallway that was reminiscent of the operations area she had explored before, the character more utilitarian and less public. The guard pressed upon the cuffs once again, urging her along.
They eventually came to a door.
“Stay here,” Stavon said to the guard. He opened the door wide for her to pass.
A barrier of energy divided the room in half. Her focus fixed on the figure rising to approach on its opposite side.
“Tolman!” she exclaimed and rushed to him. His lip was bruised with blood caked at its corner and one eye was swollen. His movements were labored from wounds less visible. She took in the whole of him and saw that he had been clothed in the striped participant uniform.
“What have they done?” she whispered.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
For the moment, he was all she worried about.
He placed his palms against the barrier. Waves rippled to the edges but didn’t give way. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to place her hands upon his, to bridge the gap between them.
She turned to Stavon. “How dare you.” She spit the words.
Stavon was without emotion. “You want him. I’m giving him to you,” he casually informed her.
The words swam in her mind unable to form into a cohesive thought.
“Meet your participant—your first Great Adventure,” Stavon stated, pride wafting from him.
“I won’t do it,” she said. Her body recoiled from him, her back against the energy shield.
“Margi,” Stavon rebuked.
“You’re insane.”
He laughed.
“I’ll do it,” Tolman interjected. “Return her to Earth.”
“No,” she said and jerked her head to him.
He turned to her with a finality in his demeanor. “It’s procedure for our VIP clients to know the identity one assumes on Meno. You deserved to meet your participant in person. Only the best for you. Of course, your clone is not ready today, and Tolman has only half a lifetime to spare. A technicality really. So, you have another day on Danu until it matures to a phase that we can time your return.”
Margi stood with her mouth slightly gaping. She hadn’t imagined the depths of horror one person could devise.
“For now, I’ll leave you.” Stavon opened the door for the guard. “Uncuff her,” he ordered.
“You will have an appreciation of your status in life, willing or not,” he stated and left. The door’s closing echo ricocheting around the room’s hard surfaces.
She placed her hands against the energy shield.
Tolman looked at her with his one unswollen eye.
She had to find a way to escape for both of them. The shield melted into the rims of its boundaries. No crevices to pry against. She caught sight of a console and ran to it. She placed her fingers against the various graphics to no avail. The eye scan had no effect. The door was locked from the outside.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and walked back to him.
He was with her, barrier or no barrier. If she had to assume his body, she would care for it. It would not be hers but would be in her charge. Though, he would have used it better, being under his own will. What was one to do under such force, otherwise?
“Don’t be,” he replied and placed his hand opposite hers on the barrier and braced his head toward hers.
“I always thought that the end of civilization would be without electricity.” She tried to laugh, but it didn’t feel right.
Tolman maintained his position near her. They stood there for an eternity until time took its toll on their bodies, and they slid to the floor to rest.
Margi looked up at the black ceiling that was pocked with an occasional suspended light; like a poor rendering of the night sky, it was hell heavy and glaring all at once.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t make this go right,” she added.
“You made it go right.” His voice was earnest, though faint.
She knew that she hadn’t and didn’t know the miracle needed to make it so. She lay on the floor and let her mind wander to the time she’d first met Tolman at the labyrinth, however circumstantial the greeting was. She had felt a connection to him that wasn’t due to the infancy of introduction but was something deeper. Still, he had had his role to play with The Ward and so had been distant to her in some respects. Then she remembered her days on Earth and how she missed the routine, the permanency, the reliability of the mundane that settled her into the flow of life.
“You know there’s this old man at a park where I live. He feeds these ducks and trained one of them to bring him sticks.” Margi laughed. “I didn’t know someone could do that.”
She felt him listening.
She waited for more thoughts to emerge. They did and all were meaningless yet profound in the fact that she missed each and every experience, save for the folly she had reserved for herself: every instant ambition, jealousy of the young woman in the office as the new up-and-coming reporter, the nanobots in her face. There was no one left to laugh at her but herself. Then she thought of her body in a coma, lying on a hospital bed waiting for her return, and imagined reaching out to it and holding it in her arms. She wasn’t its parent or lover. This love was different, a stewardship of another kind. She could feel her body’s form in her embrace. She turned to face the floor.
“I would come to you on Earth if I could,” Tolman said. His voice was weak with a weariness she understood.
“I’d like that.” She rubbed her fingers down the energy barrier where
his hand rested mere millimeters away.
She looked over to him—he’d fallen asleep. Her body grew weary and, eventually, words slipped from her mind, and she was left with the empty room and Tolman by her side. Somehow it was enough after all her pleading and worrying and debate that had bullied for her attention. She and Tolman were far and yet so near to each other, bringing the shared experience into the moments of what next would come.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The cobalt sky cast darker, the sister moons dingy in the gray haze. Rolo coasted the car over the tops of buildings. He and Zarnel looked downward to the streets below them. A figure chased another through an alleyway as another corralled him from the opposite end. They pummeled the captive with makeshift weapons until the man lay crumbled and lifeless. The attackers ran out of view.
Smoke streamed into the night sky in several places. The glow of fire radiated nearby. Zarnel met Rolo’s glance of disappointment and kept silent.
He veered the car away and parked on the edge of the forest. They ran back to the streets, not stopping for anyone or anything. One tried to test them and was greeted by Zarnel’s pistol shot. He fell dead and people scattered.
Zarnel and Rolo hid in the darkness until each person had moved on to another fighting zone. They made their way toward the tunnels and the bunker and rushed into the council room as the members argued there. The room quieted as they entered.
“Stavon is sending Margi and Tolman to Meno. We have one day,” Rolo said.
“People are rioting,” a council member said.
“We’d need to turn the mob,” Zarnel said.
“Don’t be rash,” Byn said.
“They are in no shape to go to war. They are fighting one another,” another council member said.
Zarnel approached the man. “Then let them fight DanuVitro.”
“You would use their desperation like Stavon,” the man retorted.
“You would deny them their revenge.”
He went for her but was intercepted by Rolo.
“Not today,” Byn warned.
“Channel them,” Zarnel added. “Danu is theirs, too.” She paced the room to make contact with each member.
“We owe Margi and Tolman our support,” Rolo added.
“We are their Ward,” Byn reminded the man. “Who are we if not the faith we keep.”
The room settled.
Zarnel turned to Byn. “We must free them tonight. Rolo knows where they are being held.”
A woman burst into the room. “Sir, DanuVitro is broadcasting over the holograms.”
They followed her to the monitor room. A large virtual display broadcast the various sections of the city. The technician touched the hologram portion, and it launched in a new window.
The video showed Ferli sitting foreground to the DanuVitro logo while images of happy clients displayed in a smaller window at her side.
“DanuVitro would like to thank its clients for their loyalty. While we grieve that our beloved Rivner has found a new course in life, we are offering a promotional price of fifty percent off your next Great Adventure. We welcome one and all to DanuVitro. Let’s hear from our many satisfied clients what they most enjoy from their Great Adventures on Meno. Where life takes you there.”
The video continued to play, with a variety of testimonies from clients. The group could only continue watching the video and its propaganda that blanketed their efforts for truth.
“Can you get Margi’s video back online?” Zarnel asked the technician.
“We’re working on it. We’ve had two sections up, but they’re overridden. It looks like we’ll be going back and forth on this for a while.”
“Ideas? Anyone?” Byn said, the worry now marking his face.
“The mob. I can recruit them,” Zarnel offered.
“Some may work for DanuVitro. We can trust no one,” the council member retorted.
“We must trust at some point,” Rolo stated. “If we wait until a plan is in place, we lose.”
“He’s right. We work with what we’ve got,” Byn said.
He approached Zarnel. “What do you have?”
Zarnel laid out the initial plan to the council. Rolo retrieved the layouts they had on the structure and indicated the top floor as their final destination.
“You’ll need to recruit the young and able for this,” Byn told Zarnel.
She nodded affirmatively.
“Have your communicators. Know your frequencies.” He paused for any reactions. “Go.”
Zarnel took off and out the door. She trotted along the back alleys until she saw some young men who were beating in a door with Ferli’s hologram video playing in front of it.
She stood behind them. “You boys want to take them down for real?” She smirked.
One by one they stopped kicking in the door and turned to her.
“Who are you?” one asked, wiping his hair from his view.
“I’m taking control of DanuVitro.”
“Just you?” He laughed.
“Just me. And you. And your friends. And your friends’ friends. I’m with The Ward.”
Another boy straightened his back. “I’ve heard of you.”
“You can help us destroy DanuVitro. And whoever finds Stavon first gets to take him down.” She gave a questioning stance.
“Oh yeah, he’s mine,” one claimed. Another vied for the bragging rights.
“It’s best as a team,” she said.
“We’re in.”
“Good. Get your friends and tell them to get their friends. Meet me at street level of DanuVitro at the refuse collector by the time the moons cross.”
The boys were already starting to run off by the time she finished her sentence.
She took off in the other direction to find another group.
* * *
By the time the moons intersected, Zarnel was standing at the base of DanuVitro. Its street level windows on the front side were shattered, and a mob had infiltrated the floor, unable to advance farther.
She edged through the crowd and made her way to the collector. The crowd there was calmer but tense, ready for action. She walked among them and sized up their numbers at around twenty. A decent army of able grown boys and girls.
She took the bag from over her shoulder and quietly gave out one pistol to each of those who had none.
She gave orders to clear the area and to tell the others. She looked at the group as the word took root and spread person to person.
She went to the back side of the collector and nestled an explosive device at the base of the wall of polished stone. She set the charge and cleared out.
Moments later a whir of energy shrilled inside the building. The resulting explosion rocked the ground beneath her. She and the others raced to the rubble. A hole had been blasted through, large enough for one person to enter at a time.
A laser shot came out of the hole and claimed their first casualty.
She spied a raucous mob making its way to them as it clamored toward the noise.
While others attended to their comrade, Zarnel set another charge and tossed it inside the space, near the far wall. Everyone cleared back. The energy bomb exploded, blowing rock and dust over them. Whoever was inside was now gone. The small army followed her into the space with the mob not far behind.
The darkness was blurred by dust particles reflecting what little light there was. A green shot darted across the room.
“Fire at will!” she yelled. A torrent of green fire tore through the wall and anyone around it.
“Good job!” she shouted. “Go steady.” She led them through the hole now blasted through the wall.
They skimmed the walls along a hallway as they went with Zarnel at the lead. The door to the stairwell was in sight. Zarnel cracked an opening and entered, listening for any sounds. She heard the mob gaining ground so she led the others inside. She stepped lightly as she advanced, peering up the staircase at each corner.
She dec
ided to charge up the flight and with that, the army gave out its war cry and raced past her. She chased after them, trying to keep up as the mob closed in, throwing objects up the stairs.
The army continued its pace with Zarnel chasing after. She yelled for her group to exit at the ground floor.
Someone held the door open for her.
“Grab that chair,” she yelled to one girl, while holding the door open for group members who were retreating from a higher floor, having gone too far. They pulled the last member through the doorway as the mob overtook them.
Her group put their weight against the door. The latch finally closed with a click, and they slid the chair under the apperatus to hold the door firm.
“The hospital,” she said and ran past the café and the sea creature mobile that now played Ferli’s video across the open space of the agora.
A shot flew in front of them. Her army retaliated with a salvo of gunfire. The guard retreated. One of the kids took off as his buddies followed and disappeared around the corner. Zarnel called out for them to return.
Shots echoed down the corridor and the kids ran back to the group cheering.
A single gunshot rang out from the other side of the room. One kid fell and skidded across the floor. His friends gathered around him while Zarnel and the others fired upon their opponent.
All went quiet.
Zarnel reached the boy. He was the first kid she had encountered, who’d been kicking at the door through the video hologram. She looked for the wound and saw blood on his chest.
He gasped for air repeatedly and looked into her eyes—pleading. She took hold of his hand.
“You are a guardian of Danu, a member of The Ward. The people thank you for the freedom given them on this day, by you.”
One single tear streaked down his temple. He gasped his last breath and was gone. His buddy cried and clutched him.
Zarnel stood. “We are at war. Your opponent is hatred, and it cloaks itself in what remains of DanuVitro. Know your enemy. They are watching us. We are going to the top floor of this structure. So, think smart and guard your friends.”
The Assumption Code Page 19