“Yes, Madam head of State. We see no risk, and the Council approved it.” He paused. “His name is Colin. I will take my leave now and send him in.”
“Yes, thank you. I know his name.” She looked back down at her tablet. She did not look up at him as he walked into her office; she kept her eyes fixed on the glowing screen. It wasn’t a conscious choice, to ignore him, to act as though he hadn’t just walked in, it was just all she felt capable of.
He walked in slowly. She could see him looking at her out of her peripheral vision. After a moment of hesitation, he took a seat across from her desk. She raised her eyes slightly from her tablet, but couldn’t look him directly in the eyes.
“I feel like there is some poster child joke to be made here,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.
“You may need to update that joke; I haven’t been a child for a long time,” she replied coldly.
“Poster woman?” He gave a nervous laugh and shifted around in his seat. “I guess the joke is over. You are no longer an example of what the State wants—you are the State.”
Freya nodded to acknowledge his statement, but still had not looked directly at him.
“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked.
“What is your purpose for requesting this meeting?” She finally looked at him. Her look, most likely in combination with her tone, made him now look away.
His mouth would open, and then close again; words were failing him. His eyes began to mist up slightly; his coloring changed. “I know it has been a long time for you since I left. I get that. You have obviously moved on with your life, but it was just a few months ago for me,” he said after a long pause, now looking at the ground.
“Yes?”
His eyes traveled up to hers for a brief moment, and then returned to the floor. “You look at me like you hate me,” he said. “I think you were warmer toward me the first time I walked into our apartment,” he added with a bitter laugh.
“You still have not told me the purpose for this meeting.”
He threw his hands up in the air, got up and started to pace the room. It was so odd to her how familiar yet distant this all felt.
“This is not at all what I expected,” he said, more to himself, still pacing.
“What exactly did you expect this meeting to entail?” Her pitch rose slightly.
He finally stopped pacing and just looked at her for a moment. “You never really loved me, did you?”
Freya was taken back; he completely pierced her armor.
“Interesting concept.” She paused. “I’m not the one who left.”
Colin reacted harshly to her words; he spun around and slammed his hand down on her desk. “Is that what they told you? I left!” he yelled. His face was barely a foot away from hers; he was so close she could feel the heat of his breath. She immediately leaned back in her chair to create some space between them. The strong façade she had been keeping up started to crack; her eyes began to mist slightly. “They did, didn’t they?” he demanded.
“What would that matter now?” she said softly, refusing to look at him.
“They took me, Freya. I had no choice.” He still leaned forward, demanding she look at him. “For every single moment that I have been awake in the last twenty-two years, since that night I got the notice and left our apartment, the only thought I’ve had is how I was going to get back to you. So yes, it matters to me if they lied to make you hate me.”
A single tear escaped and fled down her cheek. There were so many years when knowing that for certain would have meant everything to her, but there had been so many more years since that time. She could not handle how close he still was to her, that she was showing emotion. It had to end, and it had to end immediately. She rose from her seat and stepped farther away from him.
“But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Colin, I am the head of State, and old enough to be your mother.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you should,” she said. “We were just children back then, and I am not the person you remember.”
“I never for a second thought you would stop loving me.”
“I will always love the memory of you, and the time we shared,” she said. “I look back on us fondly, which I hope you also do twenty years from now and beyond.”
“So that’s it? You plan to just send me back and pretend I don’t really exist?” he shot back at her.
“You are so young, and you have a partner, one I am sure is a better fit for you.”
“How can you say that!” he spat. Colin closed the distance between them in two steps and grabbed onto her hands. “You are my partner. You are my match. How could anyone be better?” His tone ranged from anger to desperation. She tried to break off his touch, but his grip was firm.
“We were not matched, Colin. I found out not long ago that there is no matching system. You needed a partner who was compliant, and I needed to be paired with a Security officer. When we were joking around about being a mathematical error, we actually had it right: we were never matched; we were just stuck together.” Her tone was gentle, pleading with him to understand.
“To hell with the coupling system, Freya! I always knew it was all shit. I chose you!” He tried to pull her in a little closer. “I still choose you. I love you, and I always will. There is no other person or amount of time that will ever change that.” Tears flowed freely down his face now. He seemed to ease up on his grip of her hands, and he dropped down to one knee. “Please, Freya, choose me too. I can’t live without you.”
“I don’t know what you think could possibly happen here.”
“Come with me,” he said in almost a whisper. She responded with a sarcastic laugh. “Come with me,” he said in a stronger voice. “Right now. Just tell everyone you want to go see the colony world. When we get there, we can run away. The land is vast. We can just leave everything else behind and start over again, just the two of us.”
Freya took her hand away from him, and gently touched his face. “You have to leave now. Someday, it might take some time, but someday you will be grateful that I didn’t go with you.”
“That day will never come.” He choked back a sob.
“Yes, it will. If I went with you, you could be happy for a short time, but it wouldn’t last. At first you would notice I am not the person you remember, and eventually, you would see me as an old woman. If I thought we could possibly be happy, I would consider it, but we just simply can’t be. There is so much clarity that comes with age, a wisdom from experience that you do not yet have. Remember me well, and be happy with Ida.”
She leaned down and kissed his forehead, something she knew was a familiar show of affection he would remember, something that would help him to see her true age. His eyes closed, and he fell to his knees in defeat. The gesture had hit its target. She did not know how he was informed of his mother’s death, but she figured he would know by now, regardless whether he knew of the part she played in it.
“I don’t love Ida, and she doesn’t love me. She wants to come back for her partner also,” he said, now freely weeping.
“But you will. You have a lot of love to give. Don’t waste that on a memory.” He nodded his head and tried to wipe away his tears. Freya grabbed his hand and led him over to the access.
“Will I ever see you again?” he asked at the door.
“No,” she replied. “I have no need or desire to venture over to the new world, and I am needed here.” She gave his hand a slight squeeze. “When I was healing from our separation, I didn’t have to see you. It would be cruel of me to take that much-needed space from you.”
He nodded. It was not like him to be lost for words. Just looking at him was destroying what was left of her fragmented heart. It was a pain that she remembered all too well. Perhaps it was her own reminiscence of pain, that she didn’t foresee him grabbing her and kissing her.
His kiss was gentle, tender, but she could not reciprocate it. If she allowed herself
to be caught up in him, to be lost in his embrace, it would only open old wounds. She did not push him away; she just simply let him kiss her with no response from her, which may have been crueler than if she had slapped him or pushed him away. He pulled away and looked at her, finally accepting that her decision was made, and could not be unmade. Colin let go of her and walked back down into the stairwell.
Freya sat back in her chair, letting the tears flow freely. She knew her decision was sound; she had done the right thing. What caused her pain was how empathetic she felt for what she had just done to him. It was no different than when he had left, and Victor changed her opinion of Colin and their relationship.
She had spent so much time thinking she would find a way back to him, or him back to her. That when they were together again, the twenty-two years past would be a trivial matter, something the depth of their love could move past, to work around.
She had been right: Colin did still love her, in spite of the age difference. It was her who was different now. It was exactly what Victor had predicted it would be, which made logical sense; after all, he was the puppeteer.
Victor may be gone, but the damage he had done still lived on. It was almost as though his spirit haunted her, taunted her in his victory. Her emotions turned to anger at Victor, for causing this hurt, but mostly, for being right. She would have been more upset, but her mind opened to a new thought, or perhaps it was just a memory. Never once had she thought back, allowed her mind to relive the night she had killed him. The images flooded back, watching it like a broadcast in her mind.
She did not feel remorse or horror that she had taken his life; it was quite the opposite. The corners of her lips upturned gently at seeing his limp body fall against his desk, as she had deftly maneuvered around the room in such a militant fashion, doing exactly what needed to be done. Part of her wished she could tell Colin what she had done, to let him know that she had taken her revenge on the man who caused his pain. But she couldn’t, and she would have to live with that small token.
“Victor,” she whispered to herself, almost as though his spirit lingered in the room, as if he could somehow hear her. “You took the life from us we were meant to have, and I took yours in return. I hope you are rotting in hell, you sick bastard.”
Chapter 20
Everything was the same, yet completely different. Perception had an interesting way to change things. Suddenly, her life felt right. The demons haunting her dreams had finally moved on, leaving her free of their torment. Colin had loved her, Ursa and Lewis had been right to put their faith in her, and Victor’s death had been just.
There was still a lingering sorrow for Lewis, but his sacrifice was that of a true soldier, doing what was necessary in a time of war. He had loved her—yes, he had—but his motivations had been higher than his affections toward her. He had borne witness to the ugly face of the State, and sacrificed himself for change, the very change which his actions had paved a way for her to make. Change always came with a price; she was not the only one who had lost people she loved in the fight. She would always remember both Ursa and Lewis with great honor.
Twenty civilians had been sent off to the colony world within the first week after Colin returned. The list of volunteers was in the hundreds. All of them being interviewed, all of them had the risks explained, and they were eagerly awaiting their departure. The colony world was building quickly, more quickly than Freya could even comprehend.
Colin was still in charge of communications, and so Freya refrained from having direct contact with the colony world. She preferred the reports, never really being a people person anyhow. She had the luxury of not seeing him when it was her turn to heal from his departure; it would be cruel of her to allow him to see her ever again.
The first wave of new babies had already been born. No pregnant woman were permitted to pass through the transport device. The list of pregnant women was astounding; there were so many people wanting to move to the new world that population control was an outdated concept. Freya was fighting to remove the medical screening to allow for reproduction, but the Council kept fighting back.
It seemed that every single woman who was still refused the right to reproduce, her name ended up on the list of candidates wishing to move to the colony world. Freya feared the colonists would restrict how many could come, report back that they simply were not ready to support more people, but the report never came.
The colonists worked hard and supported one another to enable space for the masses. Their living was simple; more people lived in tents than in an actual structural home, but no one seemed to complain. Couples were sent over first, and then gradually individuals could go also. It didn’t surprise Freya that almost every single person in independent living had put their name on the list for colonization. It gave her a great sense of pride when she was able to push back on the Council, and allow them passage. There was still some screening yet from the Council in which Freya could not understand. There were more people interested in going who were not being granted their request.
She had accessed their files and couldn’t find any rhyme or reason to the inconsistency. Freya had inquired, and the Council told her they had been found unsuitable candidates. That answer may have held up, if she could understand what criteria was making a candidate suitable. She felt as though the selection was just a little past her comprehension, yet they would explain about what was needed to sustain life inside the dome versus what was needed on the new world, and it left her feeling unsatisfied. There was still some power within the Council, some motivation she felt was not being shared with her.
The Council seats still held too many old thinkers, people who couldn’t keep up with the times. She knew that when she presented reforming the government, there would be pushback, and so she decided not to discuss the matter with them. If she was going to change everything, to make the civilians totally free, she was going to have to do it without the Council’s support.
Months had flown by in her office—studying, planning; it was all clear to her now. The only way to take down the Council was to act. She was to give an address to the people, an address to explain the new governing system. There was to be a clear leader, but that leader also needed a Council. Not one that lived in secrecy, but one that was elected, just as the leader was. The people should choose who was to govern them, and how they chose to live their lives.
The messages in her inbox slowly were abandoned. At first, she read the subject, skimmed the message, and then slowly only read messages with subjects of interest to her. Most of her time was spent in the archives, learning of political structures of the past. Seeing the strengths and the weaknesses of each government that had risen and fallen. The information was not easy to find; so much of it had been tainted by the State. They had rewritten history in a tone that served their purpose, making all governmental systems other than theirs seem invalid.
There was one particular point of interest she found during her studies. It would not help her to form a new government, yet she could not push it out of her mind. There was an urban legend once about the American presidential seal—an image of a bald eagle clasping an olive branch in its left talons, and thirteen arrows in its right. The seal changed many times throughout history, often after a war. This grew into folklore and urban myths that the bald eagle faced the arrows during wartime, and the olive branch during times of peace.
If only it could be that simple, she surmised, if I could just turn the head of the eagle on our emblem, or add an olive branch, this could all be over. It could never be that simple, and change could never come without great sacrifice, she knew this to be true, but no part of her ever wanted a war.
Chastity had been mentioning regularly to her that it was time for her to make another address, explaining that the people needed to see the face of their leader. Freya did her best to hold off, to buy herself more time. Once she knew she could stall no longer, Freya requested the address to be made out in the atrium, right
beside the transport device.
The threat was obvious to her. It would be too easy for the Council to send someone up the tunnel to kill her right after her address, of course blaming some radical, not admitting they were behind it. Then they would appoint someone else, who would work to undo some of the damage she had done to their precious power.
This address had to be public; no Council member could interfere with so many witnesses. Even if they shut down the broadcast, the people in the atrium would have heard her vision. I will do what I must, whether the eagle’s head is turned to the right or to the left, I cannot control. I will present an olive branch to both sides, and if they reach for their arrows, I will always know I did everything within my power to avoid conflict.
If the Council sought to take her life, there would be an uprising. If the people saw their beloved leader killed, they would revolt and run to the colony world. It was the best she could do to both appease Ursa’s plan and to end the Council. They would never have the same level of power again after this address; whether she lived to see the other side of it was not important to her.
Corrupted: Book Three of the State Series Page 18