The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  Training was still intensive after that, but it was nowhere near as sadistic. Joe’s lessons, especially, got far easier to endure. Instead of actually poisoning us, he taught us methods to control our minds while we were under the influence of poisons. Many people said that Brynna and those on the Council who agreed with her—and the latter group included Adam and three quarters of the other members—were doing us all a disservice by making our training sessions easier. Don, especially, was adamant that they remain as they were, and James told me that Brynna and her people had essentially “pussy-fied” all the trainees.

  “It’s ridiculous. Like, I’m not even breaking a sweat right now. I’m not even out of breath.” He had said, as we fought. I, for one, was out of breath, and I was sweating, as I dodged his only somewhat forceful punches. “You all aren’t learning anything from this.”

  “She says that you all were being sadistic for the sake of being sadistic.”

  “Well, she’s wrong.” He snapped, “We’re being sadistic because the Old Spirits are sadistic.”

  “But how much is this really going to prepare us for the real thing?” I asked, and I undercut him in the ribcage. It sent him stumbling back a few feet, but he came at me again without a moment of recovery. “God, you’re a fucking machine!”

  “Am I? I thought I was an old man?”

  “I take it back. I take it back.”

  Well, just because you take it back doesn’t mean we’re stopping. You’ve landed one hit this whole time. I’m blocking you with no effort. Come on, you pansy; fight back.”

  I stormed towards him, swinging my fists violently and erratically. Still, he blocked every hit. From the sidelines, Alice giggled. James had struggled a little more with her than he was with me. He had eventually swung at her with the same force he was using on me, but it was only after she had called him antifeminist, chauvinistic, and an asshole. When he landed a light hit on her cheek, he stopped immediately and zoomed to her to make sure she was okay. Because of that, she kneed him in the balls and uppercut him in the face. I had almost died laughing.

  “See? When you do that, you’re just being sloppy.” He said, “You’re not aiming, you’re just swinging. Don’t get frustrated. Once you’re frustrated, you lose. And what do you mean this isn’t preparing you for the real thing? How can we prepare you for the real thing if not like this? Well, we could do what we were doing before Brynna, Adam, and the morons on the council voted against it.”

  “This is a controlled environment, James.” I snapped at him, even though it was getting harder to breathe. “You all have accounted for all the variables. If something goes wrong, you can stop it. You can get us help. There’s no way to replicate what goes on out there. You’re never going to make us that afraid. You’re never going to be able to be that cruel. Even if you kick my ass right now, you aren’t going to try to kill me. Even if Joe gives us all that shit he was giving us yesterday, he’s not going to let us lose our minds or die. We can’t replicate it, so why should we try so hard to replicate it?”

  He was silent because he knew that I was right. I spun, kicked my leg out, and knocked his legs out from under him. He hit the hard rubber mat inside of the ring, but before I could deliver the final blow, he kicked my legs out from underneath of me, and then held me to the mat. Alice hit the mat three times, yelling out, “One, two, three, Quinn sucks!”

  “Shut up! He’s just mad because he knows I’ve got a point.”

  “Maybe a little. I’m madder that Brynna has a point. I fucking hate when she’s right all the time.”

  He stood up, walked to the edge of the ring, ducked out of it, and grabbed his water bottle. He tossed mine to me, and I took five huge gulps, draining the whole bottle.

  “Slow down!” Alice snapped at me, “You’re going to throw up!”

  “Oh, God, please! No more throwing up!” I said, and I laid on the mat and stared up at the metal ceiling of the training facility. The sun was streaming through the large square opening at the top, but I wasn’t squinting. Instead, I was staring up at the blue sky. Alice laid down beside me and took a deep breath. When I looked over at her, I saw that her eyes were closed but she was smiling. I reached out, and she lifted her head so I could place my arm under it, and then she laid her head down on my forearm.

  “I would get closer to you but you smell like raw onions and hot garbage.”

  I laughed hysterically at that.

  “Well, you smell like…” I leaned closer to her and smelled her, “You smell fine. Goddamn it!”

  “I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me. The secret is this little stick of powder they call ‘odor-eraser’ and we call ‘deodorant.’”

  “I put on deodorant this morning, punk!”

  “Well, you need more. Start bringing it with you.” She reached out and ran her hand down my stomach, and I reached down to cover her hand with mine. “I can’t believe how in-shape we are already. You’re starting to look almost as ripped as James!”

  “I know, right?! I wanted to take shirtless selfies in the bathroom last night, but alas, I have no camera phone.”

  “I would break up with you immediately if you started taking bathroom selfies!”

  “What if you were in my bathroom selfies?”

  “Then they wouldn’t be selfies anymore! Aren’t selfies only supposed to be yourself? As in just one person? As in just you?”

  “I don’t know! Who cares?! I just wish we had pictures of our epically ripped bods! I wish there was a beach we could go to so we could show them off! I’ve never been this ripped before! Not even when I played football!”

  “Well, maybe you should have actually lifted weights during your weight time instead of pretending to do pull-ups and drinking Gatorade!”

  “I did not pretend to do pull-ups!”

  “You did! You were never doing anything!” She told me, giggling hysterically. She rolled on top of me and kissed me before I could reply. “Oh, my God, you’re so sweaty, I feel like I’m sitting on top of you in a baby pool!”

  “What?!” I exclaimed, and I was cracking up hysterically. I sat up, kissing her passionately, and she put both of her hands on my face and kissed me back. We were getting even closer now that we were going through training together. We were suffering all they threw at us, and we were getting through it because we had each other. As I kissed her, I couldn’t help but think that our lives were finally getting back on track, even though I knew that was a dangerous thought to have; every time we thought positively, bad things happened. But my love for her was changing; it was deeper and stronger than ever. We were both so strong, so determined, and in such agreement over what we knew we had to do. We had to fight, and if we had to fight, we were going to fight together.

  What I loved most about us was that no matter what, we stuck together.

  As we kissed, her breathing began to deepen, and my grip on her tightened. There was no one around, and there was no way we could make it back home, so…

  “No physical contact in the ring besides practice-fighting!” James’s voice echoed around the whole training facility. “Yeah. I’m still here. Hi! Do you two mind leaving this facility? I’ve got my next group of trainees coming in five minutes, and I’m already scarred for life with what I just witnessed, and I am so disappointed in both of you… because you’re not married, and…”

  “You and Brynna aren’t married!” Alice yelled at him as she jumped off of me. “You also tell us we’re not allowed to smoke, and you both smoke! And last week, you told us we weren’t allowed to look at each other because we’re not married, and you and Brynn look at each other all the time! So, stop being a hypocrite, James Maxwell!”

  “Are you saying you learned all this bad behavior from Brynna and me?”

  “Yes!” Alice feigned that she was about to cry, “We learned it from you, okay?! We learned it from you!”

  She grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet, and we pretended to storm a
way in a huff.

  “Love you, James!” Alice called back to him.

  “Love you, too! Make good decisions! Don’t disappoint me! Good job today!”

  Violet

  In my first weeks of training for Medical, I learned everything there was to know about the medicinal qualities of plants and herbs, First Aid, minor surgical techniques, and most awesomely, how to deliver a baby. At any given time, we were lucky to have one pregnant person. Adam explained to me one day when he came by to visit that with all of us living forever, nature had its own ways of preventing overpopulation; women just did not get pregnant as easily as they did on Earth. That would explain why every couple I knew had not gotten pregnant, even those who were not using any form of protection. But I was on duty when Kelly, an Earthean woman, was ushered in by her two husbands.

  “Her water broke, and she’s having contractions, and we tried to do the breathing thing, but it’s not helping! It’s coming out. The baby is coming out!” Tim, the man she had married on Earth, told me in a panicked shout. He was shaking violently, and when I ducked down to look beneath the blanket on Kelly’s legs, I had seen that sure enough, the baby was crowning. The sight of it immediately made me dizzy, but Dr. Terry had said that being suddenly overwhelmed by panic was common in the early years, and though the possibility of it never went away, coping techniques were always found by medical health professionals to control them. My technique appeared to be taking three deep breaths, and after the third, I was ready.

  “Dr. Terry! She’s crowning!”

  And I had helped Dr. Terry deliver this healthy baby boy. His name was Timothy Jaxson Jr. after both of his dads, which I found ridiculously charming, and they seemed to absolutely adore. Adam left the Council early, and he and Brynna came by to see the baby. We knew Kelly from our time on kitchen duty at the house, so Brynna wanted to visit for that reason, and Adam was there to bless the baby. As King, he was also the religious leader, and Kelly and Tim had converted to the Pangaean faith after meeting Jaxson.

  “And may the one God guard Timothy Jaxson Junior for all of his eternal days, and bless his life with joy, love, peace, and prosperity of mind, body, and spirit. May this strong child, born by miracle, when so few are born, live out every day, from today until the last day. We ask this of you humbly, on bended knee and with heads bowed, our Shepherd, our Guardian, our God. Gratis.”

  As we walked home, I rambled excitedly to them about what the baby had looked like coming out, watching Brynna grow steadily paler the more I said.

  “And then after the baby was out, there was this veiny red pod, like a blood alien cocoon,” I said, watching her face contort discreetly and trying not to laugh as I made my story even more gruesome. “It was covered in uterine mucus, and I said that I would eat it! It’s full of protein!”

  Adam laughed even harder, and Brynna scowled at me.

  “This is why I am on the Council. This is why I did not pursue a career in medicine.”

  “Well, to each her own, as they say.” Adam said, “Your compassionate nature serves you well on the Council, and Violet’s compassionate nature serves her well in Medical. You are learning so quickly, Violet. I have heard from all of my doctors that you are far ahead of all your classmates. I know who I will be requesting if ever I am stabbed with a poisoned blade again.”

  “Aww, stop!” I said, because the swelling of pride inside of me left my cheeks flushed. “But for the record, I would totally patch you up. I would push the needle into your skin and through your wound, pulling the sutures through it, sewing your bloody flesh back together.”

  “Violet!” Brynna exclaimed, “I am so proud of you and all of your accomplishments. Believe me, I am thrilled that you are at the top of your class, even though I am not surprised. We are from the same gene pool, after all. But if you continue tormenting me with this gruesome imagery, I will surely find disturbing imagery of my own with which to torment you.”

  “Like what?” I asked with a very unwise scoff of disbelief.

  “Adam, cover your ears.” She said hurriedly, “Like I will start giving you intimate details of my love life. How is that?”

  “That would be the worst thing to ever happen to me, but you would be way more uncomfortable saying it than I would be hearing it.”

  “Regardless, knock it off. As you can see, I am only walking with Adam’s aid, and I cannot run away.”

  “Alright. Fine.” I put my arm around her shoulders, “And I’m proud of you, too, my lovely, wonderful, perfect big sister.”

  “Is that not so nice?” Adam asked, “I am touched by this show of sisterly affection.”

  “She is only putting on a show, Adam. Ignore all she is doing and saying. She is never this nice to me.”

  “Oh, as if!”

  “Welcome back to 1991…”

  “Shut up!”

  “That’s more like it…”

  “I am always nice to you!”

  “Oh, right, you are nice to me all the time, but that is only because you are trying to hide your lurid acts.”

  She was right that I was hiding lurid acts, I guess. But I was not being nice to her in an effort to keep those acts hidden. Caspar had started coming by at nighttime. Because I still lived with Brynna, and because she was in a habit of screaming profanity-laden tirades at anyone who displeased her, I could not let her know that I was sneaking out with him, so like the cliché of the rebellious teenager, I took to crawling out of my window at night. Our relationship was not romantic, but I knew that she would think that it was. I was still devoted to Nick, and Caspar knew that. But Nick was so good, and so innocent, and Caspar knew so much about so many things, even though he was only a few years older than me. He was a prince, and he had been far out into the world, and we spent most our time alone, talking and smoking various harmless herbs. Most of them just got us a little high and loosened our tongues. I told him things about my life, my past, and my family that I had never told anyone before, not even Nick.

  We would stay out until the first chime of the clock in the center of town. When that chime came, it signaled that it was midnight. Then, I would hurry home, and he would help me climb back up to my window. I would sleep for five hours, and be up in time for the first part of my training, which was done in the large schoolhouse, the one that was for adults.

  The night after Kelly gave birth, I told Caspar every detail as we lounged under one of the palm trees in a cluster of exotic plants at the far end of his street, close to the ash-circle. The tree-beasts didn’t bother us, and as we took huge puffs on the tightly rolled black cigarettes, we laid back in the grass and stared up at the stars.

  “My father loves your sister, you know.” He told me, and I looked at him, in shock. My eyes blacked out his face, but then, it resurfaced from the darkness.

  “What? Like ‘loves her’ loves her?”

  “I think so.”

  “Whoa.” I said emotionlessly, even though I was feeling many things, surprise and confusion most of all. “I mean, I know they got close out in the woods, but if he loves her…”

  “I know. Do you think she loves him?”

  “Like, ‘loves him,’ loves him?”

  He chuckled softly, and I did, too.

  “No.” I answered, “Not like that. But she definitely loves him. As a friend. She holds him in really high regard now. They got really close out there.”

  “He can’t read her heart all the time like he can with all other people. It drives him mad. He does not like that she is such a mystery, and yet he loves it. He and my mother fight about her constantly. My mother does not understand it.”

  “Well, no offense, but your mother fucks around with other people.” I said, speaking only half as angrily as I actually felt.

  “No offense taken. I love my mother dearly, but you are right; she enjoys the company of other men far more often than she enjoys the company of my father. But who can blame her for that? For as long as I have been alive, he has li
ved in the city. Of course their love is strained. And he is not faithful to her, either. Your sister is not the first he has courted.”

  “What?” I asked, and I turned over to look at him.

  “Mind you,” He added, because he could see that I was very disturbed by that, “She is the first with whom he has been so enthralled. When I can glimpse into his heart, which is rare, I can see how deeply he desires her. It is absolutely disgusting, to see such a thing in your father.” He actually shivered and pulled a face as he thought about it, and I giggled. “But sometimes, I can’t help it. When he is not paying attention, and I read his heart, I can see her there. She is his one weakness, Violet. She is the one thing he does not completely understand.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t tell her that. That will boost her ego to ridiculous proportions, and it will never go back to normal size.”

  “But she does not love him?”

  “She does. But no, she only loves James romantically. And you said that your dad doesn’t love her that way, anyway.”

  “No. But she is constantly in his heart. The same way that Nick is always in yours. Even now, he is there. Do you love him?”

  “Caspar, just because we are getting high together doesn’t mean we have to get personal.” I said, because discussing Nick with him seemed so wrong. But I was giggling, feeling so light and free, so able to talk to him about anything. So before he could even respond, I answered his question.

  “Of course I love him. We’ve been together for over a year. He’s my first, in so many respects. That sounds so girly and lame to say, but it’s true. Plus, at this point, I am so used to him. He’s been a constant in my life since like, a day after we came here. We both have had rough times in the past, even though we don’t talk about them.”

  “You do not discuss the hardships you have overcome?”

  I took an inhalation of the cigarette when he passed it to me, still staring up at the sky. I thought about it, and I realized that besides telling me that he and his parents had never gotten along, and that he was not all that sad that they were dead, we had never really discussed much of his past. I didn’t know why they didn’t get along. I didn’t know if he lived with them on Earth. I didn’t know if it was him who had the vision that the world was ending or them. I didn’t know anything, really.

  “No.” I said, “I’ve talked about myself plenty, but I think that’s because he knows most of my family. If you know Brynna, you have to know how she came to be the way she is now. In order for him to know that, I had to tell him the whole grim ordeal.” I looked at him, “Did Brynna tell your dad those things?”

  “Yes. I do not know them, because unlike your sister, I do not have the power of All-Knowing. But in his heart, I see his acknowledgment of her trust in him. That trust, I believe, can only be the result of her having told him her secrets. But we were talking about you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me about you.”

  “I have told you much about me.”

  “Tell me some more stuff. What’s it like being prince of Pangaea? Sorry, Purissimus! Purissimus. What’s it like being prince of Purissimus?”

  He laughed softly and shrugged. For a long time, he was silent, a pensive look on his face.

  “It’s alright.” He said after a while, and I laughed so hard that I pulled my knees to my chest and grasped my stomach, my body rolling slightly from side to side.

  “That’s it?” I asked him, “Come on, you’re royalty! You’re rich, and your father is the most powerful man on this entire planet. No monarchy on Earth was in charge of the entire planet.”

  “My father is in charge of the entire Orb, but there are several who fight against his power. It is my job to fight for his power, because I am his son. When Idan comes of age, Idan will fight, too. If my father ever dies, which I do not suspect will ever happen, I will become King. This is a possibility for which I have been prepared by my mother, who, honestly, would love nothing more than to see me take the throne from my father if it were not for the fact that she would no longer be the Third Queen.”

  “The Third Queen? How is she Third Queen if…” I trailed off, and my heart plummeted again, “Oh my God, he has other wives, doesn’t he?”

  “Had other wives.” I said, “My mother is his second wife, but she is the third Queen.”

  “How does that work? Was Adam’s mother the first queen, or something? That’s kind of weird…”

  “No.” He said, “The First Queen has not been crowned yet.”

  “What?” I asked, and I was so confused that I was beginning to feel agitated. That had to have been the result of the drugs, because I never became so flustered by own inability to comprehend as I was then.

  “The First Queen has not been crowned. Would you like to hear the story of this? I will tell it you. There is no greater delight than hearing stories whilst under the spell of the Black Beauties.”

  “I would love nothing more than to hear your story. Let it commence.”

  “Alright. Commence it, I shall, my darling.”

  I giggled, covering my mouth because the sound was so girlish and awkward. He reached and gently moved my hand from my mouth, and the physical contact with him startled me in a not all-unpleasant way.

  “Do not cover your mouth. I like that sound.” He told me, smiling blissfully.

  I found myself giggling harder at how easily he could be charming and debonair. He was his father’s son through and through, and nothing on Earth or Pangaea had ever been so funny.

  “Tell me the story before I asphyxiate from laughing too hard. It can happen! I read it in one of my books for school last week!”

  “I would never allow such a thing to happen to you. But alas, I will tell you my story.”

  “Okay.” My laughter died away, and I turned on my side so I could look at him.

  “Everything I am about to tell you was spoken in a prophecy that was made to my father by the last of the Athenes, on her death bed. The Athenes were eradicated two thousand years ago, and none have been born since. Your sister is the first and only of her kind.”

  “And that’s why your dad sought her out. That’s why he wanted James to turn her over to him.”

  “Yes. My father took a far more diplomatic approach at the beginning of his and Tyre’s war. He traveled far and wide to find them all, to bring them to Lumiere, which was still being built. He knew that if he stood any chance against Tyre and the utterly lethal weapons he had made, he would need the Athenes to tell him when the attacks would come. They were a strong race, a brutal race. They had to be; Seeing and Knowing all things takes the most costly of tolls on the mind and body, and the only way to survive was to band together for support against the enemies without and the enemies within.”

  “The enemies within?”

  “Yes. Within themselves. Athenes could—can—very easily lose their grip on what is real and what is not. What is of this world, or some other; what is in the After-Realm, what is in the Darkness, or the Light… If they do not know how to quiet the thoughts of others, they are under constant assault from the innermost desires, torments, terrors, and sicknesses of all those around them. Because they can enter minds, they can enter hearts, because the mind gives the heart its power. It is very easy—almost frighteningly easy—for them to completely lose their minds. But my father was able to convince them to align with him, and Tyre, who views their power as the darkest of sorcery, because it is a treacherous and despicable creature who so willingly enters the mind of others, who can predict the events that the One God has not let come to pass yet, wanted them dead. And he succeeded. The last of the Athenes was a young girl, around Brynna’s age. As she died, my father held her in his arms, because she said she had a Vision for the King. And that, Violet, is when the Vision of the First Queen became known to my father.”

  “But who is she? Is she an Athene like Brynna? Is she even alive? According to this prophecy, I mean.”

  “There are many wh
o believe that she is among us, and there are many who believe that she has yet to come. We know not who or where she is. But whomever or wherever she may be, she will complete my father, and their child will be more powerful than any man or woman who has ever lived, for he or she will be bestowed with all four gifts of the Four-Armed God.”

  “So she has to be an Athene, because that’s the only power your dad doesn’t have. Right?”

  “That is his theory. But there are some who believe that it does not matter if the mother of his child is an Athene or not. Some believe that it will not even be under his reign, and therefore it will not be his child that ushers in the age of the First Queen. Some believe that my father simply is not the First King of Purissimus.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I believe he is the First King. I remain unconvinced that the First Queen is among us already. But it does not matter what I think, Violet. My father believes that the First Queen is amongst us, and he will do everything in his power to have her for his own. He will do anything to have Brynna.”

  “Because he thinks that if they have a baby, the baby will reign over Pangaea. Sorry, Purissimus.”

  “The prophecy alludes to a shining new age here on Purissimus, in which a benevolent Ruler will usher in peace and prosperity for all those who survive the darkness. This ruler will be the result of the union between the First King and the First Queen. ‘Who is born from the union of First King and Queen will cradle us all; who is born from this union will bear this world upon the shoulders, upon the back, but no pain will be, for the strength of this One is unmatched, undefeatable. Only peace and prosperity will thrive under this rule; only Light will Reign.’”

  I had been so enthralled by his story that I barely noticed he had stopped speaking. The details of it were so dense and complicated that I was lost in contemplating them. What if Brynna really was the First Queen? Even if she was not, I would hopefully be around when that shining new age came to be on Purissimus, and the feeling that took hold of my heart at the thought of it left me smiling, lying back on the grass, staring up at the darkened sky, at the stars twinkling in that dark expanse, and I laughed. Caspar laid down beside me and stared up at the sky, too.

  “Can you feel it?” I asked him, because I knew with certainty that the feeling in my heart was contagious.

  “Yes.”

  “That will be perfect, after all of this. That will be like Heaven.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  “So bring on the First Queen.”