“I don’t know what to tell you.” Cass leaned back in his chair. “I collapsed as soon as I got home from dinner at my parents’ place last night. Ask Meg or Al.”
“The AIs that you programmed do not count as witnesses.” Tenacity stared at him a long moment, and he kept his gaze steady on hers. She was the one to break the stare. “You may not be lying, but any idiot can tell you’re being evasive.”
“What do you want from me?”
Tenacity stood up. “I want you not to throw your life away, Perspicacity. Or at least make sure you’re doing it for a very good reason.”
Cass thought back to Clarity’s concerns about the Azure District. “I never do anything without a good reason.”
Tenacity nodded, seemingly satisfied, though Cass didn’t trust her not to come back at the issue from another angle later. “Apparently they think it was some student taking one of the bikes for a joyride. They’re actually looking to see who among the student body is that talented. Maybe you need to start watching your back.”
Like appealing to my ego. “A little competition never hurt anyone.” Especially when it doesn’t exist.
Tenacity’s watch beeped, and she glanced down at it with more vitriol than it probably deserved. “I have to go. But this conversation is not over.”
“Bye, Ten.” Cass wasn’t really worried about her. If she wanted to get him into trouble, she would have done so already, and he had something else on his mind. The guard Clarity had been talking to said something about seeing shadows at night around the Citadel. Something had to make shadows, and be they human or AI, they were prone to mistakes that would leave a digital trail in the security footage. Tenacity probably wouldn’t mind if he took a few days to research such a project, so long as he got all his other work done. Besides, helping the security of the Citadel might get him out of trouble if the warriors found out he’d hindered it.
Chapter 10
Clarity left the training ground and headed for the library. She was a little ashamed to admit she hadn’t been there since she’d graduated. Not, she supposed, that her absence was her fault. Her job didn’t call on her to do research, and any book she would want to read for pleasure---though I don’t read for pleasure---was available on her watch. She cringed at herself and wondered if the remaining libraries existed as an archaic means of inspiring guilt.
The door slid open as she approached, and the area looked as she remembered it: a large space full of tables with large flat screens embedded in their surfaces, all colored in institutional silver and gray. A few students sat apart from each other at different carrels, but otherwise, the room was empty.
Clarity slid into one of the empty chairs with both relief and trepidation. She was glad the order’s librarian, Brilliance Saito, wasn’t in the library. Ian, as his friends called him, was a council member and good friends with the Grand Conductor. Clarity didn’t want news of her extracurricular research making the rounds among the higher echelons of paladin society. On the other hand, back in her overachiever school days, she had focused on physical feats and had always needed help with research. Maybe I should have asked Cass for help. Or Hope or Zeal.
Clarity entered her Citadel login information, then stared at the widgets on the screen, unsure which to click on. She must have looked helpless, because a teenage girl with long, shiny, black hair and almond-shaped eyes walked over to her. “Can I help you with anything?” the girl asked with a pleasant smile.
“Who are you?” Clarity asked, sounding much more suspicious than she intended.
The girl only grinned more broadly. “I’m Remy Saito. You were probably expecting my father. I know I’m not a real librarian, but I’m going to be someday. I’m old enough now, so I take some of the shifts here for my dad. It’s rough being the only librarian in the Citadel.”
“Are you a paladin, then?” Clarity asked. “Remy” wasn’t a paladin name, but if the girl was from the Families---which she must be if Ian Saito was her father---she might have a nickname.
Remy nodded, then frowned. “Well, sort of. I’m still in school. Redemption is my real name, if that’s what you were wondering. Don’t ask me what I’m supposed to redeem, because I have no idea. I want to sit here in the library for the rest of my life like my father, not have some grand adventure. But, then, we don’t get to pick our names, do we?”
Clarity found herself warming to the chatty girl. “Indeed we do not. I’m Clarity, and there is something you can help me with. I’m looking for information on the Azure District.”
Remy didn’t blink an eye at the strangeness of Clarity’s request, though she did frown for a different reason. “Hm. I’m not sure how much we have on that, what with our policy of non-interference, but I’ll see what I can do.” She sat down next to Clarity and typed her own login information into her terminal. She stared at the icons on her screen with far less distress than Clarity had, but no less seriousness. “What specifically did you want to know about the Azure District?”
Clarity didn’t think it would go over well if she said, “Everything,” and she didn’t want to know things like the geography anyway. “I guess the history? What made them decide to separate from the rest of the city?”
Remy nodded, hesitantly at first, then more intensely. “Okay. I’ll try the Londigium history search engine.” She typed in a few words, then tapped on the side of the screen a few times while waiting for the results to load. When they did, she scrolled through them, looking excited. “Looks like we’ve got a few primary sources dating back to when the paladins first came to the city!”
Clarity smiled at the girl’s enthusiasm. “Isn’t that a little weird? I thought the Azure District was only about two hundred years old, and the paladins came to Londigium a thousand years before that.”
“I know, but the history of dissent in the district goes back even further. There’s some more recent stuff as well.” Remy pressed a few buttons on the touch screen. “I can send you the search results. Did you say your name was Charity?”
Clarity didn’t correct Remy---better if the girl didn’t know the real name of the person looking into the Azure District---but she also didn’t want Charity, if there even was a Charity, receiving her files. “I was just going to look at them here, if that’s all right.”
“Okay!” Remy stood up and twirled around in a circle. “This is fabulous! I hadn’t thought of looking up the Azure District, but you might have helped me do research on my own project!”
“Oh?” Clarity wasn’t really interested in Remy’s schoolwork, but the girl had been helpful, so she figured she might as well listen for a few minutes. “What are you looking into?”
Remy glanced at the other students in the library, then leaned in and whispered, “I want to know where the paladins come from.”
Remy’s statement piqued Clarity’s interest. “What do you mean? We come from Londigium. We’ve been here for twelve hundred years.”
“I know, but where were we before that?” Remy sat back down. “Everyone knows the paladins marched into Londigium bringing with them technology so great that the Corinthians agreed to make paladins their peacekeeping force in exchange for the information. But where did they get that technology?”
Clarity shrugged. She had never thought about it. “They developed it, I guess. By all accounts, the structure of the order hasn’t changed much in twelve hundred years, so they must have had techs back then too.”
“But where?” Remy asked. “It’s one of the biggest mysteries of our order, and I don’t think even the Grand Conductor knows. My father certainly doesn’t. But we must have come from somewhere, and I’m going to figure out where. You’ve given me a whole new avenue to look down!”
“Well, good luck!” Clarity said. When Remy got up, Clarity logged off her machine and shifted seats so she could work from Remy’s search screen. She didn’t think twelve hundred year old
rationales for creating a separate district of the city would explain the motivation of modern Azurites, but she could look at the more recent records.
As Clarity perused the material, she could tell right off the bat that paladins had written most of the information the search engine came up with. While this development wasn’t surprising---she was in a paladin library after all---she was a little disappointed. A few times she caught sight of something written by an author whose name wasn’t a virtue, but these turned out to be notices from government officials who sided with the paladins in the dispute. None of this could help her better understand the rationale of the Azurites.
Eventually, nestled into an old news briefing, Clarity found what she was looking for---an editorial demanding the immediate cessation of paladin interference in the Azure District. The article referred to a boy named Enos Ramley, and Clarity needed to do some backtracking to find more details on the case. She pieced together that Enos was a child the paladins chose and renamed Vivacity, a name that many of the other documents had referenced. The Ramleys had refused to give up guardianship of their child to the paladins and had barricaded themselves inside their house. The standoff that resulted had lasted seven days, until a stealth-trained paladin infiltrated the house through the basement to speak with four-year-old Enos.
The exact circumstances got fuzzy at that point. What was clear was that Enos’s father interrupted the conversation. He claimed he asked the paladin to leave, and when she refused, he shot at her, to protect both his son and his property, and she used Enos as a shield. The paladin claimed Vivacity jumped in front of her to shield her from the blast. Either way, the end result was Enos/Vivacity’s dearth, and his defeated father was hanged as an enemy of the state.
Chaos spread over the Azure District, and one of the more cogent responses was the editorial Clarity had found outlining the Azurites’ demands. They claimed Ramley had committed no crime because he had acted in defense of his family and his home. Moreover, the incident demonstrated the fallibility of the paladin order. After all, if they could see the future of their order members, how could they not have foreseen Enos’s death? The letter contained further rhetoric about how the government should be more limited in scope, but the essence was that the Azure District should be able to govern themselves as they chose rather than pay taxes to a mysterious order that stole and killed their children.
Clarity stared at the screen long after she had completed the article. She had no doubt that the paladin’s version of events was the accurate one. No one chosen as a paladin would use a child as a shield, and even a selected child might sacrifice himself for another. The tragedy of the encounter still struck her. She was not a fan of the paladin habit of taking children, but at the same time, she couldn’t imagine herself being anything other than a paladin. She didn’t believe that Ramley deserved execution, and apparently the outlawing of capital punishment occurred as a consequence of the incident as well.
The important thing, she thought, was to figure out what to do about the current situation in the Azure District. Children were dying there again, and their individualist principles weren’t helping them survive. Moreover, the proto-government they had set up was also taking their children, and not to do good works like paladins did.
I need to talk to Evelyn again. She wondered if the woman would talk to her if she went there on her own. She would need to find something to sweeten the pot.
Cass almost jumped when his alarm went off at quarter of twelve. He’d spent the morning looking at security footage, trying to find evidence of the shadows the guards were so sure were there. He’d gotten so consumed in the task, he’d lost track of time. Which wasn’t to say he’d found anything, because he hadn’t. Not a hint of a shadow out of place in all the public security footage over the last few nights. He wished he had access to the back end databases, because then he could do more detailed work, but he couldn’t ask for that without letting people know why he wanted it, which would mean explaining how he knew about the shadows in the first place. Even if he lied, he might get Clarity into trouble for telling him about warrior secrets.
Speaking of Clarity, tech support was in fifteen minutes, and he found himself looking forward to it. He had no reason to welcome Clarity’s company. Not only was she the warrior girl who’d dated his brother, she was also the one who coerced him into committing a crime, challenged him to a race that had left him dry heaving outside the barracks, and strong-armed him into attending a training that had left more than one bruise. Still, she was one of the few people in the Citadel who had bothered talking to him at all in the past few months, and even if she had wanted something from him in every instance, she had at least been nice about it. Also, she realized Valor was a monster.
He got up from his chair and stretched. Meg was engaging in her cat-robot approximation of sleep in her bed under his desk and didn’t look to be moving any time soon. He glanced up at Al. “Coming to tech support today?”
Al shifted his weight back and forth between his feet. “Is Clarity going to be there?”
Cass rolled his eyes at the nervous owl. “Probably. She got me to go to training this morning, so I doubt she’ll back out of her deal now.”
“Then no. Pretty girls scare me.”
Cass glanced at Meg, expecting the cat to come out of hibernation to roast the owl, but she didn’t budget. Guess it’s up to me. “Mm-hm. Are you scared of all pretty girls, or just ones whose legs you’ve broken in the past week?”
A whoosh filled the room as the door to Cass’s office opened, and Cass cursed under his breath when he realized who it had to be. He turned around and took in Clarity’s brown hair, crutches, and purple bodysuit and cursed in his head again. I hope she didn’t hear any of that.
Clarity stared at him for a second or two from the opposite side of the door. “Sorry. I was expecting to have to ring the bell.”
Cass ran the fingers of his good hand through his hair. “Yeah, Tenacity doesn’t let me lock it. She says it’s a fire hazard, especially with all the crap I have in here.” He and Clarity both looked around at the shelves full of broken mechanical pieces and loose wires. “You didn’t have to come get me. I’ll be along for tech support in a minute.”
Clarity hobbled into the room, and the door closed behind her. “I know. I wanted to talk to you here because, you know, all conversations out there can be monitored for quality assurance.”
Cass glanced at Al, unsure what to say to that, but the owl was at least feigning sleep. He looked back at Clarity. “How about I just say no to whatever you’re about to suggest, and we pretend this conversation didn’t happen?”
Clarity let out a long breath. “That would probably be easier, but the thing is, people are dying. Children are dying, and I can’t let that slide. So if you say no, I’m going to have to try to convince you, and we’ll be late for our shift.”
“If people are dying, I’m not the one to help you.” Cass grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. “I fix machines. Sometimes, I build machines. Go talk to your medic friend, the bludgeoner.”
Clarity looked as if she was considering the idea for a moment. “I could, I suppose, but I don’t want to get her involved.”
“Oh, but it’s okay to get me involved.” Cass shrugged into his coat and moved toward the door.
“You’re already involved!” Clarity closed her eyes after her outburst and took a deep breath. When she spoke again, she sounded calmer. “I needed your help to hack the motorcycle. You can help me with this next part, and if you do, that means one less person who can get in trouble if this comes to light.”
Cass peered at her. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“What? No!” Clarity looked so astonished, Cass had to assume the thought had never crossed her mind. “I’m just trying to keep as many people out of trouble as possible. Besides, I couldn’t blackmail you even if I wanted to. If your part
in all of this comes out, so does mine. It’s mutually assured destruction.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” Cass said, but he didn’t move close to the door.
Clarity took a deep breath. “Look, let’s start this conversation over. I’ll tell you everything that’s going on, and you can decide whether you want to help or not. If you don’t, no worries. I’ll find someone else. But I think you’ll want to.”
“You know me so well, do you?” Cass went back and sat down in his chair. “Okay, I’m listening. Tell me about how I can help the dying children.”
His tone didn’t convey a desire to be convinced, but she launched in on her story anyway. She looked nervous as she told the tale. She would probably be pacing, if her crutches would allow it. She told him about running into Grace in the city, and how Grace and Archer took her into the Azure District. She told him about the dead child who had caused the Azure District to secede, and the children dying of Clement’s Disease in the present day. She reminded him how she went to his father to ask for aid for the Azurites, and how Steadfastness had firmly rebuffed her. So she was taking matters into her own hands.
“I can’t let those children die,” she said. “Not if I can help them. It’s why I became a paladin, to help people who couldn’t help themselves.”
Cass leaned his fist on his forehead. “Clarity, are you thinking through what you’re doing? If anyone finds out about this, you’ll be out of the order so fast, you won’t have time to grab your crutches. And if I helped you any more, I---” Cass realized he had no idea what would happen to him if he helped her. Would his parents protect him? Would his father? “I need to think about this.”
Clarity nodded, and Cass felt like he saw a bit of disappointment in her eyes. He didn’t feel great about himself, but he had been a paladin since birth. He didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t have the order around him. “I won’t turn you in,” he said. “If you’re worried about that.”
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