The Significant

by Kyra Anderson

  The elevator doors slid open. She stepped out and walked to the door, shaking, though she did not understand why. Nervously, Kailynn stepped in front of the door and it opened. She was immediately greeted by Tarah running to her and hugging her tightly.

  “I almost didn’t believe it when I saw your picture on the monitor,” Tarah gasped, refusing to let go of Kailynn. The older woman laughed and returned the hug.

  “Where is the security system?” she asked, confused.

  “My room and the kitchen,” Tarah answered, finally pulling away from the Significant, her face beaming. “It feels like it’s been years since I’ve seen you.”

  “How have you been?” Kailynn asked, walking into the main room after Tarah. The younger woman sighed heavily.

  “Alright, I guess.”

  “That wasn’t convincing,” Kailynn laughed brokenly. Tarah smiled thinly.

  “Things haven’t been the same since you left.”

  Kailynn was not sure what Tarah meant, but it made her concerned. She glanced around the main room, trying to hide her shaking.

  “She’s not home, yet,” Tarah said quietly. “She had a late meeting.”

  Kailynn was both disappointed and relieved.

  “Do you mind if I wait around?” she tried to ask casually. Tarah’s smile widened.

  “I was hoping you would.”

  Tarah got Kailynn a drink and then sat with her in the living room, asking her what she had been up to, thrilled to see the older woman again. Kailynn was surprised how easy she found it to talk to the caretaker. She missed the younger, bubbly girl. Her smile was infectious.

  However, when the door opened, Kailynn’s attention was immediately diverted.

  She could feel her entire body react to the Elite when she walked through the door, even though she was talking on the phone.

  “—know what else I can do,” she said, sighing heavily and shaking her head. She stopped when she saw Kailynn. Tarah stood and dipped her head in a bow to the Golden Elite, but Isa did not notice. She watched as Kailynn slowly stood from her seat, a nervous smile overtaking her face.

  Isa smiled as well.

  “I’m starting to feel overwhelmed,” she murmured, placing her fingers against the earpiece to show she was speaking to someone. “And I think I’m coming down with something.” She paused, listening to the other person. “Yes, I think that might be best. I’ll work from here tomorrow and try to rest my body a little. I think Opium is starting to take its toll.”

  Kailynn’s heart skipped a beat. She wondered if Isa was actually feeling unwell, or if she was saying that so that she could stay at home—with Kailynn—the following day. Kailynn could feel the heat rising to her cheeks.

  “Thank you, Remus,” Isa said gently. “Have a good night.”

  She took out the earpiece and set it with her phone on the bar.

  “This is an unexpected surprise.”

  Kailynn was still overpowered by how beautiful Isa was and the radiance of her smile. No matter how many times she had thought about the Elite’s stunning features the previous month, she was still enthralled by Isa.

  “Is there anything I can get you, Miss?” Tarah asked. She was trying not to smile at the way Isa and Kailynn had not broken eye contact.

  “No, thank you, Tarah. I ate at the Syndicate.”

  Still, Isa and Kailynn had their gazes locked.

  “If that is all, Miss, then I will say goodnight,” Tarah said.

  “Thank you, Tarah,” Isa repeated. “Goodnight.”

  Tarah bowed her head and started toward her room, allowing the smile to creep over her face when she went into the guest hall.

  Kailynn heard the door open to the guest hall, but she did not turn to make sure that Tarah was gone. As the door was sliding shut, she strode quickly over to Isa and grabbed her face, crashing their lips together as if her life depended on it.

  The Significant backed the Elite up until she was pressed against the bar, pushing her body against Isa’s, her hands holding Isa’s face tightly.

  Isa smiled into the kiss and her hands went to Kailynn’s waist, holding the younger woman to her, reveling in the contact.

  Kailynn’s entire body was sparking as their lips worked against one another. She felt that she could not get close enough to Isa. She needed to be closer, she needed to feel every inch of Isa’s being, even though it was physically impossible. She whined at longing and broke the kiss.

  Both of them were still, their lips barely apart, their breaths mixing between them.

  Isa’s hand brushed over Kailynn’s cheek. The Significant leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut.

  Isa swooped down and captured her mouth once more.

  “Isa…”

  “Hmm?” Isa’s eyes opened and she turned her head to look at Kailynn. The younger woman hesitated before turning onto her stomach and crossing her arms to prop herself up on the bed.

  “Are you staying home tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it because you’re not feeling well?”

  Isa chuckled.

  “It has more to do with you being here,” the Elite admitted.

  Kailynn chuckled nervously, dropping her gaze to the bed.

  “That’s unnerving.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the leader of a planet and I’m distracting you from running that planet,” Kailynn said with a wary chuckle. There was an underlying question in the jest, and Isa immediately understood. She smiled, running the backs of her fingers tenderly over the Significant’s shoulder.

  “I have been trained to run the planet since I was ten years old,” she whispered. “I am very good at my job.”

  “I know but…” Kailynn trailed off, hesitant. “I am still distracting you. And I hear that things are getting worse with the Ninth Circle.”

  Isa’s fingers continued trailing over Kailynn’s skin lazily.

  “I’m a grown woman,” she said. “You can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  “Then I am distracting you.”

  Isa chuckled, closing her eyes.

  “You said it yourself when you were here last,” she started. “If I don’t get my mind off work, I’m going to think myself in circles.”

  Kailynn looked over Isa’s relaxed features. Now that she was studying the Elite, she could see the exhaustion on her face. She still looked perfect, of course, but the skin around her eyes was darker and she had lost weight in the month that Kailynn had been gone.

  The Significant crawled closer, drawing Isa’s attention and causing her to open her eyes. Kailynn leaned down and kissed the Elite.

  “I should probably go.”

  “I would like you to stay,” Isa murmured, her eyes betraying how much she wanted Kailynn’s company. “I missed you.”

  Kailynn’s smile widened.

  “I missed you, too.”

  Isa took a deep breath.

  “I was actually relieved to see you,” she said. “I was concerned you would not come back.”

  Kailyn swallowed hard and turned away from the Elite’s gaze.

  “I wasn’t sure I was going to come back,” she admitted. “I wanted to come back much sooner, but…I thought it was too dangerous for the both of us,” she completed. She looked at Isa seriously. “What do you think would happen if Venus found out about this?”

  Isa was quiet for a few moments, thinking.

  “I truly do not know.”

  “Can’t you convince her that you work better when you’re allowed to fuck every once and a while?” Kailynn groaned.

  Isa chuckled.

  “She’s a computer,” she reminded the Significant. “Her logic is infallible.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That she’s without fault. She is correct, no matter what she decides.”

  Kailynn scoffed.

  “Really?” she groaned. “So, creating children that she can beat for wanting sex and then forcin
g them to work themselves to death while she ignores a growing number of Trids isn’t the wrong decision?”

  “To her, no,” Isa said. “The Elites garner more respect than she. People like having a person, a living being, to look to when discussing human problems.”

  “If that is the case, why is everything we do so dependent on technology?” Kailynn asked. “If people want someone to talk to, why don’t they talk to one another? The Significants would disappear if people would just talk to one another!”

  “I wish that were so,” Isa murmured. “But the dependence on technology is so deeply rooted in our society that changing it would be almost impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s extremely complicated,” Isa said. “If one person wanted to change, wanted to start talking to their husband or their children, both the husband and the children would have no concept of how to react. They have never been exposed to those circumstances before. One person cannot start the change in society just from changing themselves, particularly if that society is set up to stop them at every attempt.”

  “Couldn’t you do something?” Kailynn asked. “I’m sure you heard a while ago that some Trids tried to shut down Venus.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Can’t you shut her down? Can she be shut down?”

  Isa hesitated, her eyes looking over Kailynn’s face, making the Significant nervous. She realized she was discussing treason with the leader of the planet, but she hoped that Isa would take the question as Kailynn’s curiosity, rather than plotting.

  “Yes, she can be shut down,” the Elite finally murmured. “But it won’t work to just go in there and smash her wiring. The problem with shutting down Venus lies in the way she was created.”

  “She’s just like any other computer, though.”

  “No, no, she is far from,” Isa said quickly. “She’s is a very advanced artificial intelligence. She was created as an early detection disaster program. When the city was being built, there were fires and earthquakes and violent storms and several other obstacles that continued to set back development of Tiao. Venus was programmed to detect dangers and warn the city before the damage was done. However, that required her to be able to determine when a threat was credible. That artificial intelligence grew quickly, to the point where she was monitoring transmissions from other planets and patterning criminal behavior. It was not long before she was watching every person on the planet. She changed the way the city operated entirely.”

  “So why would that matter if she was shut down?”

  “Because she was wired into the entire planet in order to monitor for disasters,” Isa said. “To go in and cut her wires would do nothing. She is everywhere. Her coding and power source is in the entirety of the planet. And even then, she has a secondary backup. If she were to be properly shut down, the entire planet would shut down. Transportation, power, food production, water treatment, heat…no one would be able to survive.”

  “We have none of that in Trid,” Kailynn noted.

  “You don’t have power, or heat, this is true. But you do not treat your water, or produce your food. You steal what you can from Anon.”

  Kailynn hesitated, deciding it was best not to respond.

  “And this planet, even the undeveloped parts, is not suitable for producing enough food to feed every inhabitant. That is why we have ration packs. That is why we have to import food from other planets.”

  “But, you could shut down Venus and then find a way to program everything without her,” Kailynn suggested.

  “We would have no power to reprogram after she was shut down,” Isa explained. “It would take us years and years to get the planet up and running again. In that time, the citizens would starve and die, plague would set in from poor sanitation, wars would break out within the city…” Isa sighed heavily. “Too many would die if she were to be shut down.”

  “But she’s a dictator,” Kailynn said strongly. “And, in Trid, we’re sure that the Elites are running the show and just using Venus as an excuse to do things. People can’t see or interact with her, so how can she be expected to lead this planet?”

  “She does exist,” Isa said. “And the fact that no one can interact with her is the reason she created the Elites. The Elites obey her, and they give a human face to her orders. That’s why she won’t get rid of the Elites. The data showed that people were more willing to follow the orders when given by Elites rather than Venus.”

  Kailynn sighed and flopped onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Isa turned onto her side and looked at Kailynn seriously.

  “Did I upset you?”

  “No, it’s just…” Kailynn groaned. “It’s frustrating.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So, she looks at the Elites as just extensions of herself,” Kailynn said. “You’re not your own person? You’re just part of her?”

  Isa hesitated, her eyes showing pain hidden deep below the cool exterior.

  “No,” Isa said. “I am my own person.”

  Kailynn looked at Isa, hearing the agony in the Elite’s voice.

  It was as if Isa was trying to convince herself that she as not merely an extension of Venus.

  “I’m really happy you’re back,” Tarah said with a smile as Kailynn finished her breakfast. Kailynn chuckled nervously at the elated look on Tarah’s face.

  “Why?”

  Tarah shrugged, her smile widening.

  “This place just feels different when you’re here,” Tarah said. “And Isa’s happier, too.”

  Kailyn paused.

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Tarah,” Kailynn started, turning to her almost-empty plate and shifting the remaining pieces of food around, “can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Were you around when Isa and Remus split?”

  Tarah’s eyes shot wide and she blinked a few times, stunned.

  “She told you?”

  “She told me she and Remus were partners for a while, and that things just ended between them.”

  Tarah let out an exasperated chuckle, raising her eyebrows.

  “Eight months in the hospital is what ended the relationship,” Tarah grumbled. “I was around, yes.”

  “Were you also around when Venus found out about them?”

  “No.” Tarah shook her head. “Why?”

  “I was trying to figure out how Venus found out about them,” Kailynn said. “Are there cameras around the level?”

  “Yes.” Tarah nodded. “For security reasons, there are cameras everywhere.”

  “Then Venus probably already knows about us?” Kailynn hissed, horrified.

  “If she knew, she would have said something by now,” Tarah assured. “I’m sure Rayal is doing a good job keeping the camera feeds from Venus. They don’t go directly to her, anyway. They filter through the Intelligence Agency before they are processed into her computers. Rayal is probably deleting them.”

  “You mean…he can see when Isa and I…” Kailynn stopped, not wanting to continue.

  Tarah chuckled.

  “I guess so,” she said. “There is a camera in Isa’s bedroom.”

  “Does she know that?” Kailynn asked, nodding to the guest hallway to indicate Isa, who had disappeared into her office twenty minutes previous.

  “Of course.”

  “But that’s not how Venus found out about them?”

  “No.” Tarah shook her head. “According to Rayal, someone leaked the information to blackmail Isa.”

  “I thought you said that no one would harm Isa,” Kailynn said quickly.

  “This was over five years ago,” Tarah murmured. “Politics got ugly. It wasn’t a caretaker, it was someone else that had stumbled on the information.”

  “Was he caught?”

  “Yeah,” Tarah said, though her voice trembled on the word. “He was punished.”

  Tarah stood and started collecting the dishes, smili
ng weakly.

  “Are you finished?”

  Kailynn wandered around the level of Anon Tower, remembering the month she had stayed and how much the job had changed her life. She had grown up hating Venus and the Syndicate Elites. She never thought that meeting the Golden Elite would change her perception so drastically. It was if there was some otherworldly power to Isa that drew people closer. It was a feeling of security and strength that was addicting to all that came in contact with the Elite.

  Kailynn started watching the clock, waiting for Isa to finish working. She had gone in to see if she could speak with the Elite—she did not have anything in particular she wanted to talk about, she just wanted to be with Isa—however, she found the Elite in BCS mode with the ring glowing blue and a hologram curtain of various-colored boxes slowly rotating around the chair.

  The Significant had to wait.

  However, when Isa finished up her work, she found Kailynn and asked if she wanted to swim. The two spent nearly two hours in the pool, talking lightly about nothing in particular. At one point, Isa cornered Kailynn and began kissing her passionately. Kailynn’s eyes were rolling back into her head as Isa’s hand descended into the water to gently touch her when Tarah opened the door to the pool area, startling both of them.

  The caretaker turned away, blushing at the scene she had stumbled upon.

  “So sorry to disturb you,” she said quickly. “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Tarah,” Isa said with a smile, clearly not as embarrassed as Tarah or Kailynn. When Tarah left, Kailynn let out an exasperated groan.

  “How can you be so damn calm about everything?”

  Isa chuckled. “Practice.” She stepped closer to Kailynn again, her hands gripping the Significant’s hips as she smiled. “Where were we?”

  Kailynn was a little embarrassed to meet Tarah’s eyes at the dinner table, knowing what she had stumbled upon in the pool. She sat down nervously next to Isa, who seemed to not be concerned at being caught earlier.

  However, before the Elite could start dinner, her phone chimed and caught her attention.