The Significant

by Kyra Anderson

  Isa took them slowly, her mind in a fog.

  “I feel like…I don’t know…”

  “I know, I’m in a fog, too.”

  “Do you remember anything out of the ordinary last night?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you alright? You look pale? Are you nauseous?”

  “No, that’s not…” Isa looked into the water glass. “Look at the back of my neck. Do you see any bruises or cuts?”

  “What?”

  “Just check, please,” Isa said, turning her back to him and lifting her hair. He looked over her skin, but saw nothing.

  “No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  “And this shoulder?” she asked, turning her shoulder to him. He looked over the area, but shook his head.

  “No,” he repeated. “Except we better hope that that is covered by the uniform,” he said, passing his finger gently over a bruise at the base of her neck. She put her hand over his quickly, trying to feel the area.

  “What? What is it?”

  “That was me, sorry,” he said, leaning down and kissing her shoulder. “I got a little carried away last night.”

  “What do you mean?

  Remus chuckled. “I will try not to be insulted that you don’t remember.” He stood and nodded to the water. “Take those. You’ll start to feel better.”

  He began walking toward the bathroom once more. Isa sighed heavily and closed her eyes, figuring that it had been an alcohol-induced nightmare. There were no marks on her body from the needles that she remembered penetrating her skin.

  But it had felt so real…

  She glanced at Remus, about to ask if he had strange dreams as well, when she caught sight of the light bruise across Remus’ lower ribcage.

  “Don’t bruise the poor man, now.”

  Isa quickly looked down, lifting her breast to look at her ribcage

  A small bruise painted her skin, a red dot in the middle showing an entry wound. She climbed out of bed, ignoring her naked state, and walked into the kitchen. Rayal was making breakfast, though he was pale and had large bags under his eyes. He was clearly not feeling any better than he had the previous few days.

  “Miss?” Rayal asked, confused by her naked state and the way she immediately went to the security screens. She rewound the recordings, looking for any movement in the hours of the night.

  However, there was none.

  Two days later, Isa was a nervous wreck. She was trying to determine what of that terrifying night had been real and what had been a dream. She knew that the security footage could be altered, and she knew that it was possible that the needles that had penetrated her skin to paralyze her and knock her unconscious were small enough not to leave noticeable marks. But there was something about the situation that made her question herself.

  What made matters worse was that the threat—whether real or a dream—had caused her to ask a very frightening question of herself.

  Would she save the people of Anon? Or would she try to find a way to save Rayal, Remus, and the Bronze Elites? Every time she closed her eyes, she thought of Remus coming at her, his eyes wide and terrified, as he screamed at her to kill him to keep him from hurting her.

  Because of these images, she had not slept.

  She spent her days at the Syndicate Building carefully watching Venus’ mainframe for any sign of trouble. If Colonel Amori had stolen codes from Isa’s internal processor with the intent of finding a way to shut down Venus, he also held her life in his hands. If Venus’ codes started to disappear, Isa’s heart would stop immediately.

  Occasionally, for no reason she could explain, she would get sharp twinges of fear and her heart would begin racing. In those moments, she was sure that Venus was triggering her failsafe, and Isa’s heart was about to stop beating, leaving the other Elites to find her lifeless body.

  On the third day after the frightening night, an operator called her office to tell her that Colonel Amori was there to see her.

  Nervously, she allowed the Gihoric leader up.

  She was expecting the other delegates to be with him when he walked into her office, however they were not. He was alone. And that terrified Isa further.

  She stood by her desk, prepared to activate her panic button in her office if necessary.

  “Colonel Amori,” she greeted with a bow of her head.

  “Elite Isa,” he said. “I wanted to let you know that I spoke with my brother and he is asking me to stay until we can reach an agreement. He wants us to come to a compromise.

  Isa barely heard him. She was staring at his features, trying to discern any hint of malice.

  When she did not respond, he spoke again.

  “Elite Isa?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

  The Golden Elite walked forward him, her eyes suspicious. He retreated a step, confused. When his back was against the door, Isa patted down the front chest pockets of Colonel Amori’s military jacket. He tried to retreat once more, laughing nervously.

  “Elite Isa, what are you doing?”

  There was nothing in his pockets.

  Isa then began patting down his side pockets, once again finding nothing in them. Becoming frantic, worried that she had imagined the entire night, her hands went to his pants pockets.

  He grabbed her wrists and gently pushed her away, laughing once more.

  “Elite Isa, please don’t take this the wrong way,” he started. “You are very beautiful, but I am not interested in you that way.”

  Isa backed away from him, her expression confused.

  “My apologies…” she murmured. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “…good,” Colonel Amori said, clearly not convinced. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Let’s have dinner tonight to discuss what my brother said.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Isa said. “My apologies, once again.”

  “No need to apologize.”

  Colonel Amori turned and opened the door, walking out into the hallway.

  “Oh, Elite Isa?” he called back. She turned around and her heart stopped in panic. “Were you looking for this?”

  In his hand, he was holding the device she remembered so vividly from her dream, the small, black handle with a green button in the middle of it, just under his first finger.

  However, before she could react to the sight of the device and the sick smile that crossed Colonel Amori’s face, the door closed, leaving Isa in the dull buzzing of her office, her stomach doing somersaults.

  That night, Isa met with Colonel Amori alone in her home, Rayal cooking dinner for the both of them. It was clear that the caretaker was feeling unwell. His hands were shaking and he was very pale. Isa watched him worriedly, telling him to bring the food to the table and then lie down.

  Rayal did as instructed, leaving the two alone.

  “He seems unwell,” Colonel Amori noted.

  “Is that because of you?” Isa asked, her food remaining untouched.

  “Most likely,” Colonel Amori admitted, diving into his full plate. He took a big bite and looked up at Isa. “I will say, I am impressed that you have not tried to have me arrested. I guess you aren’t that suicidal.” He pointed at her with his fork. “So tell me, are all Elites programmed to do what is needed to survive, or are you just special?”

  “What, exactly, are you after?” Isa asked, ignoring the question. “You said you wanted to tear down the Alliance and shut down Venus, but that would do no good for anyone in the system.”

  “Did you ever learn what happened to Earth?” Colonel Amori asked, turning back to his dinner.

  “Yes.”

  “The truth of what happened to Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  Colonel Amori took another bite of his food.

  “So why would humans allow themselves to be governed by the same technology that almost killed them?”

  “Venus is not built on the technol
ogy of those weapons,” Isa disagreed. “She has access to some of the genetic information, but the data was mostly destroyed when humans evacuated Earth.”

  “I was talking about Elites.”

  Isa sighed heavily.

  “We are not weapons,” she said. “We are just altered humans meant to obey Venus’ command.”

  “Then Venus has become the weapon and is hiding behind the Elites.”

  “She’s not a weaponized system. She can alert about disasters, but she cannot take action on her own. She is not programmed that way,” Isa disagreed. “She is, however, a very powerful monitoring system. She creates a network for all Altereye planets to use and be monitored on.”

  “And you think that is acceptable?” Isa went silent, staring at Colonel Amori as he looked up from his plate, chewing his food slowly. “No?”

  “Everyone can agree that humans are dangerous,” Isa said carefully. “Humans need guidance and supervision.”

  “And you believe that your guidance is better than, say, mine?”

  “As I’ve stated before, Colonel Amori,” Isa said, her voice cold, “I believe that humans have the basic right to food and shelter, not forced to slave away until they are near death just to try and ease the pain in their bellies.”

  “And as I have stated before, the grunts are no different on Gihron than the Trids are on Tiao,” Colonel Amori reiterated. He leaned back with a heavy sigh, smiling. “You surprise me, Elite Isa.” He chuckled, tossing the fork onto the half-eaten plate of food. “You had the opportunity to make good on your promise tonight.”

  “What promise was that?”

  “That you would kill me,” Colonel Amori chuckled, picking some food out of his teeth. “You didn’t poison the food.”

  “I may have promised that I would kill you, but I’m not stupid,” Isa growled. “A diplomat in my home, alone, and he’s poisoned? Autopsy would show that you ate food that I did not and were poisoned. Then, your brother would have a blood-grudge.”

  “Seems you do know a little bit about us.”

  “You seem eager to die, Colonel,” Isa noted. “I might have poisoned the food, and you dove right in.”

  Colonel Amori chuckled.

  “Either way, I would have you cornered,” he said. “To think, in just one short month, I have brought the greatest Golden Elite in history to heel.”

  “No, you have not,” Isa said strongly.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said. He leaned forward. “And I want to thank you for inviting me to stay in your home while I’m here.”

  “I’ve done no such thing,” Isa growled. “You are not welcome to stay here.”

  “I need to keep an eye on you,” Colonel Amori said. “I’ve invested a lot of time, money, and technology into this so far, and I will not have some altruistic Elite fuck it up.”

  “You’ve already signed your death sentence,” Isa said simply. “You were the one who fucked it up.”

  “Fine,” Colonel Amori said, shrugging. “I have camera feeds everywhere in the house, and in the Syndicate Building. Honestly, you should consider increasing your security. It’s amazing that no one has done this already. You left yourself open. You can only blame yourself.”

  Another sleepless night left Isa was with a splitting headache. She went to the Syndicate Building and passed everyone without greeting them, her head down and her eyes dark with exhaustion. The other Elites figured that she was merely tired from having to handle the stubborn Colonel Amori so soon after the Kreon incident. They let her go to her office without pestering her.

  Isa walked to her NCB chair as it greeted her entrance, turning to her. She stopped next to it, putting her hand on the cold metal and staring distantly into the machine.

  When her legs began to tire from standing still for so long, she walked to her desk and sat at it, staring at the stacks of files and drives on the surface.

  She had spent the entire night and morning thinking about the security in the Syndicate Building and in Anon Tower. While she had not programmed it—the coding had been in place for generations—she knew that it had been updated as necessary by various Elite programmers and engineers. She tried to think of ways that Colonel Amori could get into the building to plant his cameras, or how he could rewire the existing cameras. She was sure he could not access the codes to get into Venus’ mainframe and access her cameras.

  However, there was a sick feeling in her stomach.

  The bruised area where the node had entered her body was evidence that he could have access to Venus’ mainframe.

  She glanced around the hidden cameras in her office, her body on high alert.

  When the soft chime in her ear alerted her to a phone call, she jumped, startled, and then groaned, cradling her head in one hand as she gently tapped the area just in front of her ear.

  “Elite Isa.”

  “Yes, I can see you.”

  Isa’s eyes went wide and she straightened.

  “You stood completely still for nearly three hours,” Colonel Amori chuckled. “I was beginning to think you had looped the security feed.”

  “How do I know that you’re not just tracking me?” Isa challenged.

  “Fine, I’m watching. Do something.”

  Isa turned to one of the cameras and flipped it off, glaring.

  Colonel Amori chuckled. “Excellent. Good to see the lack of sleep has not dulled your edge.” Isa felt dirty just listening to the way his voice oozed with supremacy, even as she tried to ignore the way he told her he had been watching her sleep—or not sleep—at night. “You flipped me off. To be specific, you flipped off the south-west camera in your office.”

  Isa lowered her hand.

  “What do you want? I need to concentrate.”

  “I have a task for you,” he said. “There is something I’m very interested in. You’ve managed to terraform part of this planet to grow crops from Earth.”

  “It’s a protected site,” Isa said darkly. “If you attack there, you will wage war on every planet in the Altereye System.”

  “I am merely interested in how it works,” Colonel Amori said with a cold laugh. “You’re quick to assume that I want to destroy everything.”

  “I thought you did.”

  “I just want to know how your terraform greenhouses function. Perhaps I can bring the idea back to Gihron and we can produce more food for our people,” Colonel Amori said. “I will meet you for dinner and I expect the information by then.”

  Isa was about to protest when Colonel Amori disconnected the call.

  She groaned and cradled her head in both hands once more.

  The door opening caused her to jump, standing up quickly, worried. Remus stopped in the doorway, surprised by her startle.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, walking in as Isa let out a shaky breath and sat at her desk again.

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she said. “Hard for my brain to settle.” She took a deep breath and looked at him. “I had a question for you. What is the status on, uh, what’s that one city called with the spire monument to the Alliance?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion as she tried to think of the name of the city.

  “Dyran?” Remus asked slowly, surprised she did not remember.

  “Yes, the name was escaping me,” Isa said, forcing a smile.

  “You must really be exhausted,” Remus noted. “Why don’t you go home? Or just sleep for a bit in here?”

  “No, I have too much to do,” Isa protested. She took a deep breath, rubbing her temples.

  “Well, if you want, I can come over later and we can work on getting you to sleep,” Remus said with a smile.

  Isa smiled as well and shook her head. “As tempting as that is, I must refuse. It’s alright. Dr. Busen gave me something to try tonight, so hopefully I’ll get some rest.”

  “You’ve already spoken to him?” Remus asked. When she nodded, he blinked at her, surprised. “That’s not like you,” he said teasingly. “You’r
e actually being proactive about your health?”

  “Be quiet,” Isa said with a strained laugh. “What is the status on the greenhouse project in Dyran?”

  “The plans were approved a week ago. Maki is working on coordination and preparation.”

  “I would like to see those files before he gets too far.”

  “…alright,” Remus said, wondering why she would want to look over the files she had pushed to have approved and acted on as soon as possible. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Remus discussed a few other work-related things with her before leaving her office once more. She leaned back in her chair and took several deep breaths. Dyran was a new terraform development. She did not want to give Colonel Amori information on Saera, the city of engineers, agricultural specialists, and workers that ran the enormous facilities that produced crops from Earth. Most of Tiao’s food was grown and distributed from Saera, and because food-related sites were heavily protected, she had never had fear that it would be under attack. However, she still wanted to keep the city as safe as possible from the dangers of Colonel Amori.

  Isa glanced around the office once more, wondering if his eyes were on her in that moment.

  She stood and walked to her NCB chair, climbing in and signing into the mainframe. She spent hours going around the mainframe, trying to find weaknesses and trails that would tell her how the Colonel was able to watch her at home and at work. However, even after searching, she could not find anything suggesting Venus’ mainframe had been hacked.

  Isa was beginning to fear that Colonel Amori was doing his work under her name, using her codes from her internal processor as Golden Elite to grant him access to everything in Venus’ mainframe and leave no trace.

  The Golden Elite decided to send a very short, simple message into Venus’ encrypted archives, hoping that Colonel Amori could not access the area, let alone understand and read the message in Venus’ coded language.