The Significant

by Kyra Anderson

  Isa did not respond.

  “It looked to me like you were trying to frame Gihron,” General Decius said darkly. “You were trying to bully us into a position where you could impose the Alliance on us and destroy our society so that we would be under your thumb.”

  Isa could not help but react to the statement in shock.

  “Pardon?” she said. “You believe that I was trying to frame Colonel Amori? That I ordered him dead?”

  “I do,” General Decius said. “He was unwilling to yield to your demands, and so you began to frame him. Why else would he want to send an encrypted message to me telling me about how to send a Pulse Virus to your personal NCB chair? He was trying to tell me that he needed help, but I was too late to save him.”

  “You’re wrong, General Decius,” Isa told him. “I stood to gain nothing from framing Gihron, and I still gain nothing from allowing Gihron to join the Alliance. I am not in need of Gihron’s support or submission, as you seem to believe.”

  “Then why did you order my brother dead?”

  “I did not order your brother dead,” Isa said strongly.

  “He was trapped on this planet for months, trying to reach me, even though our communications had been knocked out, and every time we spoke, he would tell me these cryptic things that told me that I needed to save him, but I ignored them. He knew his life was in danger.”

  “His life was in no danger until he put it in danger,” Isa snapped.

  She stopped, forcing herself to control her expression. General Decius stopped, blinking several times.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother brought forth radical ideas about changes to the Altereye System. Surely as a politician, he knew the risks of that.”

  General Decius let out an exasperated laugh.

  “You really did have him killed…” he whispered. “I knew you were behind his death. How can you call yourself a compassionate leader for your people if you are killing leaders when they do not serve your agenda? You put out this message to your people that you want Venus destroyed when that same desire caused you to kill my brother?”

  “Perhaps if you had listened to that message and not let your hatred blind you, you would come to realize that the destruction that occurred on my planet was due to a madman that hacked into Venus’ computers and weaponized her.” She leaned forward. “Do you want the truth, General Decius? Your brother was the one who hacked into Venus’ mainframe, reprogrammed her, threatened the lives of everyone in the Syndicate, destroyed Tiao’s food supply, killing one hundred thousand of my people, and killed nearly one hundred members of the Syndicate. Had I ordered his execution, I would have had plenty of reason to do so.”

  General Decius stared at Isa, his brain turning over the words.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Your brother kidnapped me, beat me, mentally and physically tortured me, and you have the gall to call me a liar?”

  “My brother is dead because of you!”

  “Your brother is dead because of himself!” Isa snapped. “Your brother thought that he could control me, but he forgot exactly who he was dealing with, and he brought his fate upon himself when he threatened to rape me and force me to watch my people suffer while he had you invade and destroy my planet.”

  General Decius stared at Isa, silent, surprised.

  “You’re right, General Decius, I am not human. You cannot intimidate me and you cannot control me. If you try, you will meet the same fate as your brother.”

  “Admit to me that you ordered his assassination,” General Decius hissed.

  “I did not order your brother’s assassination,” Isa growled. “When your brother was beating me and threatening to rape me, I defended myself, and your brother ended up choking on his own blood.”

  General Decius stared at the Elite’s eyes, convinced in those moments that they were not the eyes of a human or an Elite, but the eyes of an animal that had sighted its prey and was circling it with malice.

  “My brother would never harm anyone,” General Decius breathed.

  “You clearly did not know your brother,” Isa said sharply. “I believe that I knew him better than anyone, because I saw the side of him that he would never show to anyone other than someone he believed would not survive. His own men probably didn’t even suspect him when he murdered them and strung their bodies up to rot in their room for nearly a month before they were discovered. You think you knew this man you called your brother, but he was a monster starving for power, and when he tried to take it from me, he found himself in over his head.”

  General Decius stood quickly, but stopped, bracing himself on the table, forcing himself not to attack the leader of Tiao in the Syndicate Building. Isa remained seated for several long moments before she stood.

  “You wanted the truth of your brother’s death,” Isa said, “and now you have it. Does that change the terms of your surrender?”

  “Yes,” General Decius said darkly. “We do not surrender. We will continue this war until I put a bullet in your brain personally.” He turned and angrily punched the button to open the conference room doors. He stormed out between the slew of spectators, the others of his delegation following him in confusion, asking what had happened.

  The Elites quickly went to Isa who sat heavily in her chair, cradling her head in one hand.

  “What happened?” Remus demanded.

  “We’re still at war,” Isa murmured. “He knows the truth now.”

  “You…you told him?” Chronus hissed. Isa nodded.

  “He’s very much like his brother,” she said. “I know that he’ll try to take over while on the planet. Our advantage at the moment is that he is furious, and he will act out in anger.”

  “How is that to our advantage?” Anders asked, exasperated.

  “He’s more likely to act rashly and make a mistake,” Isa said. “Let him make the mistakes.”

  Kyle, Rei, and Jamen carefully cut a hole next to the door sensor pad for the Syndicate Building, glancing at the wires within. The three Gihron delegates were hesitant to go through with the plan, feeling that they had not had proper time to develop the technical aspects.

  Kyle carefully cut two of the wires, which allowed Rei and Jamen to pry open the doors of the back entrance of the Syndicate Building. The three slipped into the darkened rooms, carefully holding their bags full of explosives that they intended to put around the building. The General had said that he did not care if they killed any Elites in the Syndicate—he was partial to killing them off one-by-one to avenge his murdered brother.

  Rei was the most opposed to the plans to destroy whatever they could of Isa and her Elites. He was infuriated that Isa had not faced proper charges for killing Colonel Amori, but he knew that General Decius’ younger brother had been a horrible ruler that had always blackmailed anyone he could for power. Rei was also haunted by the words of Elite Isa, and wondered why they were holding so close to a system that clearly did not benefit their planet.

  However, he had to follow orders.

  “Let’s tear this motherfucker down,” Jamen chuckled. “Fuck these Elites. They think they know war?”

  “Let’s show them what Gihron can do,” Kyle agreed, reaching into his bag and pulling out the explosives he had brought with him.

  They spread out to different areas of the room, each preparing to set the first charge when the lights of the building snapped on and blinded them temporarily.

  “Freeze! Get on the ground!” several voices bellowed. Officials and police robots swarmed the room, their guns pointed at the Gihoric men.

  Slowly, confused and terrified that they had just been caught committing acts of terrorism, the three fell to their knees, their hands extending above their heads. Even as they wondered why their reconnaissance team had not warned them of the Officials in the Syndicate building, they did not believe that the other delegates who had been at Anon Tower to monitor their rash operations were being hauled away by anoth
er group of Officials.

  At Anon Tower, Colonel Ikan slowly pushed open the disabled door to Elite Isa’s home. He glanced around before nodding once to General Decius and walking into the home. General Decius quickly slipped inside, keeping his eyes on every corner as he crept around the living room, slipping into the doorway that led to the guest hall.

  He slowly moved through the house, knowing that Isa’s office was somewhere in the back of the level, though he did not know where,

  As he passed through the pool area, Colonel Ikan entered the guest hall, looking at the doors on each side. He stepped in front of the first one to his right and it slid open, barely making any noise. Keeping his gun drawn, he stepped inside to find the bed neatly made, as though it had never been used.

  Colonel Ikan left the room and went across the hall to the first door on his left. It, too, slid open quietly. In the bed, he saw what appeared to be a sleeping figures, back turned to him. With a dark smile, he started forward, moving slowly so that he would not be heard.

  He reached out his hand and covered the mouth of the first figure, pulling her back quickly as she let out a startled cry.

  “Don’t you dare scream, you little bitch!” he snarled, pressing the gun to her back. “Get out of the bed.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” she gasped, quickly trying to move away from the gun. She got to her feet and started toward the door, but Colonel Ikan grabbed her arm and violently yanked her back, wrapping his hand around her neck.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he hissed, tightening his hand. She grabbed at his wrist, trying to pull it from her neck.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Oh, no,” Colonel Ikan chuckled. “You, my dear, are very important. You see,” he tightened his grip, “you are going to be the best way to get that bitch Isa to comply. Therefore, you will come with me.”

  He struggled with her as she threw her entire bodyweight into fighting, her elbows flying behind her in an attempt to hit him.

  “You are a feisty one, aren’t you?” he laughed. “I like them with a little bite. Maybe I’ll enjoy you a little before I take you to General Decius.”

  Kailynn brought her fists together, moving her hips out of the way and angrily jamming her elbow into Colonel Ikan’s side. He doubled over and she took the opportunity to grab the gun from his hand, smashing the butt of the gun into his nose.

  “Don’t you even think about it, you sack of shit!”

  As Colonel Ikan held his nose, his eyes tightly shut, Kailynn pointed the gun at him.

  “Get on the fucking ground!” she ordered.

  “You bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

  “I think I’m the one holding the fucking gun, so get on the fucking ground before I shoot you and put you there myself.”

  “You think you can kill me, little girl?”

  Kailynn dropped the gun down and pulled the trigger, shooting Colonel Ikan in the leg and causing him to crumple to the ground with a shout of pain.

  “I told you I would put you on the ground.”

  From the open bathroom door, Rayal walked out with his gun pointed at Colonel Ikan. He approached him slowly, Tarah peeking out from the bathroom to watch, her own gun lowered at her side.

  “Colonel Ikan, you are under arrest, charged with attempted abduction, attempted rape, treason and espionage,” Rayal listed. He lifted his wrist to his mouth. “Execute arrest order.”

  Further into the Golden Elite’s level of Anon Tower, General Decius finally found Isa’s office, where her NCB chair sat proudly in the center of the room. He climbed into it, pushing his head back into the cradle and tapping twice on the startup button under his finger.

  It took only a few seconds for the chair to boot up and General Decius immediately went to the programming for the Syndicate, choosing to use the chair’s credentials to enter Venus’ mainframe.

  The mainframe began to load when the chair’s soft whirring wound down to a dull hum, and the holograms that were beginning to come up from the mainframe disappeared. The upper ring of the chair began glowing red.

  General Decius hesitated, his eyes glancing around him as he tried to pull his head out of the cradle. However, he was locked into place.

  He urgently tapped the startup button multiple times, trying to get the chair back online, glancing up occasionally at the red ring, the color causing his heart to race as he realized there was something wrong with the chair.

  He glanced up once to see a figure in front of him, her tall frame illuminated in the red light, her hands clasped behind her back.

  “What the fuck have you done?” he demanded.

  “The chair has a defense mechanism,” Isa’s calm voice stated as she took a measured step forward. “I programmed it so that, anyone who is in the chair that does not match my DNA, will cause it to go into emergency shut down,” Isa’s bright blue eyes were unnerving in the red glow of the NCB chair, “and destroy anyone trying to hijack it.”

  General Decius’ eyes went wide.

  “That’s illegal,” he whispered. “You can’t weaponize an NCB chair.”

  “You were about to,” Isa pointed out. “You were about to access the mainframe, get what information you could, and then infect the chair so that it would kill me the next time I used it.” She shook head. “You and your brother are very alike, in that respect. Except that your brother managed to briefly weaponized the greatest artificial intelligence that ever came into being.”

  “You bitch. Are you going to kill me? That won’t stop anything. You have already killed my brother, and if you kill me, more Gihrons will come for vengeance.”

  “You’re wrong,” Isa murmured. “Your little coup was poorly planned and even more poorly executed. You have just been caught committing acts of terror. You would normally be stripped of your title as leader of your planet, detained on Kreon, and the Alliance would take over your planet in your absence.”

  “Why are you making this a hypothetical?” General Decius asked darkly. “You said yourself that you do not deal in hypotheticals.”

  “That would be the situation if you were to survive tonight, General Decius,” Isa said darkly. “However, you ordered that my Elites be killed, that the person I love be killed, and you were going to hack Venus and then kill me. I cannot let you survive.”

  General Decius was about to protest when the chair gave a shudder and electricity pulsed through the Gihoric leader’s body. His muscles strained, his skin crackling as the continuous pulsing raced along his nerves. His eyes were wide, focused on Isa as she watched the Gihoric leader shake. He watched as she remained still and unwavering in front of him.

  Then his body went slack and the chair immediately turned off, a small chime sounding.

  “Unauthorized access to classified information. DNA match possible threat. General Decius Touren of Gihron. Threat neutralized.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Isa called Vanessa shortly after the Officials had hauled away Colonel Ikan and the body of General Decius. She asked the older woman to carefully handle the news of what happened between Gihron and Tiao so that Isa could keep as many allies as possible when the truth was discovered.

  However, she did not have time to discuss much with Vanessa.

  She quickly gathered the bags that they had packed the previous days and hurried to one car with Kailynn while Rayal and Tarah went to another vehicle.

  They were executing Plan Maki—go into hiding to shut down Venus.

  Kailynn clamored into the car with Isa, who had already altered the car for the journey they would have to take under Venus’ radar. Isa got into the driver’s seat and inserted the chip she had programmed for their destination. Kailynn did not know where they were going, and when she asked Isa said that she would not say until they were there safely, just to be sure Venus could not find out where they had based their operation.

  They pulled out of the garage for Anon Tower and sped toward the rising s
un.

  “Are you alright?” Isa asked, turning to Kailynn.

  “For the moment,” Kailynn tried to joke. “I feel like I’m dreaming right now.”

  “Things did happen very quickly,” Isa agreed. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes before turning to Kailynn and taking her hand. “Kailynn,” she started slowly, “I want to tell you something.”

  “You’re making me nervous…”

  “There is no guarantee that I will survive this,” Isa murmured. “As I told you, shutting down Venus requires destroying her source codes, which will kill me. But I was not entirely truthful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hold the other source codes,” she said. She placed her hand over her heart. “I already have them. There is the stationary processor that holds her source codes, and I am the backup. Every Golden Elite before me has held Venus’ source codes for the last hundred years or so.” She squeezed Kailynn’s hand as the former Significant stared at the Elite, trying to understand. “These codes are contained in a processor that is connected to my heart, which is surrounded by a casing in my chest.”

  “How in the hell…”

  “No one knows, except Venus,” Isa said. “The doctors that performed the surgery to change these codes from Gattriel to me are all dead.” Isa took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Dr. Busen has done every scan possible and all the research he can, but he does not entirely know what he will be faced with when he tries to remove the processor and casing.”

  “He’s going to operate on you while we’re hiding in a bunker in the middle of nowhere?” Kailynn choked.

  “Yes,” Isa said. “He, Paul, and the other Elites of the Syndicate have been transferring everything to that location for months. They’ve tried to prepare for everything.” She lowered her eyes. “However, there is still a high risk of this killing me.”

  Kailynn blinked at Isa, trying to let the words sink in, though they continued to bounce around in her brain. She was unable to consider the possibility that Isa could die.