If she had not been huffing for air, she would have sighed. And yet, I'm getting involved with a group that's a pretty serious threat to the Council.
But they could be effective. That was the key. These people were meticulous, precise, and intelligent. They had an end-game that was realistic and could be achieved, in theory.
And what was she to do? Stay in the shadows forever? Grow old worrying about the Guides setting her in their sights? Refusing to let anyone get close enough that she could confide in them? What sort of a life was that?
Sela could never tell the people at Hannan her secrets, but she could share their secrets and actually be a part of something. That would help her deal with the… loneliness she felt often. Whenever her thoughts settled on her parents, or even when she allowed herself a daydream of meeting Gideon Blaize.
A wry chuckle splintered her deep breathing as she looked around off the bridge. All those people down there, and she felt lonely. Gideon Blaize was one person she could never meet, since she had turned down her chance to go to Sovereign City.
Desmond was nice though, and she didn't have to imagine talking to him. By the time they had parted ways yesterday, she had almost grown comfortable with him.
He was nice.
She didn't smile thinking about that. Knowing that she could smile was enough.
By the time she retraced her path back to her building, the sky had brightened. Mango and banana pastels smeared the horizon where the sun would soon carry day over Megora. Sela could already feel morning warmth driving the night chill off the lake.
She jumped in for a quick shower, dressed in clothes slightly nicer than her usual, and then grabbed a vegetable smoothie from the refrigerator. The vanilla taste didn't quite cover up the pungent nutrients. It was healthy, though.
Sitting down at her small kitchen table, Sela started up her tablet, browsing immediately to the SovereignCast website. It hadn't been there the past few days. Megora's crack team of programmers had gotten the upper hand in the cyberwar.
Inevitably, SovereignCast returned, even if it took a few days, or sometimes as much as a week. It was up now. Sela started the video.
A narrator spoke, "Sovereign City. A people strong and unified." The video showed stock imagery of a soccer game, a production line tended by skilled workers, a business meeting, and families playing in the park, some with dogs and others picnicking.
"That is who we are to the world, and it is true, we are strong," the narrator's voice spoke such that every word was riveting, somehow matching the various images.
"But why are we strong? Why are the mighty enemies of our small city unable to subdue us?"
A video of a canned food drive, "The key to success is open and honest exchange. No one is cast out of Sovereign City because of what they believe.
"Here in our schools we have our own example." The feed showed a stage play, performed in an outdoor theater with a thousand people blanketing the grassy field around the amphitheater.
"Last month, the University of Sovereign City's Literary Society performed a marvelous reproduction of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, a classic in American literature."
The stage showed a trial, with each actor in period costumes, gesticulation. The narration went on, "And this month at the same venue, Midpoint High's Acting Club produced a riotous version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, adapted for the stage by one of the students."
A broad banner displayed a line behind the actors, but Sela hadn't finished reading it before the broadcast went on. It tickled at her mind as she listened on.
"Two completely different works, both once taught to every child in America. Miller taught us not to be too hasty in our judgment, and Orwell taught us not to be sluggish in passing good judgment."
Splitting the screen, snippets of each play showed side by side. "Many people attended both plays, and every act won applause. In Sovereign City, we recognize the value of hard work and excellence, and we revere the writings of those great men, Miller the American, and the British Orwell.
"There is wisdom in listening politely to both sides. Sovereign City places no limitations on discourse. Anyone may say whatever they like, and others may answer in kind."
Numerous platforms filled an eight-way split screen, each cell displaying different debates, some with multiple speakers on each side, other debates between only two people.
"One of the marvelous effects of the old American openness to free speech is that it encourages civility and unity in disagreement.
"Some may worry that unregulated speech would lead to discord, hurt feelings, and chaos. But Sovereign City proves each day that complete free speech gives each person an equal right to express his opinion.
"Because no opinions are suppressed by our government, those who feel strongly can make their case. What's more they're often met with counterpoints
A black and white image of a generic-looking man with his mouth taped shut sprang forward. "When disfavored ideas are suppressed, the do not go away. In fact, they are vindicated because they become victims who are unfairly quashed. And no one ever truly challenges those ideas, because no debate is permitted."
The shot shifted to a large convention room, probably in a plush hotel. Hundreds of people spoke in dozens of little groups, milling about, most of them smiling and sipping on champagne.
"In Sovereign City, free speech means every idea has a voice, every notion gets a hearing, and we're better off for it."
The images faded, except where capitalized and emboldened letters spelled out the words "LIVE FREE OR DIE".
That video was followed by several reruns before it cycled back to the free speech spot. Sela glanced at the clock on the tablet, and then powered it off. She had to leave soon, if she wanted to catch Gaines before anyone else got there.
While she rode the elevator, her mind drifted back to the banner she only glimpsed. Then she remembered why the words seemed familiar. Her mother had once spoken them to her father, or at least a modified version of the phrase.
Her father had come home to the Wallis family's luxurious apartment in the Tower of Hope. The evening was already becoming night. Sela and her mother had assumed he was working late.
Instead, he had gone to a meeting with his brother, Sela's Uncle Steffen. Uncle Steffen was eternally excitable. Sela's only memories of Uncle Steffen from her earlier life were his tirades berating the American culture, the government, and the Constitution.
That night, Sela was coming into the kitchen to get a glass of water. She heard her father slump into a chair and mutter, "I don't know, Sarah. I just…"
Pausing just outside the entryway, Sela caught her breath. Her father had grown more haggard lately. As the storms and turmoil outside Megora had grown worse, as more and more people were being driven into the Remaking's supercities, Sela's parents seemed to tighten and compress under the pressure of all the changes.
"What is it, Alan?" Sela's mother asked. A hint of anxious worry in her voice tweaked the same emotion into Sela's throat.
"I have… tried and tried; Steffen just will not listen," his voice was tired and frustrated.
"The meeting, then?"
Alan Wallis drew a slow, deep breath and sighed, "No one on that committee is even interested in bringing any of it up to the Council. They're all worried it could cost them their livelihood."
"It could cost them their lives." Sarah Wallis spoke the words quietly, but Sela heard with a chill, and felt her eyebrows rise.
She knew the Council did some short-sighted things, made laws without really thinking them through. But killing people for their opinions? No, that couldn't happen. It couldn't!
She waited for her father to rebut her mother's statement, but he said, "If I could at least get to Steffen though, that would be some traction."
The kitchen was silent for a few seconds. Then Sela jumped when she heard her father's palm slap down thickly on the table, "He knows about all this, too! He knows! That's what galls me!"
Sarah spoke again, "He knows what he has."
"Yeah, but I didn't think he could be bought so easily! My own brother, my own…" Alan tapered off in frustration.
Neither Sela nor her mother had ever really liked Uncle Steffen. Sela found him to be odd and a little wild-eyed, too happy all the time, and yet eager to rant whenever the wrong topic crept up. Hungry for rage.
Sela never knew why her aunt had left her Uncle Steffen, but she always thought that would be a good reason. How could you live with someone like that?
Sarah broke the silence in the kitchen, "Well, has the Council decided about Leon?"
Cousin Leon was even worse. He was willfully malicious, cruel, and invasive. Sela had never liked him from the first moment she met him. Uncle Steffen never thought anything Leon did was wrong. He always made excuses, like insisting that Leon was merely rambunctious and creative, never twisted.
Sela knew that he was vile. He was in the junior Guides program, already muscling his fellow junior high kids around at school. Sela was thankful she was a freshman already.
"Full scholarship."
"Already granted?" Sarah asked incredulous.
Alan must have nodded, "The Council appreciates all of my brother's hard work." He spoke the word like it was a dart thrown at the wall.
"So they hand out privilege and prestige, and leave the rest of Megora…?" Sarah let the question fall off. It was unnecessary between the two, though Sela had not heard much about how everyone else lived in Megora.
The Tower of Hope was its own little enclave for those who lived there and worked there. Sela had never been to many of the districts, none where average people were assigned. Her father had been important to the Remaking, worth bedazzling with fine accoutrements.
So she spent her days in a school in the Tower of Hope, going to extravagant parks in the nicer areas, going to the fanciest malls and restaurants. It never occurred to her that Megora wasn't the same in every district, with easy, wonderful lives for everyone.
"I hate to say it, Sarah, but you were right. You were right all along."
"Hollow victory," Sela's mother replied sadly. After a pause she said, "But I told you so."
He laughed bitterly, and then sighed away the last of his forlorn hope vested in the Tower. "I thought we would all be equal."
"We are," Sarah said. "But some of us are more equal than others."
That had been the first time Sela had realized that the problems with Megora and the Provisional Council weren't just temporary setbacks. Something was truly wrong. Something fundamental.
That was also the first time Sela noticed her father agreeing with her mother on the issue of the Provisional Council. Her mother had been opposed to the Remaking from the start, although she kept her disapproval very private.
Sela's mother hadn't even denounced the Council to her as a child. Still, Sela could read the distaste in her mother's eyes every time the Agency of Vision mandated a new speech be watched, or every time the evening programs went out of their way to jab at those who opposed the Remaking. Her mother's eyebrows would quirk with silent annoyance, maybe even anger.
Sarah Wallis always kept it bottled up inside. She had argued against moving to Megora, but Sela's father was not to be dissuaded. Uncle Steffen had cast so many flowers into her father's eyes, he couldn't see the roots being pulled up to make it possible.
Of course, her mother grew more vocal as her father began to shift his opinions. And over time, Uncle Steffen came to their apartment less frequently. Sela wondered if her Uncle stayed away because he might be forced to turn Sela's mother over to the Guides. Perhaps he avoided that only because of his familial ties.
A few years went by as conditions in Megora became clearer, not just to Alan Wallis, but the whole family. The system was rank with hypocrisy and corruption, and brutality. Rules written by the elites were enforced, either ruthlessly or selectively, depending upon what the Guides decided to do with the mandates handed down.
Now and then, people disappeared without a trace from the Tower of Hope. When those vanishing acts were investigated, nothing was turned up, and the matters were quietly dropped, time after time.
Then, a few months after graduation, Sela's mother went to the hospital. It wasn't an illness. Nor was it an accident.
Sela's father must have had some rudimentary plans in place, because within twenty-four hours, she had been sent away, stashed a lower-class district until passage out of Megora and to Sovereign City could be secured.
And…
Sela looked around, finding she had walked almost to the magtrains, scarcely paying any attention to her surroundings. That was unwise, even if she was hidden in a sea of strangers. She had to be wary of any threat looming, Guide or mugger.
Dangling her fingers through the open top of her purse, she took the stairs down all the way to the transportation deck. She only had to wait a minute or so for the first train to arrive.
Midweek traffic crammed the compartments. All told, it took an hour for Sela to get from her apartment to Gaines' hide, stashed behind the bakery.
As she weaved her way to the door, she met Gaines strolling in easily, his larger size lending him the ability to push past pedestrians. "Sela, Desmond said you'd be coming by sometime." He carried a large cup of coffee and a bag, probably doughnuts.
"Hello, Gaines," she said, jostling among those doing business on the black markets.
Gaines unlocked the door and stifled a yawn past his bristly beard. He was not a morning person, which is why he arrived at his 'office' anytime between quarter to nine and half-past ten.
Sela entered first, since Gaines held the door open for her and gestured with his coffee, a paper bag pinched between his middle and ring finger. The door closed while the lights flickered on.
The storehouse was messy as ever, and the stench of yesterday's cigar still hung in the air, even though the smoke had long since settled.
"Grab a chair, Sela," Gaines set down his breakfast on top a pile of tablets on his desk and rubbed his face, yawning again.
Sela selected a chair leaning against the wall and unfolded it, nudging a box out of the way with her foot to set it down on the asbestos tile. Knowing there was a dusting of ash on it, she stepped into the tiny bathroom in the back, grabbed a handful of toilet paper, and used it to wipe down the seat and the back.
"You want a doughnut?" He dug into the bag with meaty hands.
Sela shook her head, sitting down and holding her purse on her lap, "No thanks, Gaines."
"How about half a crêpe?" He tore one side of the bag down to the bottom and folded the two halves of paper down. There was a clear container with four plain glazed doughnuts in a row, under that was a smaller package of wax paper wrapped around something much flatter and broad than it was thick.
"A crêpe?" Sela asked. "What's in it?"
Gaines counted on one his free hand, the other hand lifting his coffee, "Bacon, ham, eggs, two types of cheese, and spinach."
She rolled her eyes, "All that and spinach too?"
"People say it's healthy," Gaines shrugged and flipped the top off his coffee.
"Thanks, but I'm alright," Sela grinned and shook her head. Why bother with the spinach when the rest of your breakfast is an infarction factory? "But help yourself."
Gaines already had a fork in hand. "Don't mind if I do."
"So Desmond said you'll still be handling my pay and everything," Sela said.
"Yeah, that was the arrangement for now. You're—" he took a bite of the crêpe and chewed. She could almost see the caffeine working into his system. His eyes brightened and his shoulders straightened.
Gaines grunted, "Man, that's good. Even with the spinach, that's a good crêpe. Bacon's so expensive right now, but this is worth it." He swallowed and leaned back to one side in his chair. "Yeah, you're… an independent contractor. I'm your broker as always, so they're paying me to pay you."
"And give me most of my data and
such?"
Gaines took a sip of his coffee and replied, "Some of it. Some they'll give you directly, but I have a lot of what you'll need for this first thing they want."
"Not all of it?"
"Well, Desmond is going to be working with you to help you prepare." He took a bite of a doughnut and then picked up the fork again. Still chewing, Gaines shrugged, "That is, so long as you take the job."
Sela shifted in her seat, still battling out the pros and cons of the choice she had already made. If I turn down the first job, that'd pretty much be it, wouldn't it? she thought. She would have to at least take a look at it.
"What's the job?"
Gaines chewed as he bent over and opened a drawer, pulling out an envelope. "S'all in here." He swallowed and tossed her the package.
It was a manila envelope, the sort with air pockets for mailing something fragile. Pressing her fingers against it, she couldn't feel anything. "Is there anything in here?"
"Micro-memory chip. Plug it into a secure tablet."
"Do you know what's on it?"
Gaines cut another bite of the crêpe off and shook his head, "They pay me better for discretion."
Sela squinted her eyes. Then why were they bothering to go through Gaines at all? "Are you handling my ghost time for it?"
"Nah, they'll use their own broker for that. Dez never buys work time from me. I arranged some time for him once but he claimed it was personal."
So much for discretion, Sela thought. Of course, the best sort of discretion was where you truly didn't know what was going on in the first place. Gaines was professional about that.
Still, it was concerning that the Hannan group wasn't dealing with her directly for this. They weren't even having Desmond pay her or anything. Gaines already had an arrangement with her, so that was fine, but it prickled her sense of danger.
"What?" Gaines asked, leaning back from the food. "You look like someone gave you a calculus problem or something."
The Remaking Page 11