Charles nodded very slowly. “Thank you, Dr. Ekeer.”
“Call me Sahaan,” he added, before Charles had a chance to continue.
“Sahaan. Thank you. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to share that. I… had guessed about how this body was formed from where I woke up. I also think I kind of knew from some half-formed memories of conversations from before I came here. If I’m completely honest, I think you should prepare for more nanite-bodied to come here the way I did.”
The soldiers on the balcony began practically shouting into their handhelds.
“But!” Charles turned toward the balcony and shouted over them. “Listen! It’s important. I don’t remember if there was any interest from others in coming. More of them can come, but most of us don’t want to. I had a particular interest in coming here, one that I, frustratingly, can’t remember. It was unique. No one else has my interest. But maybe some will choose to come. If they do, they will try soon, and I suggest you have somewhere safe for us to live. And, I’m sorry, but I have no way of knowing if the people running the conversion process will choose Citrine again or some other slab of your walls.”
“How many new visitors should we expect?” Sahaan asked.
“Likely one or two. Maybe three or four at the very most,” Charles said. “Four would be extraordinary.”
“What makes you sure about those numbers?”
Charles bit his lip. “I don’t wish to offend you. There’s no delicate way to say this. Remember what I told you yesterday about eating?”
Sahaan nodded.
“What was that exactly?” Bharo asked.
“The process of eating, from the perspective of a nanite-bodied (again, forgive me, but there’s no delicate way to say this), invokes of sense of disgust. In fact, that also goes for the vast majority of your biological processes. Most of them will not want… this. If you are worried about an invasion, I am not aware of one. What I can recall is that once I did what I did, everyone else would understand how I’d done it. Everyone else now knows how to enter the Reclamation the way I did. But most won’t do it. I remember that it’s hard. Since the means of entry removes our physical and mental upgrades, our military wouldn’t be uninterested. Intellectuals? They are more interested in perfecting our home. They do not view any potential for perfection here. Politicians? The journey would be a political setback. Businessmen? The journey would be dangerous and not useful for trade. I cannot see anyone being interested. Except for me. But I do not know all seventeen million others. It seems likely that there exist a handful of other unique individuals who will possess some personality quirk that makes this journey compelling. I cannot tell you how many of those there are.”
Bharo was giving Sahaan that look throughout Charles’s speech. It was the look he gave whenever there would be an impending media disaster. Charles’s confession would also make the civil disorder worse.
“Thank you, Charles. That makes sense. I want you to know, if there’s anything I can do to help you remember why you came here, please let me know what that is. It sounds like the Reclamation had some kind of personal meaning for you. Is that right?”
Charles sat and stared with the most painfully perplexed expression on his face. “I think so. Ugh. It’s the most terrible feeling. I can see the conversations in my memory, but the details are all a jumble. Do you still have physical libraries?”
Sahaan and Bharo shared a look.
“Yes,” Bharo said. “Why? Something to do with why you came here?”
“Maybe…” Charles let his voice trail off, then he added. “If it’s ever possible, I would like to visit one. The nanite-bodied don’t have them anymore. Everything is digital. The guiding principle of our city structures is that they most efficiently house and protect the biological components of our physiognomy. There is no room for a building dedicated to books.”
For the first time, Sahaan saw an expression on Charles’s face that he would interpret as anger. “I think that revision was a move away from perfection rather than toward it.”
“You didn’t like your old home much?” Sahaan tried.
Charles’s face lightened. “There were things I liked. Visiting the central spire of Redwing. Walks down the streets of—” A single tear slide down Charles’s face, and all at once he screamed and slapped at his face.
The soldiers reached for their weapons, and Bharo immediately called up them to hold their fire. Sahaan jolted out of his chair and crouched next to Charles, who was now shaking to the point of spasms, taking Charles’s hands in his own. “Charles! Charles! It’s all right. they’re just tears. It’s perfectly fine.”
Charles closed his eyes, which then sprouted more tears. “What is this? Why am I—? Sadness makes water erupt out my face?”
“Yes,” Sahaan said. “Sadness makes us cry.”
“Why did I do this to myself?” Charles said. “Why? Why did I do this?”
“I don’t know, Charles. But we’ll figure it out together.”
~
Sahaan calmed down Charles, and Bharo calmed down the guards. Food arrived for all three of them, and they ate a solid breakfast, Charles barraging them with questions around the intricacies of table manners throughout.
After they’d finished, Sahaan announced the updated timeline for their departure.
Bharo studied Sahaan at the announcement, and then, half an hour later, excused himself to the surface to make some phone calls. There, certainly, he would discover the deteriorating state of civil order throughout the Reclamation. Sahaan could only hope that getting Charles to the capitol would quell the unease. On the other hand, it would only be a matter of time before Charles’s revelation would leak into the media, and that would certainly make things worse.
Thinking it would be best to keep further revelations until they reached Portal City, Sahaan intentionally kept their conversation light. Charles asked about what other surprises he could expect from his body, some of which he understood were socially fraught, others of which he didn’t. Sahaan did his best to explain.
Bharo returned after about an hour, by which time the conversation had turned to the Reclamation’s two political parties and how they’d come about. Sahaan had explained the history of Mox Thiksay’s children, his daughter Vibha and his son Param. Both had inherited Mox’s fiery spirit, love of history, and determination to protect the Reclamation, but they’d drawn two different conclusions about how to go about it.
Vibha thought that the best defense was to establish formal diplomatic and economic treaties with the nanite-bodied. She was the one who had come up with the term “nanite-bodied,” as opposed to the old term, “deranged,” which everyone had used until that time. In her estimation, the Reclamation could only ensure its continued safety through contact.
Param, on the other hand, thought that defense was only possible through an expansion of the wall network and the advancement of the quantum field science they were based on. Param believed that communicating with the nanite-bodied was a waste of time and ultimately dangerous since it was likely to lead to further hostilities.
Their arguments started young. Mox had already steeped them in Reclamation and Alterran history throughout their youths, and both children were engaged and attentive learners. By the time they were in their teens, their political values had emerged, and they entered in ideological warfare with one another. Rather than come down on one side or the other, or even just calm their debates, Mox encouraged them to argue even more, figuring that the child with the best idea for the future would prevail.
But Mox died very suddenly of a heart attack when Param was only twenty-one and Vibha eighteen. Their mother tried to settle their ideological dispute, but by that point, winning the debate had now become intrinsically tied to winning the approval of the parent who could no longer give it. Their debate took on a personal dimension, and their relationship deteriorated even further. They both entered politics, then Parliament, where they recruited so many others
to their views that they reorganized the five existing political parties into two new ones. Reconciliation formed around Vibha; Guardian around Param.
MPs who represented the hub cities found themselves falling in with Vibha. Their constituencies were largely more affluent, had better access to education, and that meant generally a tendency to view solutions in terms of manipulating the dials of complex systems, systems like social and economic dynamics between populations.
MPs who represented the spoke cities represented a much different population. Less affluent and less well educated, not to mention surrounded on all sides by enemy territory, they tended to see defense in simpler and more obvious terms: walls keep out the enemy; military spending makes us safer. Complex discussions about the defensive properties of treaties and economic agreements were completely ineffective on this group. Such MPs fell in with Param.
Param had also died young, nearly two decades before Vibha. Her brother’s death affected her profoundly. During the last two decades of her life, Vibha had started to see things differently, but her change of heart had proved ineffective against the two-party system, against the political foment that she herself had created, and the bitter contention between Guardian and Reconciliation had continued right up through the present day.
Sahaan was able to tell the whole story, neatly avoiding the fact that Vibha was his grandmother by using her maiden name, Thiksay, instead of her married name, Ekeer, the one he’d inherited.
Charles listened attentively throughout Sahaan’s telling. When he was done, Charles sat quietly for many moments.
“How do you feel about the Thiksays?” Sahaan tried.
“Me?” Charles shrugged. “I don’t know. Stok was a man who wanted to protect his home and save his spouse’s life. I can’t say I blame him too much. I think, if I was more into the idea of perfecting the material world, I might not like him very much, because of what he did, but that’s never really been my thing. There’s something else about how we think about him, but I can’t quite place it.” Charles closed his eyes, shook his head, and yawned. “Sorry. Is it okay if I lie down?”
Sahaan nodded. He glanced at his handheld noticing that it wasn’t even noon yet. He took the opportunity to have a private conversation with Bharo outside of the cell.
“We have to get a good doctor to take a look at him when we get him to Portal City,” Sahaan said. “This is the third time he’s fallen asleep because thinking through his memories overtaxed him.”
“I’ll set that up,” Bharo said.
“How bad is it up there?” Sahaan asked.
“Still getting worse. Enerine, Bengine, and Cynine have requested that Portal City military forces supplement their police force. If this keeps up, the president will be forced to declare martial law, probably tomorrow at the earliest. The more fringe elements of the media are blaring louder than ever. The radical Guardians are encouraging people to overthrow their local governments, saying a nanite doomsday is imminent, and the radical Reconciliationists are demanding we take down the walls ourselves to let in more nanite-bodied envoys.”
“One more favor, then. Find out how Dr. Anaveshan’s group is getting along.”
“Oh? What’s going on with the science division?”
“A team of his is analyzing the area around the pavilion where Charles appeared. They’re trying to figure out how they converted a wall slab into a boy without nanites.”
“Got it. Will do.”
And Bharo was away.
Sahaan returned to watch a sleeping Charles, alone with his old thoughts and feelings about his family. How could he get the two sides to realize that they were both actually on the same side? The rhetoric coming out of both of their extreme elements was ridiculous. Open up the walls? Take up arms against your forced mutation? Insane.
And all because two siblings couldn’t agree on how to solve a problem. It was as though, no matter, how hard he tried, the two factions just pushed further and further away from the mutual understanding he was trying to create.
~
Bharo returned some time later, bringing lunch with him. They managed to rouse Charles, who found himself famished. They spent the afternoon describing more details of Reclamation government. Sahaan tried a few stabs at getting information from Charles about how nanite-bodied government worked, but each time he did, Charles bunched up his face or shook his head or simply stared off into space.
Later on, Sahaan asked for some paper and a pencil, and drew out a map of the Reclamation and the local geography to the best of his ability. “We know there are nanite-bodied cities in these four locations, the closest cities to us.”
Charles nodded. “Oh. Yeah! This one is Archway, this is Eveling, that’s Nightbridge, and on the coast is Northstar.”
Sahaan and Bharo shared a pleased expression. They were the first people in the Reclamation to learn the names of nanite-bodied cities. For eight decades, ever since the launch of the first satellites, Reclamation maps of the world had merely labeled the nanite-bodied cities with question marks, though some fringe Guardian groups were now distributing maps marking them with hazard symbols instead.
Before long, the soldiers on the balcony became more active, moving in and out of the room, talking on their handhelds. More of them appeared, too.
“Everything all right?” Bharo called up.
“Just preparing for the move,” one soldier called down.
A half an hour later, a soldier called down that they would be underway within five minutes.
“Are you ready?” Sahaan asked Charles.
“I think so. How long will it take to get to Portal City?”
“Normally, about three and half hours,” Sahaan said. “But our train won’t be stopping in Adamantine and Adrine like a normal train would.”
“Three hours,” Bharo added. “Give or take.”
“I think I’ll be glad to be in Portal City instead. Even if my… living quarters are much the same.”
“You aren’t a prisoner, Charles.” Sahaan insisted. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I also haven’t proven out my intentions. I’m aware of my position here.”
Sahaan was reminded just then just how un-childlike Charles was, and just how much they’d been through together in their short time here. Now it was time for the next step.
Soldiers called down for Charles, Sahaan, and Bharo to climb the stairs and exit. Sahaan looked back on that drab room with fondness as they left. He caught a glimpse of his empty bag from The Hedgerow on the table as a soldier shut off the lights.
It was time for the next stage in their investigation. It was time to help Charles fully remember his past so that they could determine the true intent of the nanite-bodied. Sahaan wanted an answer to the age-old question. If the nanite-bodied were still basically hostile and Charles were a personality anomaly, then Reconciliation would be forced to adopt a military and scientific stance to defense. If the people who sent Charles here did intend him as an envoy and couldn’t anticipate or prevent his memory loss, then Guardian would be forced to accept that negotiation of territory rights was the new political reality.
Sahaan said a silent goodbye to Citrine. He’d come here intending to teach people about himself and Reconciliation. Instead, the city had taught him quite a bit.
He shut the door to the room and hurried to catch up with the military entourage leading Charles away.
~
They returned to the same van they had used to enter the facility, still parked in the large, vacant, concrete space where they had left it. Soldiers climbed in alongside Bharo and Sahaan, the doors were shut, and the windowless space closed in around them.
Sahaan heard doors opening and closing. The sound of the motor erupted from the front, and then the feeling of motion, turns, inclines, turns again.
They remained silent.
Sahaan found it odd. There had been just as much surveillance in the bunker, and yet here, with the soldiers sittin
g so close beside them, conversation was stifled somehow.
Charles stared at the wall behind Sahaan, and Sahaan watched his expression throughout. He seemed lost in thought, then pensive, then frustrated, then pensive again. All at once, his whole face lit up.
“Sahaan!” Charles sat up straighter. “I’ve remembered something. About our politics—”
The engine stopped and the soldiers stood, interrupting Charles’s sentence.
“What is it?” Sahaan asked.
The doors to the van were being opened, soldiers were all around. They were at a part of the Citrine train station that Sahaan had never seen. A train lay in view, and some ways off was the platform for standard commuter trains, which he recognized. The crates and machinery in this part of the station indicated that they’d be taking a line normally used for freight.
“Should I tell you… here?”
Sahaan glanced around. Beyond a cordon, he could see media representatives ready with handhelds poised to take pictures. “Perhaps not. Let’s wait until the train.”
They walked a short distance to the train. Bharo eyed the media, giving them his flat, cheery-but-distant expression, while Charles, Sahaan noticed, seemed lost in thought. Perhaps trying to remember more.
When they reached the train, the soldiers motioned for Charles to head toward a car in the rear, while Sahaan and Charles were being guided toward the front.
“Wait,” Sahaan said. “We ride with Charles.”
“Orders from the president,” the soldier said.
“Let me see those,” Bharo stepped forward.
“Me too,” Sahaan added.
The soldier, clearly the group’s leader by the rank pinned to his uniform, pulled up his handheld and transferred the document to both Bharo’s and Sahaan’s devices.
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