Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (11 page)

Finally, there’s one screen left, and Ritter swipes the logger screen gently. His face softens.

“This one is Linney’s,” he says softly. I look. Function level three, date of death May 16 of last year. Exactly one year prior to the day that Ritter and I collided on Attero.

I look up at him, but I don’t say anything. There are unshed tears in his eyes.

“She had a bad year,” he rasps, looking down at the device in my hands. I doubt he really sees it. “She lost her grandparents, who raised her, within a month of each other.  Her grandfather was a guardian. He was killed in a freak patrol accident. Her grandmother developed a rare form of cancer that our discoverers haven’t found a cure for yet.  She was grieving. She wasn’t herself.  Her moods, you know, they were sometimes dark. Sometimes she didn’t care what happened to her, didn’t take the medicines dispensed by the MedQuick.”

He meets my eyes now, and his are fierce. “I know all of that must sound exactly like someone who would kill herself, but I’m telling you, Davinney. Linney didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t. No matter how bad she was feeling, she just wouldn’t.”  He bends down and grabs the messenger bag. In jerky movements he takes the device from me, swipes the screens and stuffs it inside the bag. “And these files?” He shakes the bag. “These are proof.  There’s no way it’s just a coincidence that the poor functioners are the only ones dying.”

I can’t argue with that.  “Are those all of the poor functioners, or just some of them?”

“They’re just some of the poor functioners in this quadrant for one month of reviews. I haven’t started researching other quadrants yet, let alone the area or the zone, but I bet it will the same. That all of the suicides are coming from the low functioners group.”

“If these aren’t suicides, who’s responsible? And why?  Why is someone killing the low functioners?” I ask, the image of Linney’s screen still burned on my brain.  I don’t let myself wonder about her, this other version of me.  The one whose grandparents were still alive but whose parents must be dead. The opposite of me in that regard.

“It’s got to be the local Tribunal,” he says.  “They’re the keeper of the standards. They’re the ones that rank every functioner to determine housing and allotment levels. They’re the only ones with enough power and the right information. I don’t know why they would do it, though. I can’t figure that part out.  But I think it’s clear that they’ve decided that the low functioners are expendable.”

My jaw drops. Expendable?  Just because they aren’t working hard enough or well enough?  They’re people. They’re human. Everyone has bad days, months, even the off year.  One bad enough review and you’re put to death?

I’m still angry, but the urge to physically strike out at Ritter has faded. It is strange enough to think of Linney being dead. It’s impossible to think of her being murdered. She’s not me, yet she is. Was.

“Why did you come looking for me?  I’m not Linney.” I try to say it as gently as I can, but there is an unmistakable edge to my voice.

“I know you aren’t the same person, but you’re the same genetically.” He replies, staring down at her picture. “I thought I might be able to get genetic material from you that I could give to Strega and ask him to screen for the suicide mutations.”

“The what?”

“Years ago, our discoverers mapped a mutation in a gene called SKA2.  Their research showed that extremely low levels of SKA2 are found in persons who commit suicide. And there’s another mutation in the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor that also increases the risk of suicide.”

“And if Strega found those mutations?” I ask. “What would that mean?”

Ritter’s eyes meet mine. “It could mean that someone found a way to exploit those mutations and essentially force people with the mutations to commit suicide. That’s why you kept catching me staring at you. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get close enough to you to get what I needed.”

“What did you need to run the test? Blood? Spit? Hair?”

“According to what I’ve read, blood. I didn’t exactly ask Strega. He knows I’ve been looking for Linney’s scriers. But he doesn’t know why.”

I bark out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, I was really going to go for that, Ritter.” Dark feelings continue to stab at me. “So, you take me away from my home, put me in a coma for a week, then put me in shock for most of another, all because you thought you might somehow be able to explain that you’re from another dimension, on my planet to find your dead girlfriend’s scrier and, gee, can you just have a little spot of my blood for genetic testing?”  I wait a beat.  “Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”

He looks sheepish.  “I thought if I could talk with you I could slip some sleepbringer in your drink—”

“You were going to Roofie me? What’s the matter with you?”

He cringes at my indignant cry. “Once you were asleep, I’d collect the blood sample, take you someplace safe, and be gone by the time you woke up.” When he sees that this admission horrifies me, he’s even more chagrined. “It was all I could think to do, Davinney. I’m sorry.  And for the record, I didn’t have any intention to bring you back with me. I can’t make you believe it, but that part was truly accidental.”

I roll his murders-disguised-as-suicides theory around in my mind. The pieces all seem to be there but they still won’t fall into place. Suddenly weary, I glance down at the picture of the girl with my DNA. I want to forgive him for his mistake, but I still feel set up, betrayed. Toyed with. And, realizing why, anger flares back up like a fire doused with accelerant.

“Why didn’t you seek Linney’s DNA out in an open world, Ritter? Why did you even take the risk of something like this happening?  There are how many parallels, how many of them open?”

Ritter looks caught, flinching at my words. He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“Maybe you
should
be disposed of,” I cry, leaping from the sofa to shout down at him, “if you don’t have the sense to realize you could have avoided totally destroying my life by shopping another world for Linney’s double!”

This pushes a button in Ritter. He’s on his feet, now, too, snarling in my face like a riled dog. “I messed up! How many times can I apologize?  It’s a horrible mistake and if I could take it back, I would!  I’ve been talking to people, risking a whole separate reason for Disposal asking the kinds of questions I’ve been asking, trying to find a loophole, a guaranteed way to get you home! And I’m sorry I haven’t found one. But let me get one thing very, very clear for you before you go to the Tribunal and send me to my death.  You’re making some dangerous and, frankly, stupid assumptions, even for someone from a closed world!”

He’s been so sheepishly apologetic since I’ve known him that his fury has backed me into a corner of the room. Both of us are breathing as if we just ran a marathon. He seems to come back to himself, to realize I’m all but cowering now, but he doesn’t step back, and his voice is still cold.

“A scrier isn’t as easy to find as you think. Linney Benchley was the name of my fiancée, Davinney. Linney
Benchley
. I’ve searched numerous open worlds for her likeness and haven’t found it. She could live in any location, she could go by any name, and she could look significantly different in any given parallel. There’s only so much function-free time in a year. It’s not like I can just sliv off whenever I feel the urge, I’ve got a function level of my own to maintain. And it’s not like there’s a directory of every person in every parallel. You know how I found you? Do you have any idea how it happened?”

I don’t answer. I wait.

“By accident. A coincidence that is so completely impossible, I can barely believe it myself. Your grandparents aren’t Benchleys, are they?” He asks pointedly, challengingly.

I shake my head.

“No, they’re not,” he agreed. “I searched Linney’s family tree as far and as wide as I could. I’ve searched for those names in every world I’ve slivved to, open or closed. Nothing. Zero.  But you do know a Benchley, one you’re not related to at all, don’t you?”

I do. My father’s best friend, a pilot named Richard Benchley.

Ritter doesn’t wait for an answer. I guess he can see it on my face. “Well, guess what?  He’s your father’s brother.”

I’ve known my father was adopted since I was old enough to understand what adoption is. But he’s never known his birth family. My stomach drops to my knees. What are the odds of them meeting and becoming best friends, all while secretly being brothers?

But then, what are the odds of someone being dragged into a sudden awareness of multiple dimensions?

Ritter backs up now, his voice gentling. “Davinney, I don’t know what that story is, but here, on Concordia, Linney’s father’s name was David Benchley, not David Keith. His brother, Richard, is still alive. He lives on the other side of the world. And I stumbled onto you on Attero because I started looking for every possible relative I could find. So maybe it isn’t a total accident, maybe it was research. But surely you can see how difficult, how unlikely it is you’ll ever find one person in billions using just the names you know.”

I don’t have an answer to that. We both know he’s right, but I don’t want to admit it.

“How did you meet her?” I ask softly. I know I should apologize, but every time Ritter opens his mouth, he opens a fresh wound, whether or not he means to. I have an uncle. My dad’s best friend is his brother, and my dad may never know that. He searched for his family for years, and he gave up in defeat. It is an emptiness no one can fill for him, one he does his best not to acknowledge, but sometimes he’ll say something to me or Mom that lets us know he still wonders, still hurts. And it hurts me now. All these things I’ve learned that I can’t unlearn and can’t do anything with.

He doesn’t answer for so long I think he won’t.  “I met her on the anniversary of my parents’ deaths. She was at the Challenge hall, doing the same as I was. Every year I go there and find their names on the memorial and have a picnic on the front grounds.”

“Her parents died in the slide accident, too?”

He nodded. “They were taking a second honeymoon. That’s why she was raised by her grandparents.”

I think of my parents and how they always talk about doing the same.  I wish I could tell them to stop talking about it and do it. You never know when your life will change.

I run out of questions.  Ritter looks like he wants to say something to me, but in the end, he just picks up the bag and stuffs it back in the unit closet. He takes Linney’s now unframed picture and tucks it gently in the drawer it came from. When he starts sweeping up the glass, I turn away.  It seems we keep building and destroying and building again, the clock inching closer to Tribunal, and I am no closer to deciding whether I will stand for Ritter or not.

10

TRIBUNAL DAY.

We take a series of slides I’ve never ridden before.  Strega and Ritter are solemn and still, saying nothing. They blink and stare ahead. For Strega, this isn’t a big change.  Heavier more than thoughtful, maybe, but for Ritter it is profound and unnerving.  He’s been shooting me looks all morning, but after leaving his keeping, he’s been careful not to look at me or speak to me. I want to talk to him, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t be reassuring.

I waited to drink down the sleepbringer last night until I knew I’d be a zombie if I didn’t. I turned thoughts over and over and over again until my head was so full of contradiction I thought I’d never sleep.

The underground tunnels blur by in fits and starts, a series of rollercoaster dips and climbs as we stop station by station to pick up riders. They chatter, especially the young children.  This is a route to many of the function onboards, and the kids wear the uniforms of the functions they hope to find listed in their Challenge results one day….mostly guardians for the boys and caretakers for the girls.  Children are the same everywhere I guess. The boys want to change the world by force, and the girls by nurturing.

I don’t know what to do, whether I can stand for Ritter when the pain is so fresh, so renewed.  I have come to accept that my father’s status as a military officer is only a desperate pipe dream. Yesterday, in his explanations, Ritter unwittingly informed me that there is no escape clause. He’s tried. That’s what he said. He’s researched ways to get me home…even ways which must violate the standards. He’s come up empty.

I can’t go home, at least not by any legal means currently known.  I can hold out hope that I’ll discover some way to do it, some underground movement. In Arizona and other states that border Mexico, we have Coyotes…people who smuggle Mexican citizens across the border for money.  Maybe they have something similar for the parallels, maybe they don’t. I don’t know enough about Concordia yet to even understand whether it is possible, but it is and has been a persistent
what-if
in the back of my mind.

Every time I think I’ve made a decision about standing for Ritter, a fresh thought invades and trips me up. If I’m stuck here, Ritter has warned that I must assimilate.  His picture of what it looks like seems to be much different than Mina’s.  The closure of the launch sites also seems ominous. I remember Mina’s message from Ollie that I should do the best I can to assimilate because people are disappearing. I wonder if these new preparations that look like military training to Ollie have any connection to the suicides Ritter thinks are murders.

I’m suddenly struck by an image of the woman who stepped in front of the slide. I was so consumed with Ritter’s true reason for searching me out — Linney — that I hadn’t even thought about her again. And I should have. Could she be one of Ritter’s low functioners?

But now isn’t the time, either.
After Tribunal,
I promise myself. But what if there is no afterward for Ritter?  What if he gets disposed?
Then I’ll get Strega to look into it, in honor of Ritter.

The relief I feel when the final slide stops is a strange juxtaposition to the moisture on my palms and the tightening of my chest. I’m glad to be away from the carefree chatter of the kids and the question of whether or not I’ll get to tell Ritter about the slide suicide, but I’m not happy to stand here, outside the high, gleaming glass tower that is the Tribunal building.

“C’mon, Davinney,” Ritter says flatly, watching me stare up at it like it’s a giant hypodermic needle. It sort of looks like one.

It takes a few seconds to get myself to move. I hear my breath coming quickly, and my cheeks begin to burn. I know they can hear it, too. Even Ritter, who’s been walking resolutely in front of Strega and me.

I am so accustomed to court scenes at home…gleaming, heavy wood furnishings, an imposing bench for the judge, a seated riser for the jury, and two tables with enough chairs to seat the opposing legal teams and their clients.  And behind it all, a place for the interested public to sit and watch as lives are determined. And sometimes deaths.

There is no metal detector to pass through.  When we step into the ground floor of the Tribunal, there’s a simple curve of glass. Behind it sits a pleasant brunette woman. She’s more elegant than a receptionist. More like a seasoned concierge.  She offers us use of the on-site ScanX in case we are hungry or thirsty, as if we were merely meeting someone for brunch.  I remember what Ritter said and ask for water. He does the same.

There are two hallways, one on the left, another on the right.  I can just barely make out the lines of what looks like an elevator on either side. In the center behind the glass desk is a simple set of frosted glass doors.  A chill sweeps through me.  More than ever the ubiquitous presence of so much glass seems cold. Detached. The outcomes are of little consequence here. Life will go on, regardless of our fates.

“Davinney,” the brunette says, pronouncing my name exactly right.  “Ritter.” She hands him a glass of water which he passes to me.  She hands him another for himself, and I try not to notice his hand shaking as he takes it.  “Follow me, please.”

Past the double doors is a large room which in some ways does resemble a courtroom.  There is a place at the back with seating.  There are people seated there already.  I don’t recognize all of them, but I see some of Ritter’s family, as well as Melayne and Scuva, who sit with their hands linked.  Mina is there, and her eyes meet mine as I pass. She winks at me.  I wish I could say it makes me feel better, but it doesn’t. 

Strega’s and Ritter’s parents are sitting stone-faced in the middle of the front row.  Strega joins them. The resemblance is even clearer in person.  They don’t look afraid.  They don’t look optimistic or hopeful, either.  They don’t look any way at all. Like Strega, they are contained. I am too far away to see their eyes, and I am glad. I am afraid if I could, I might see our fates written there.

There are no tables in front of the public seating. No chairs, either.  There’s only a platform.  Ahead of us is another slightly higher platform but no imposing bench, no intimidating witness stand, and no space allotted for a jury of our peers.  It is the Tribunal of All that will decide our outcomes.  Behind the higher platform is a huge mesh wall stretching upward for several stories. I wonder if they intend for the room to make its occupants feel impossibly small.

There is no separation of violator from violated.  I can’t imagine standing here unprotected, such as if I were the victim of rape or assault or attempted murder.  The faith that Concordia has in the Disposal as a deterrent strikes me as horribly naïve.  What is to stop a psychopath from reaching out and strangling his victim? What is to stop a violator from shooting all three members of the local Tribunal in their heads?

Ritter and I stand together on the shorter platform, close enough that when he shifts his weight his arm brushes my shoulder.  I try to catch his eyes but he stares straight ahead as if he were a robot waiting for a command.  He swallows noisily, however, his jaw twitching.

Two men and a woman enter the room from behind the mesh wall.  I recognize them from Ritter’s teachings: Janat Hisham, Millick Vincent, and Danig Magnas…Concordia’s local Tribunal, Zones one through three.

Janat is short and stocky. She’s both plain and harsh looking. Like the men, she wears the simple white uniform of the Tribunal, tailored and clean. Her hair is short and well-styled.  With all of the advances in medical science, very few people on Concordia wear glasses. Those who do are persons who would be considered legally blind on Attero. Janat wears a pair of metal framed glasses. I wonder if she really needs them or whether, like some people on Earth, she wears them to invoke a certain image of herself.

Janat holds nothing…no cards or papers of any kind. I wonder how she can so easily recall our names. “Davinney Keith, the violated,” she says without inflection, “and Ritter Boone, the violator.  Ritter Boone has violated the theft standard by returning to Concordia with Davinney Keith, formerly of the closed world, Attero.”

Formerly.

My heart skips.  Millick and Danig nod solemnly, saying nothing.  They could be brothers, both tall and gangly with bony faces and the uptight sort of dignity observed in elderly Victorian-era men.

Turning to face the mesh wall, Janat says, “Tribunal of All is now in session. Members who are present, please scroll through.”

What I thought was a mesh wall, metal with thousands of tiny openings, is actually a large field of screens that enlarge and shrink one by one, very rapidly, revealing names and faces no one could possibly have time to recognize.  The only reason I know they are people at all is because when it finishes, the last screen stays enlarged, revealing a somber male face for a few seconds before the screens arrange themselves into one large frame that reads, “11,432”.  Janat blandly calls out, “Let the recording show there are 11,435 members in attendance today, including us of the local Tribunal.”

I wonder how many worlds that is. If Concordia has three Tribunal members, and Ritter said the leader of each of Attero’s countries make up our Tribunal, I wonder how many other Earths are represented here and whether anyone accounts for the vast differences in the number of appointed members per world.

Janat proceeds to read the Agreement in its entirety, a startlingly simple document considering the contract it represents.  In a nutshell, much as Ritter described, open worlds are open to all slivvers, incoming or outgoing.  Closed worlds are open to slivvers from other parallels but do not allow their own residents to sliv or even to know that parallel worlds exist.  Ritter told me that Attero, in particular, holds them, at least publicly, to be merely science fiction.  In the distant past, any persons attempting to verify or publish evidence to the contrary were executed. More recently, such persons face public ridicule and are labeled crackpots and conspiracy theorists. I think how true that is…they are lumped together in the same category as people who genuinely believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or in UFOs. No one takes them seriously except other crackpots and conspiracy theorists.

“Ritter Boone,” Janat says, blinking slowly as she assesses him, reminding me very much of a bored housecat.  “Do you understand that by violating the theft standard, you face possible Disposal?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice rough.

“Please explain to the Tribunal, then, the facts and circumstances as you see them.”

From the corner of my eye, I see his jaw work for a few moments before he manages to speak. “I was standing on a public street on Attero. Davinney was there.” His head twitches a little as, I think, he starts to look my way but changes his mind. “I’d been following her, staring at her, and it scared her. And then I wanted to talk to her, to apologize, but that only scared her more.  She started to run away from me. She didn’t notice a car coming down the street. I shoved her hard, to clear her from its path. Then I hit the H.IT.” His voice grows desperate. “I don’t know how she ended up here. I don’t remember any part of me still touching her after the shove, but there had to be something still in contact…my clothes, a — a fingertip. Something,” he finishes miserably.

Janat’s hand swoops out to the side as if she were a game show hostess showing off a lovely prize he’d just won.  Instead, from the ceiling, an object appears. A BAU, I realize as Ritter dutifully steps forward.  The three of them who make up the local Tribunal suddenly look up at the ceiling. A shifting from the back tells me the spectators are doing the same. I tilt my head back, but just like my own BAU results in holding, what I see means nothing to me.

“Let the recording show that Ritter Boone has spoken the truth,” Janat says, turning her piercing eyes on me.  “Davinney Keith,” she continues, folding her hands in front of her, “do you understand that the result of the Agreement between Attero, a closed world, and Concordia, an open world, is such that you are not permitted to return home again?”

“I understand that’s the typical outcome,” I reply, looking Ritter’s way. Nothing.

“Do you disagree with any of the facts given by Ritter Boone?”

Why does she insist on always using our full names?
Because using just our first names is too familiar. If she does that, we become people instead of violated and violator.

“It’s all a blur for me, really.  I hit my head.”

“Do you fully understand that you will never return to Attero, the world you call home, and that you will never see your friends and family again?”

Why is she doing this to me? Why is she asking again and again?  Does she want me to break down? Rage? Cry?

I nod. “Y-yes.” The word falls reluctantly from my lips.

“How do you feel about Ritter Boone? About the life he has stolen from you?” For the first time, Janat’s voice is not flat. It’s sympathetic. Her brow furrows and creases form at the corners of her eyes.

“Ritter said that in high profile cases, you’ve sent people back to closed worlds,” I blurt brazenly. Immediately afterward, I’m paralyzed by fear of retribution. A lightning bolt, perhaps, or maybe the platform will collapse like a trapdoor, and I’ll fall and fall forever.

Suddenly the screens arrange themselves into a huge image of me with everything from my height and weight to my home address written below it.