Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (21 page)

17

WHEN I REACH the keeping that afternoon, it’s empty. Ritter, I know, is probably still functioning. He’s still staying late but generally makes it back before I hit the rift each night. If he doesn’t, he logs. Strega, on the other hand, is usually already there when I arrive.

I am starting to worry about him when I hear footsteps.

“Oh,” I say, blinking at Ritter as he sets his logger on the little shelf just inside the meldway. “I thought you’d be Strega.”

Ritter grins. “You mean I beat him here?”

I nod.

Ritter heads into his unit to change out of his function wear and into lounge around clothes. “I’m sure he’ll be along any minute.”

Three logs go unanswered as the evening wears on. I’ve submitted myself to the MedQuick in lieu of Strega’s caretaking, and my eyelids are growing heavy when he bursts into the room.

“You’re right, Ritter,” Strega says, clearly rattled. “I didn’t think you could be, not about this, but you were. You are.”

He’s pale. His hand trembles as he rubs it across his chin and up over his eyes. The bleakness in them is like ice water dumped over my head. I’m fully awake now, trying to reconcile this version of Strega with the stoic version I’ve come to know. “They aren’t suicides. They’re murders.”

Ritter and I wait as Strega paces, shaking his head. I’ve never seen him so worked up. Finally Ritter steps in front of him, takes him by the shoulders, and asks, “What happened?”

“A man named Carter Dillis was brought into holding today after he jumped from a fourth story window in the Tribunal building.  He was loosening fast.  He pressed these into my hand,” Strega says, fanning out five function plates in front of us. Business cards.

“He gave me these plates and said, ‘Next to end’.  When I tried to dose him so we could operate, he fought off the injector and started going on and on about Concordia violating the theft standard over and over again, taking whatever it wants from other parallels and giving nothing back. He said slivvers who come here go back memory wiped, their electronics fried by electromagnetic pulse to ensure Concordia and its allies remain technologically elite in the multiverse. Yet our slivvers return to Concordia with all sorts of valuable information from other parallels about new technology, medical advances…all the information we withhold from others by frying their electronics and stealing their memories. He said the Tribunal of All has grown weary of the bullies. Some of the other members are aiming to start a war against Concordia and its allies.”

Something in Strega’s face as he reaches out toward me and then pulls away brings a lump to my throat.  “Attero’s leading the charge,” he says, rubbing his hand over his face again.

I could be looking at Ritter considering how animated Strega is. Panic rises in me as his jaw twitches.

“But how can a closed world start a war at all?” I ask. “Wouldn’t that mean acknowledging the multiverse?”

He tosses his head as if to rattle the words out.  “Apparently Attero’s got a secret group of discoverers who’ve developed a stunning piece of technology called Supernova.” Strega huffs out a breath, pacing again. “The name isn’t really accurate,” Strega babbles, “because it isn’t about forcing a supernova as much as it’s about creating a massive solar storm, greater than any that’s ever been recorded.”

When Ritter and I wait blankly, Strega explains, “During a solar storm, the sun releases plasma clouds. They’re called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs.  It’s the CME that’s so devastating. The size of the storm that Supernova would create…” Strega shook his head, “If it didn’t outright destroy the parallel, the entire world’s power grid would go down for years, not just a few days or months. It would be chaos. Everything from our food supply system to our waste disposal systems would come to a screeching halt. We’d be returned to conditions that haven’t existed since before the Reformation.”

Strega finally stops pacing, but given the look on his face, I’d rather he kept it up. “Carter started to say something more, but then he just…ended.”

The silence in the keeping is almost louder than Strega’s frantic rush of words had been. We look helplessly at each other for a few long minutes before Ritter asks,

“What about the five people he said were next to end? What does that have to do with going to war?”

“After he ended, one by one, each of the five named on the function plates was brought into the morgue. The next to end, just like he said. He knew who was about to end because somehow, the Tribunal is killing them. That’s the only explanation,” Strega admits.

“So, why? Why is the Tribunal killing low functioners?” I ask.

Strega shakes his head. “I’m not sure, exactly. But I saved some of Carter’s genetic material. I’ll test for the mutations tomorrow.”

I give him a look. “When it was me, you said it was out of the question.”

“Because you’re alive,” Strega reminds me. “The Tribunal only requires reporting of DNA testing on deceased subjects if there’s any suggestion of foul play or at the request of the guardians. And you can bet they’re counting on the fact that no one thinks this is anything but a suicide.”

“Which means they’re not expecting any DNA reporting for Carter Dillis,” I say, “or any other suicide victim.”

“Carter was low functioning?” Ritter asks, changing the subject.

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could ask around with some of your contacts and find out what his function level was before the pastkeepers make record of it.  Assuming he’s got the mutations, I’ve got a theory about the murders.”

“Which is?” I ask.

Strega reaches out to finger a bruise over my right eyebrow, finally standing still. His eyes lock onto mine.  “I think Concordia is using the Assimilation classes to expand on our existing guardian forces. Carter said Supernova is like a nuclear bomb, protected with multiple codes held by multiple people. And because the launches have all been closed and no one is coming in or going out, Supernova and whoever has those codes might already be here, on Concordia. I think the local Tribunal is testing a weapon, using some sort of agent to exploit the genes.”

Understanding washes over Ritter’s face. “They’re flipping a switch,” he says, his jaw dropping. “If they can control the suicide genes that easily, they can cripple an enemy’s army and it will just look like a mass suicide.”

Strega nods. “And they’re testing it on low functioners because they’re the most expendable while preserving more valuable, higher functioning members of society.”

“Holy shit,” I say, my voice cracking.

“Yes,” Strega agrees, studying my face.  “Holy shit.”

For lack of other worthwhile action to take, he drags me into the cleanse to get a better look at me under its bright lights. 

Still trying to wrap my brain around the gruesome possibilities of genetic exploitation, I don’t even notice Strega’s ministrations. I almost forget he’s there until he says,

“All done.”

Ritter, accustomed to Strega shooing him out of the cleanse, is pacing back and forth in front of the sofa. He continues the conversation as if we hadn’t left the room.

“What now?” Ritter asks.

Strega shakes his head. “Nothing. At least not now, while Davinney is still assimilating.”

“And after?”

I meet Ritter’s eyes. We both look to Strega.

Strega shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I mean, how in the world are we going to prove that this is what the Tribunal is doing? And even if we can prove it, who do we take it to?”

The fact that Strega is on board does little to quell Ritter’s nervous energy. He continues pacing, his movements less and less fluid.  “The Tribunal of All?” he asks.

Strega considers it. “That’d be a neat trick,” he mutters, pacing now, too.  “The only way to access the Tribunal of All is from inside the Tribunal hall.”

“Yeah,” I snort. “Not happening.”

Ritter stops short, which startles Strega into stopping, too. “We could launch to another parallel and approach them through that parallel’s local Tribunal.”  He casts me an apologetic look. “Attero makes the most sense.”

“How would you get access to the local Tribunal on Attero when Attero doesn’t even admit Concordia or any other parallel exists?” Strega chides Ritter. When Strega turns to pace in the other direction, Ritter rolls his eyes at Strega’s back. But his face colors a little.

Unrealistic or not, I feel like Ritter just stabbed me right through the heart. I can’t sliv, so I know it would have to be Ritter and Strega while I wait here on Concordia. But of all the parallels, Attero makes the most sense because they are, as Strega put it, leading the charge.

I sit beside them as they finally settle onto the sofa, listening to them working out possible solutions I can’t be part of, which is really just Ritter suggesting ways they could gain access to Attero’s Tribunal and Strega shooting them down.

Even though I desperately want to, I can’t go with them. Every person’s Idix is coded uniquely, with a personal identifier, Challenge results, housing and luxury allotments, medical history…every single piece of data that someone on Attero would scour the internet databases or even paper records for is all encoded in the Idix.  And mine says I’m not allowed to sliv anywhere except the Disposal.

“What if they don’t reopen the launches by the time I’ve assimilated?” I ask the obvious question.

Strega and Ritter meet my eyes only reluctantly, and theirs are so grim my breath catches in my throat.

“Erasure,” they chorus.

Is it wrong to hope the launches stay closed so that I can join them in being erased?  If I were erased, the stubborn pieces of code that keep me from slivving back home would be gone.

Much later, in the early morning hours, when Strega wearily stumbles out of the keeping, Ritter and I both find the MedQuick dispensing sleepbringer and moodleveler and I think,

“We’re back to this?”

I’m not awake for my own answer.

18

DAY 30 BRINGS a hushed silence as we sit in the large auditorium at the proving grounds. I’ve never followed the NFL or any other sports draft on Attero, but I wonder if this is how it works, whether the athletes feel their breakfasts as the same lead weight. I wonder if their palms sweat and their hearts flutter and they eye the leaders of the other organizations with suspicion and distrust.

Maybe not. Probably not.  Their lives aren’t in danger over such decisions, after all.

I hope landing solidly in the middle third of Lyder’s team is enough to keep me safe. 

I watch as the viewers spring to life with the names of the facilitators. Out of 30 facilitators, Lyder is ranked fourth. I blink in surprise. Based on her speech the other day, I’d assumed she was worried about her function level. But fourth place out of thirty is pretty good.

Belgrade Minor is third. That breakfast of mine goes from lead weight to feather light. Light enough to rise to the back of my throat. I swallow hard and blink quickly, desperate to maintain my blank façade. Every interaction we’ve had with Belgrade’s team has been brutal. Even Krill and Yaryk limp out of the reaction center. Something about Belgrade scares the crap out of me, though it’s hard to say what. I’ve never seen him yell at or strike anyone, and he’s never spoken to me directly. But something. Something about him makes my insides lurch.

The leader ranked first promptly dumps his two worst candidates on the second ranked leader and options her two best. The rest of us watch as the discarded join their new teams with pale faces, and the optioned grin and do the same. The second ranked leader, in turn, does exactly the same thing to Belgrade. I almost sigh in relief. When Belgrade’s face fills the screen, I expect he’ll dump his worst two and take Krill and Yaryk.

Glancing blandly at Lyder’s ranking board, which is also displayed behind his head where those of us in the audience can see it, he says, “I discard Erik Bander and Jeshua Riley, and I option Krill Minekamp and Yaryk Svorda. And to fill the vacancy left by Farthing Stanton, I option Davinney Keith.”

A whisper ripples through Lyder’s team. I blink as their heads whip around. I feel their eyes on me, and I struggle to hold the blank expression they’re so envious of.  And then I stand up and take my place with Belgrade’s team.

Lyder’s face fills the screen. She blinks twice, swallows, and begins refilling the gaps in her team, her voice as cool and flat as ever.

There’s no chance to say goodbye to my old team after the second lowest ranked leader discards and options.  The lowest ranked leader is not afforded any options or discards, ending with only four candidates. There’s a buzzing, though, in the auditorium.  It has not escaped anyone’s notice that Belgrade optioned me instead of Lyder’s third ranked candidate, Marco.

Belgrade’s team, my new team, hasn’t missed this, either.  I want to squirm under their curious, wary stares. I feel weak at the thought that I must now start all over again, or nearly so. I’ve fought with each of these people before. I’ve run a few drills with them. But it’s nothing like my own team. I don’t know all their strengths and weaknesses. I have little to exploit, for better or worse. I am the new girl, which I am well accustomed to but weary of. The only good thing is that I still have Krill and Yaryk. We were the top three up until I threw the last couple sessions in the reaction center.

When we sit down in the onboard, the first thing Belgrade puts on the viewer is the rankings. Krill and Yaryk frown. They’ve dropped from first and second to third and fourth. I’m surprised to find I’m fifth instead of sixth, which puts me in the last slot of the top half.  There’s hope.

If I thought Lyder was cold, Belgrade is completely frozen. If he’s ever smiled in his life, it was a very long time ago.  He runs his team with a military precision that reminds me of my dad, and I am hit with a wave of homesickness so intense that I lose my blank face for a few moments. Luckily, no one sees. But that is where any resemblance to my dad ends. My father is all business when he’s working, but he lets his soft side show once in a while at home. Belgrade has no soft side.

While the team onboards, he pulls Krill, Yaryk and I aside one by one.  Neither of them give anything away as they return to their seats and scramble to catch up to the others. No one has to call my name to tell me I’m next.  I rise, meeting Belgrade at the back of the onboard. I follow him to his quarters in the Reaction Center’s maze of hallways.

I wait to sit down until he tells me to, figuring waiting for permission is the safest option.  I thought Lyder’s wordless stare was intimidating. Belgrade’s has me ready to whimper and drop face down on the floor.

“You’re wondering why I chose you over Marco,” he says matter-of-factly.  “It’s because you think faster than he does. You make better decisions. But before you let that go to your head, don’t.  I know who Kate was talking to in the library, and I can replace the missing parts of that soundtrack.  So you’d better be the winner I think you are. You’d better factor well, and you’d better do everything in your power to boost the lower ranking members of our team so their factors remain above those of the upper half of Lyder’s team. Because if you don’t, if I slip in the ranks, the factors I report on you to the Tribunal won’t be favorable.”

I wait for more. I don’t blink. I don’t even breathe.

“Return to onboarding,” he says.

I rise so quickly that the shift in air current makes the framed pictures on his desk wobble.

So that’s it. Belgrade took me over Marco because he can control me. My nightshade carrot has become my factors. If I catch that carrot, I assimilate successfully. If I don’t, Disposal.

I grab my logger and rush to catch up to the rest of the team, glad I’d studied a little ahead on my Concordia history the night before.

Being a member of Belgrade’s team is as brutal as any interaction I’d had with them on Lyder’s team. We are in onboarding for only two hours before he pits us against one another in combat. 

It’s clear to me why losing his top two candidates is worrisome for Belgrade. Krill, Yaryk, and I are not as good as his former third, fourth, and fifth ranked candidates. Melissa Fallsgrath and Paolo Donque are fierce fighters, and they drop Krill and Yaryk without much trouble. Melissa is first ranked, so Krill shrugs it off. Paolo is sixth, though, so Yaryk hangs his head in shame, beaten by a lower ranking candidate.

“Keith! Brass!” Belgrade calls.

Stacy Brass is Amazonian tall, frighteningly muscular for a woman, and ranked second on the team. She’s several inches taller than me and probably has thirty more pounds of pure muscle than I’ve got. It takes everything I have to maintain that stoic face that everyone envies so much when all I want to do is crouch down and beg her not to hurt me.

She nods nonchalantly in my general direction. Why wouldn’t she? She’s the clear winner here. I’ve never been pitted against her before in any of our matches against Belgrade’s team. She grins at me, but not in a predatory way like I expect. It seems genuinely friendly, and right up until her fist snaps out and catches my jaw, I’m thinking she might go easy on me this first time.

Even though it was my jaw and not my eye, I have to blink to clear my vision. I manage to evade her next two punches. Avoiding her is really my only hope. I can’t take much more of her fists.

The only sounds in the combat area are our shoes whispering and squeaking on the cushioned mats under our feet. She risks a glance at the clock, and I catch her squarely in the nose. A weak point, I note, as it gushes forth with blood. She grins again, still open and friendly, and I wonder now if she’s just completely insane. She glances toward Belgrade to see if he’s going to stop us, given that she’s dripping on the mats. Feeling a little guilty, I thrust my foot into her stomach. 

The weight difference is so great between us that it has less effect on her than I’d hoped for. She barely curls around the spot. I wasn’t expecting her to recover so quickly. I don’t make it out of range in time. I feel her fist connect with my left temple, the one I’d hit on the launch plate.

In that brief second as I fall, I wonder if her charming smile was hiding cold calculation after all.

I am in motion. I can’t quite open my eyes. My temple throbs, sending vicious little darts of pain through my head.

“They’ll be ready,” a woman says. “We’ve got 3,000 candidates in this class throughout our various proving grounds and those of Zones 2 and 3, and we’ve got 5,000 more coming when these candidates factor out.” Melva Brighton, the second ranked leader, is huffing a little as she carries my feet. I recognize her voice, gravely and deep for a woman. “Add that to the prior classes the Tribunal is planning to reactivate under threat of Disposal, and there should be more than enough force to stifle the rebel infiltration.”

Belgrade carries my shoulders as if I were no heavier than his logger. “Any new intel on the location of the rebel base?”

“Not yet. The last two leads were dead ends. Might even have been intentional decoys. We’re looking for traitors within the guardians now. The rebels have got to be getting ahold of dampers somehow.”

Dampers?  I wonder fuzzily.  Rebel base? Infiltrators?

There’s a buzzing sound I recognize as one of the secured melds that only facilitators can pass through.

“Why did you option her?” Melva asks curiously, with no small measure of disdain. “Hardly seems like much of a fighter.”

Belgrade actually laughs, but it’s without humor and sounds like more of a bark. “Don’t underestimate this one, Mel,” he says, his tone almost unrecognizably friendly. “I’ve seen her break Challenge records and outthink some of our highest ranked candidates. But she’s from Attero, so she’s also one to watch closely.”

They stop. I nearly open my eyes before realizing it’s best I don’t let on I’m awake.

Melva hmmms and then calls out, “One for Respite!”  After a few long moments, there’s another buzzing and we begin moving again.

Belgrade goes back to his cold, harsh self. “Took a punch to the temple, a prior injury site.”

“Do you know her caretaker?” a much kinder sounding voice asks as I am lowered to a wonderfully soft surface.

“Bocek, I believe,” Melva answers when Belgrade says nothing. “Strega Bocek.”

“Shall I send her back to you when she clears Respite care?”

“No. Release her for today,” Belgrade says. “She’ll be useless, anyway.” His voice begins to recede. He’s already washed his hands of me.

I can hear the smirk in Melva’s voice. “Still so sure you optioned well?”

“She’ll come around,” he says. “And if she doesn’t, she’ll be disposed of just like any other low factoring candidate from Attero.” 

I can tell they’re stuck waiting for someone in Respite to open the meld so they can exit. I guess there are some melds even facilitators can’t open.

“Even if she factors high, what makes you think she or any other Atteroan can be trusted?”

“Her breath chemistry will call her out as a traitor if she can’t,” Belgrade replies.

Melva just hmmms again, and the buzzing that sounds takes any further conversation out of my range of hearing.

I am left with the Respite caretaker. I wonder if she’s going to summon Strega. I hope not. Sometimes his concern is tiring.

“You can open your eyes now,” the voice says. I freeze.  “It’s okay. I won’t rat you out.”  I stay frozen. Is this a trick?  Will this woman play video of me back to myself and threaten me with it? Does she know I was listening to Belgrade and Melva?  Does she see me as an Atteroan threat the way they do?

I guess I wait too long to open my eyes.

“Really, it’s okay,” she says softly, cupping my face in such a motherly way that my closed eyes burn with tears.

I open them but look away from the direction of her voice. I hear the crinkling of plastic, and then a BAU comes into view.

“Breathe, please,” she says, even though I am already doing it.

She studies the projection, then proceeds to check my pupils with a light that makes my head hurt.

“You’d think Concordia would have figured out a better way to do that,” I grumble, closing my eyes as soon as she’ll let me.

There’s laughter in her voice. “Some things are perfectly effective, even if they’re unpleasant.” 

She disappears for a while. I hear her rustling, bustling somewhere in the distance. I drift until I hear her bustle back to the side of the rift.

I glance over at her caretaker’s uniform. I guess nametags are perfectly effective, too. Sheila Rosen. I wonder if she’s from Attero. Not that it’s easy to tell by a name, really, but on the other hand, it’s a pretty good bet, even if I’m not sure, that Krill and Yaryk are not from Attero. Although really, Yaryk Svorda sounds vaguely Russian.

“Well,” Sheila says after I follow her finger with my eyes, “Strega won’t be pleased to learn you have a mild concussion.”

“Do you know him?”  I ask as she guides me to sit up.

She nods. “We did our function onboarding together. Nice guy. Very compassionate.”

That’s Strega, all right.

She starts attaching sensors to my legs and my back, my temples and the back of my neck, right on my clothing.