Fighting Gravity (22 page)

“How can you do that? How can you even consider it? Those are
people
Pete, not pieces on a game board. You can’t just move them out of your way when you get tired of them.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Dawes. This is a last resort, but it’s a well-considered and well-planned action. These people will be taken care of. We’ve tried everything else. I’m not putting any more of my people’s lives in the hands of these rebels.”

“What else have you tried?”

He stepped closer to me and said in a low voice, “If you’d talked to me about this even once in the past year, you’d know the answer to that. Calm down or get out, Jake. I can’t let you do this here. Go home, we’ll talk about this later.”

I reared back. “Go home? Oh yes, I have a home to go to, don’t I? All of you,” I whirled around, “have homes to go to and you’ll have them three days from now. But women and children and old people who have never done anything wrong are going to watch theirs demolished because they’re inconveniencing you—”

“Stop this!” Pete cut through my rant. “Provisions have been made—”

“Provisions? Do you have the tiniest idea what their lives are like? You’re not just moving them from one place to another; you’re taking away everything they’ve made for themselves. You’re not just demolishing buildings but a community, a support system. Are you going to put old women down in one town, alone, and the children who have been caring for them—and who they’ve been providing for—in another city altogether because there are no legal ties between them? You won’t even know. They have nothing at all, and you’re going to take even that away from them.”

“Not here, Jake,” Pete hissed. “Please. I can’t let you do this.”

“Some of them will die, you know. The innocent and defenseless. It’s not only cocksure rebels who will stay behind. Women, children, old men will stay behind because they don’t understand, or don’t believe. You’re going to
kill
them.”

“I’m sure your origins make you sympathetic to these people,” Blaine interjected, “but the Empire has larger concerns. We’ll be improving their lives. Perhaps they’ll be grateful. You can’t possibly speak for all of the unclass of the Empire.”

Black fury washed over my vision and for a moment I couldn’t even see.

“I understand your concerns,” Pete said, his voice calm and firm. “This is a complex situation that has been considered at length. I’m sorry that we can’t make this painless for everyone, but good men and women are dying down there and still nothing changes. I won’t let that happen anymore.”

I could hear the logic in the words, but something inside me was eight years old and scared sick. Everything that had been building up for months finally came to a head. I rounded on him.

“You’re no different than they are. Your precious soldiers are more important than tens of thousands of unclass
vermin
. You didn’t even have to think about that one, did you? You make me sick.”

All the color rushed from his face before the slow flush of anger touched his cheekbones and his eyes. “That’s enough!” Pete said, sitting back down. He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white but I was probably the only one who knew that was because his hands were trembling. “Mr. Dawes, you are out of order.”

“And not just here, Your Excellence,” Blaine said, standing. He looked at me like a particularly pleased predator. “I’ve recently discovered that he’s been supporting these rebels all along.”

Pete’s eyes found me.

“He’s been sending them money to purchase weapons,” Blaine continued.

The entire court took a breath. Pete went pale.

“No!” I said. “No, that’s not why I send them anything!”

“But you do support them behind the emperor’s back?”

“It’s not behind his back.” I looked straight at Pete. His face was pinched, as if he was in pain. “Not behind his back. I just never said anything to him about it. That’s not the same thing.”

Murmurs filled the room.

“Your Excellence,” Blaine continued, “I have proof that this man has been supporting these rebels for months. He argues for them now, which would be admirable, if one was not aware of him suborning treason.”

“No!” I yelled. But Pete was looking at me wide-eyed, with that look of horror you see in the old vids when the guy realizes his best friend just shot him.

“You’re going to believe him? Him over me?” Fury rang in my ears. “Of course you are.” I took in the room with a sweep of my arm. “Of course. Because he’s one of you. Sure, Pete. Believe him. I’m just a filthy unclass. I’m one of them.”

I moved closer to Pete but I saw the guards shift with me in my field of vision. That just made me angrier. That I could share his bed but I’d be the threat the moment anyone was reminded of who we all were.

I grabbed Pete by the arms. “Don’t—”

He shoved me off, hard.

I didn’t even have to think about it. In fact, I didn’t think at all. The next thing I knew Pete was several steps away holding his nose, a line of crimson blood trickling between his fingers, which I saw from my position on the floor, on my stomach with my arms bent behind my back as if the guards holding me meant to break them.

My grunt when they twisted harder was the only sound that broke the long silence.

“Take him to a detention cell,” Pete said, looking away from me. I didn’t resist and didn’t say a word when they dragged me out of the room, too furious and too stunned by what I’d done and the look of anguish I’d seen cross Pete’s face when he gave the order.

-

I was shoved down the hallways and into an inter-palace transport. After a short trip I was pulled from the transport and manhandled through corridors in the South Quarter until we entered the main detention center.

It wasn’t a very large place, as prisons go. Very few people were ever held at the palace itself. Sam, the captain of Pete’s personal guard—a giant of a man whom I’d always been little scared of—shoved me through a door. It didn’t appear to be any sort of logical admittance area. Not far down the hallway we came to a large open room that seemed to be a gathering place for off-duty guards. My stomach clenched.

The next thing I was aware of was that I was lying on the floor, my cheek throbbing against the cool tile, my head ringing. There was a rumble of voices above me that gradually resolved into words.

“…hit the emperor.”

I was hauled off the floor and set on my feet. They kept hold of me, which was the only reason I was able to stay vertical. The room swam around me.

Sam put his mouth so close to my ear I could feel his breath. “Stick your cock in him one time and think we’ll just let you do whatever you want, do you?” Angry murmurs rippled through the room.

His fist slammed into my gut and I doubled over, all my breath going out in a rush.

My arms were pulled tight behind me and, one after another, the guards took turns pummeling me until the room swam around me in a haze of pain and blood. When even the men holding me from behind couldn’t keep me upright anymore, they dropped me to the floor and took turns kicking me.

At some point the floor started moving and I realized they were dragging me down a hallway. About halfway down, they opened a door and threw me inside.

I lay on the floor in a whimpering heap. I was only just aware of them pulling the mattress, blanket, and pillow off the bed and throwing them into the hall. The door shut and I heard the heavy thud of a real bolt slide home. A few moments later all the lights in my cell and in the hallway went off. They did something to the climate controls and soon I was shivering. Miserable, body and soul, I drifted in and out of consciousness.

-

I woke later in a pink-tinged gloom. The early evening sunlight, after many twists and turns, bled into my cell through a small barred window in the door. I levered myself up with a groan and lay down on the hard platform that was all that was left of the bed, hoping it would be some improvement on the floor. It wasn’t. I lay as still as possible. Even breathing was painful.

The next evening I was brought a tray: two pieces of meat, mostly gristle, cold and quivering in congealed fat; a pile of mushy vegetables; and a hard, stale piece of bread. I couldn’t imagine the effort it had taken to find food that awful anywhere in the palace. I ate every bite.

I was brought the same tray once a day. Otherwise I might not have existed to the guards. That was fine with me. The last time they’d noticed me had been very unpleasant. I wanted to know what was going on outside my cell, what was happening with Wildflower Hill, but I was too afraid of the guards to ask any questions.

I had terrible dreams in there. Women and children in the streets of Abenez, running from some unseen danger, calling out to me for help, but I stood behind a force-field surrounding the sector and did nothing. It was raining, hard. The streets filled with water that pulled at their ankles, slowing them, dragging them back with each laborious step. Every one of them was my mother, or Carrie.

Sudden, simultaneous explosions ripped out of each building, tearing through the women in the street, and they slid below the water in a smear of hot metal and blood. A few of them, still standing, bleeding from deep cuts and livid with burns, reached out for me, struggling against the water.

I looked down at my hands, glittering with gemstones, watched myself enter a code onto a tablet I was holding. I looked back up and met the eye of a little Carrie, only a dozen feet away. I finished entering the authorization and in an instant, dozens of iterations of my mother and sister exploded.

-

They came for me after five days. I was taken from my cell to the room where I’d been beaten the first day. A dozen or more guards waited there. I groaned. My arms were pinned behind me again and Sam drew himself up in front of me. “You’re going to mind your manners in there, you understand?” His fist folded me in half again and the only answer he got was
umphf
. “’Cause that’s what’s waiting for you if you don’t.”

I nodded, and was hauled from the room.

-

I was brought before Pete in the throne room. It was full of fancy, important people, but he dominated it with no more than a circlet and a chair. I was jerked to a stop several feet away from him. He was wearing his emperor face but he had dark circles under his eyes.

My gut screamed in pain when they shoved me into a bow and jerked me upright again.

“Mr. Dawes,” Pete said, “five days ago you were removed from the council chambers for your disrespectful and violent behavior toward the emperor. This is treason. But we are confident your actions were thoughtless rather than deliberate. Is that not so?”

It would have been so easy, a few simple words. But with the residue of the dreams clinging to me and the royal “we” ringing in my ears it was beyond me. “Did you go through with it?” I said.

A look of disbelief flickered on his face, and then he stiffened. “You have no right to question me.”

His defensiveness was all the answer I needed. He had destroyed the lives of all those helpless people.

“You disgust me,” I spat. “I have nothing to apologize for. I’m not the one who killed innocent women and children.”

He stood and advanced on me. So close, I could see the faint flush of anger on his cheeks, and the crinkles of confusion around his eyes. The guards’ hands were cutting off my circulation.

“This is not your decision. Even if it had been, do you think you could do better? It’s easy for you to stand there with your righteous anger and yell about what I should have done, but I’m the one who has to make these choices and live with them. I’m the one with those lives in my hand and on my head. I’m responsible for all of them, Jake, billions. That means doing terrible things sometimes. I won’t let you question me in here, and I won’t let you disrespect this office. Don’t you dare judge me for what I’ve done with a crisis you know nothing about.”

I couldn’t even hear him anymore. My bruises throbbed and in my head a little girl who looked like Carrie called out to me from behind the force-field.

“Do your ‘billions’ include all those unclass, worthless things that are such an annoyance? Was it your token gesture of benevolence toward them, taking me in? I trusted you. I believed in you. You made me believe you were a good man and that you cared about them, about me. It was a lie, wasn’t it? I’ve been in love with a man that didn’t really exist.”

He looked ill. “Enough! Not one more word.” Turning to Sam, he said, “Take him back to his cell.”

I choked back anger that closed my throat and stung in my eyes. “Have I become too much trouble to bother with anymore? Is that it, Pete? Get rid of me so you don’t have to face what you’ve done? So you can pretend this is all my fault? You’re a coward!”

“ENOUGH!” he roared. “One more word, Mr. Dawes, just one, and I will have your head, do you understand me? I will not allow you to disrespect the throne. I cannot ignore treason. Stop this immediately or I will have you executed.”

“Fuck you.”

A collective gasp sucked all the air from the room. Every line of his face hardened.

“Lord Sifer, please schedule Mr. Dawes’s execution.” The calm in his voice hurt more than anything he’d said. “Three days.”

I felt sick and shaky, but I was still filled with adrenaline and rage. He stood there, his face and eyes fixed on me, but I didn’t think he could see me.

“I love you too,” I spat.

Anger dissolved from his face and a look of unspeakable pain replaced it. I couldn’t breathe for the shock of it; not merely the transition, but the stark pain on the face of the man I loved. I gasped for air, as if Sam had punched me in the gut again. I needed to say something, anything, to take that look off his face, but before I could speak I was hauled from the room.

-

It wasn’t a surprise, though it was terribly painful nonetheless, when upon entering the guardroom back in the detention facility, I was beaten again.