Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation) (8 page)

“Hey,” Karis says, “You don't have to convince me. I'm on your side. You just need to stop having such high expectations. This will all come, but in time. If you rush anything, it will only backfire on you.”

“I know we're on the same side. I just feel all this pressure from every angle, and I feel like I'm doing this alone. When we came back to Neech, I thought it was with the understanding that
we
were going to do this
together
.”

“What's that supposed to mean? I'm here with you; I'm getting people to come to the meetings. I'm trying to figure out what Déjà and the others are up to. I want to take down your father as much as, if not more than, you do. But I'm also being realistic and not ridiculous in my expectations.”

“Oh, kind of like how you're being
realistic
with your slapped together quasi-plans of getting your brother back by yourself?” I take a breath and run my hand through my hair. I shouldn't have said that and the fire in Karis' eyes tells me that she agrees. How did this fight get out of so out of control, so fast? It's like anytime we talk to each other, it's either emotionless or heated with an angry passion. “Let’s not fight. We’ll only say something we’ll regret.”

“You mean, you don’t regret anything you’ve said so far?” She narrows her eyes.

I sigh again. “Come on, people are showing up.”

Karis

I’m late to the meeting, again, and I can only hope Ethan is distracted enough he doesn't notice. But, he's well aware of my presence when I try to slip through the door unnoticed. He's probably been looking for me, waiting for me to get here.

I try to hide my breathlessness at rushing to be on time. We exchange a few words, share a pleasant but awkward kiss, and then fight. Our basic routine, as of late.

There are more people here tonight than there have been the past few meetings. It’s not a large number, about a dozen or so, but I'm still impressed; even if I feel these meetings are only us spinning our wheels. I'm glad for the good turnout, though, because this has been weighing on Ethan’s mind heavily. He takes Neech’s lack of involvement personally. Plus, if the rebellion is successful enough to keep Ethan busy, then I'm free to do what I need to do without trying to keep Ethan away.

I can’t tell if he’s happy tonight or if he just feels he needs to prove himself. His words are louder. Stronger. His true passion is showing. I stand there, at his side, like the dutiful second hand man, nodding when appropriate to show my support; all while scanning the crowd, trying to get a good read on what the majority feeling is.

There are a lot of heads nodding and whisperings of agreement to neighbors. But I also see a few people—near the back—waving their hands at Ethan's words, swatting them away, and throwing in with the occasional
boo
. But at least they aren't leaving. We may be able to win them over, yet.

“Isn't that right, Karis?” Ethan's elbow jabs me in the ribs.

I look up at him, confused, absently rubbing at my bruising bones. The meeting has bolted in the opposite direction it had been going. Everyone looks stressed and angry. Ethan isn't as confident as he was before. He’s pleading with them now. What did I miss? What happened?

His face strains and his eyes show a bit of disappointment when I answer him with a confused look. He quickly sweeps it away and carries on as if my not paying attention doesn't come as a blow.

“The Corporation needs to be shown that they can't take advantage of us…” He tries to regain his footing in the meeting.

As much as I want to focus on what he’s saying, my attention is snagged towards the back of the room when someone new enters through the back. A short, squat man squeezes his tubby midsection through the door and finds an empty seat in the back. Ethan's words a buzz in my ear. I narrow my eyes and peer through the dim light, trying to make out who would be coming in so late.

I can barely make out the whites of his eyes as they dart back and forth. He walks through the thin crowd in the back, his movements jittery and jerky—like he's nervous—and his shoulder and hip drag against the wall as he makes his way forward. The closer he gets to Ethan and me, the more his features become familiar. I know him, but it's taking my brain a moment to reconcile the reality of where I know him from. It’s impossible.

The last time I saw this man flashes across my mind. I was hot and disoriented, lying in the weeds by my house in the middle of the night. He was being hauled through the streets by two Guards. His wife and daughter were dead in the street. No one has seen Raj Verna since that night.

My skin prickles with awareness at the sight of him. The Corporation doesn't just
let people go
. Unless it serves a bigger purpose for them.

Raj slinks down a row of chairs and slides into a seat next to one of the women who had just been booing a moment earlier. He and the woman are whispering now, heads bent together against the rumbling of the meeting. Whatever’s going on, it isn’t good.

Ethan

The meeting is probably one of the worst we've had yet. I've only been able to do half as much talking as I was planning to because it seems that the only citizens who have shown up are the ones that don't like me, don't agree with what I'm trying to do, or think resisting the Corp is impossible. Mostly, it's a combination of all three.

There's grumbling and talking and shouting and disagreements breaking out in pockets throughout The Tavern. I can see fists being clenched and faces turning red. My control is slipping and will be gone soon.

“If you would just listen for a minute.” I try to get my voice above the melee, but it’s swallowed in waves of anger, and drowned in the current of dissention. “Listen!” Nothing. I tug at my hair in frustration. “Karis, can you help me out here?” I look to my left. She's sitting in the chair we'd set up earlier, staring down at her wrist, tracing her Mark with the tip of her finger. “Karis!”

She looks up at me, surprised that I'm talking to her, it seems. “Hmm?”

“A little help here?” I gesture out to the crowd.

“I don't think we're going to get anywhere with them tonight, Ethan. They're too upset, too angry. Nothing productive will be offered up.”

I drop my head, irritated that she hasn't been paying attention and frustrated that she's speaking the truth. I decide to try one more time before ending the meeting. “I understand you're all frustrated. But if we want anything to change—” I stop, distracted by a new person coming in through the back door. Karis notices him, too, and sits up a little straighter. “—if we want anything to change, we have to take some risks.” I pound a fist on the tall table.

“Easy for someone to say who won't be burdening any of those risks!” someone shouts from the crowd.

“I never said I wouldn't—”

“How do we even know these risks will be worth it? How do we know that there's survival without the Corporation?” This is said by the new man.

“Freedom is worth all the risks you have to take to get it!” I am beyond frustrated with this small minded and short sighted group. Usually there are a small handful of people on my side. “Look, maybe we should call it a night,” I say.

“Proof!” someone shouts from the group.

“What?” Karis says, standing up. This is the first time she's said anything to the crowd all night.

“Give us proof there’s something worth taking these risks for.” The room has gone completely still. No one is moving, but I see shifting, wide eyes, that are, like me, wondering where this is going.

“What kind of proof do you want?” I ask.

“Ethan, no. It's a game he's playing, don't take the bait.” She puts a hand on my forearm. She seems both mad and a little fearful.

“Not our problem. It's yours. Find the proof and we'll follow you,” he says. 

“Speak for yourself,” someone else shouts.

“Unless there is none, and you know it,” he says with a smug smile.

“I—”

“That's enough for tonight’s meeting,” Karis says. “We stopped being productive a long time ago and it's getting late. Be safe going home, everyone. We'll let you know when the next meeting is.” She turns and starts gathering up papers that I didn't even get to use tonight. The room remains silent for a little while longer before the creaks of people leaving trickles out the door.

“I worked with Dhevan a little bit this morning, before seeing you in the streets.” I slide the loose sheets of paper into my pack, I want to try and fix the stale air between Karis and me.

“Oh? What did he have you help with?” She doesn't sound one hundred percent interested, but I'll take the opening.

“I helped with the calving. A bull was born.”

“Another one? I bet he didn't handle that well.”

“No, he didn't.” I stack a couple of chairs against the wall. “He also didn't handle me that well, either.”

She lets out a short laugh. “Yeah, Dhevan tends to be a little less tame than me.”

“I know you said he takes a while to warm up to people, but I'm really starting to think he doesn't care for me much. He's always saying things—”

Karis straightens up with a snap. “I'm really tired of you seeing things that aren't there with him.”

I grind my teeth, chanting in my head that I want to repair our hard feelings. I manage to grind out, “And I'm so tired of you not being around to see the things that are there.” Crap. This isn't going the way I wanted it to.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You're not around a lot lately, Karis.” With an angry snap, I close a chair and toss them with the others. The sound clatters against the walls. “You’re distracted all the time.”

“You're not the only one with a lot on their mind, Ethan.”

“I know you have a lot on your mind. It's just too bad that I'm not one of them.”

“Yeah, it's too bad that I'm not one of the things on your mind, either.”

I curse under my breath and go to the podium, putting it back in the broom closet. Where did it all go wrong between us? I want it to go back to how it was in Dahn. Working together, growing closer.

“I can hear you sighing in there,” she says.

I stand in the dim light of the closet, my hand on the back of my neck, and take a few minutes to put everything into perspective. I'm fighting my father, not Karis. I have to do whatever I can to squash these fights and feelings that seem to be continuously creeping up between us. They're not real. They can't be. It's because we're both so stressed and worried that we're acting like this towards each other. Fear brings out the ugliness in a person. I close the door to the closet and start again.

“What was that whole thing about at the end of the meeting with that man?” I say, my voice soft.

She seems to have come to the same conclusion I did in the closet, because she's more resigned in her response, not so sharp with me. “It’s a trap. There's no proof you could give them that will ever be good enough, and he knows it.” She grabs a broom sweeps a few boards.

“He brings up a good point. I don't blame them for asking for it. I'm actually a little surprised it's only now just come up.”

“They shouldn't need it.”

“Why not? We're asking them to risk their lives and their family’s' safety. It's the least we can do.”

“What proof are you planning to give them? From where? Neither of us can go back into the Inner City to get anything, and we didn't bring anything back with us that's hard enough proof.”

“I need to think about it.”

Karis snaps her chair shut and looks up at me with intense irritation. “No, you don't. I know that man. He can't be trusted.”

“How do you know he can't be trusted? Who is he?”

“His name is Raj Verna. He used to live across the street from us with his wife and daughter.”

“Okay, so he moved. What’s the big deal about that?”

“The night I got my Black Market tattoo, when I got back home, I saw two Guards come to his house. They dragged him outside. When his daughter went to stop them, they shot her. Then they killed his wife and dragged Raj away.”

Her dark memory makes my skin cold, and I shiver. “Where'd they take him? And why would they kill his family like that?”

Karis shrugs, stopping her sweeping. “I heard the Guards say it was because they were siphoning illegal electricity, but that's a thin excuse. And they certainly didn't have to kill his family for it. All I know is, this is the first time I've seen him since that night, that means he’s probably been in the Inner City the entire time.”

“And I saw him chatting it up with one of the women who wasn’t too happy with what you were saying.”

I press my lips together as I think, staring at the floor before talking again. “We should probably keep an eye on him. It’s no coincidence that he turned up at our meeting tonight.”

“I think you're right.”

“That means my father knows that we're up to something.”

“And more importantly, he's trying to trap you into something.”

“This is the start of his plan,” I say.

“Which is why we can't listen to Raj. He’s not here to join our cause, he’s probably here on your father’s orders, which is beyond dangerous. We have to stop these meetings, start up again later at a different place. If he’s found out, it will only scare everyone more than they already are and ruin what trust you’ve somewhat gained with them.”

“Which is why we have to listen to Raj.”

“How'd you get there?” This is the angriest I’ve seen her. She’s trying to keep it under control, but I can see the struggle.

“Part of our winning is knowing what my father has planned and stopping it. To do that, I need to follow this through and see where it leads. We need to know what the Corp has planned. How far they're willing to go.”

One of the things that made me fall in love with Karis was her passion for everyone she cares for. And it comes out extra fierce now. “I know how far they're willing to go.” She's mad at me. She pushes her broom handle into my chest and heads towards the door that leads into The Tavern’s kitchen. “Death.”

“Do you want me to walk you home?” I ask. There was a time when I wouldn't have even suggested the proposal, just done it, no matter how angry we were at each other. And that time was only a couple of weeks ago.

“No,” she says. “It's late; you should just head back to Eta's. I'll be fine.”

“Only if you're sure.”

“I'm sure.” She walks through the door.

“’Night, Karis.” But she’s already gone.

I pack up the rest of my things slowly. She's right; my father won’t bother hesitating to get me out of the way if it means protecting his secrets and plans. I wouldn't even be a second thought to him.

But I also know, deep down, that if we are to stand a chance, I need to get the proof that would give Neech hope. Whatever it is they need that would show them there’s something better to fight for. I'm just sorry Karis and I aren't united on this.

७

I was calm when I left the meeting, but as I was walking home, I picked apart our fight and the things we said and the things I should have said to make a better point, to prove I was right and Karis was wrong. The more I went over our argument, the angrier I got; to the point I was practically seething and muttering to myself when I got home.

I push through the back door and slam it shut, ripping off my duster and flinging it at the peg on the wall. It hits with a weak slap and crumples to the floor. I grab at my mask and tear it from my face, one side of the elastic getting caught up on my ear. I jerk harder and the elastic yanks free, snapping the sensitive skin next to my eye.

“Damn it!” I bark out, throwing the thing on the table. It gets tangled in my fingers and doesn't leave. I close my eyes and take a breath. I reach down with my other hand and calmly untangle the elastic bands. I crush it in my palm and throw it onto the kitchen table.

Karis is the most stubborn creature I've ever met. She is so strong headed and can only see a few feet in front of her. She’s either incapable or has no desire to see the bigger picture—what we need to do now in order to make a better and safer
then
. She's so selfish. And she has the audacity to say she's been neglected by me? How about her ignoring me?
Gah!
I shake my head to try and expel these thoughts.

My heart is clipping along again and the blood beneath my skin heats up. I can't keep doing this to myself. I need to push this fight with her aside and try to get some sleep. She and I can revisit this again, later. After we've both cooled off. Eta’s got to have some sort of tea to help me calm down.

I make my way towards the kitchen when my foot makes a slight
clink
above a bit of a hollow thud. I don't remember the floor ever making that noise before. I rock my weight to my back foot. A creak comes up again. I’ll fix it for Eta. I’ll fix the hell out of it. She hates little annoyances like this, this will get me extra points with her and distract me for a short time from Karis, and a few extra hard pounds of the hammer won’t hurt, either.

I put a kettle of water on the fire for my tea and rummage through the meager tool box we have. I pick up the hammer and go back over to the board. I rock around, back and forth, between my two feet.

It's a board under the area rug between the couch and the kitchen. I drop down to my knees and throw the corner of the rug back. I press my palms along the floor seams to find the exact spot that's loose. Once I find it, I wedge the claw end of the hammer in and start to bend it back. I stop.

Light. Light is leaking out from the widened crack. I pull the hammer back, and the glow all but disappears. I put the rug into place and inspect the area again. Nothing out of the ordinary. I fold back the rug and notice something I hadn’t before. Attached to the fabric is a loose string that disappears between the boards.

I bend down closer to the boards, looking for some sort of way in to whatever is down there. There’s a faint outline my fingertips catch on where the boards have been cut. I trace it, estimating each side of the square to be about three feet on each side.