Qualify (78 page)

“Oh, I think you do.”

And suddenly I do remember, from one of the earliest Atlantis Culture classes—the discussion of various power voices and how they could be used, among other things, to compel others, and how that was considered unethical, not to mention was highly illegal in Atlantis culture.

Aeson Kass narrows his eyes, and his expression closes off completely. “This has gone far enough. We’re done.” He gets up from his chair and stands before me, pointing to the door.

That’s when I begin to tremble. . . . Suddenly I am so light-headed, so impossibly numb with despair. My breathing becomes so shallow that I cannot hear it. At the same time, those same helpless, disgusting, pathetic tears start flowing down my face, and I am doing it—
bawling
in front of
him
in great big shuddering sobs.

At the sight of it, he blinks. I know him enough by now to know that it is his one and only “tell”—a crack in his perfect armor, an expression of vulnerability. A single blink.

“I am truly sorry,” he says quietly.

I continue choking on my tears, and raise my hands to wipe my disgusting face with my sleeves.

“There is also something else,” he continues in a strange voice. “Because of this unfortunate incident with your sister coming to light, you are now formally cleared of all charges. . . . There are no more suspicions regarding your actions in this. Therefore, I owe you an apology.”

I stop crying. And suddenly I look up. My expression is probably crazed—or blazing—or what you want to call it. “No,” I say. “You owe me a
life
.”

He blinks again. And then he takes a step toward me.

“That is true . . .” he says softly.

“I saved you from that burning shuttle,” I say in a wooden voice drained of all emotion, only driven by single-minded focus.

“Yes. . . .”

“So you
owe
me! A life for a life! Give me my sister’s life!”

He exhales suddenly.

I stare up at him, breathing fast, waiting.

There is a long pause. . . .

“Okay,” he says unexpectedly, and then returns to his desk. He pushes forward one of the mech arms that extends a console-and-monitor unit, lowering it over his desk surface. And observing the screen, he starts keying in something.

“The Atlantis Central Agency has Disqualified your sister and removed her Candidacy—the entirety of her ID data and all her current points as of yesterday. I cannot reverse the decision, not even with my level of authority, but I can try to reinstate her ID. Grace Lark will be given a new blank ID token and there will be nothing on it, only her name and basic background, vital stats, and residency.”

“What—what does that mean?” I whisper.

“It means—” He looks up at me with a serious expression. “It means Grace Lark will have to earn her place from scratch. She will be a ‘new’ Candidate, with no points and no history. She will be allowed to remain at the National Qualification Center and attend training classes. She will be allowed to participate in the Finals, but without any starting points going in.”

“Oh, but then I can give her my points!” I exclaim with a burst of relief.

Aeson Kass shakes his head. “No. You will not be permitted to transfer your points to Grace Lark. It is one thing I will
not
allow. In fact, I will set a safeguard on your ID, so that you will be unable to do that—so that you don’t throw your own life away in exchange for hers.”

“But what if I
choose
to do that, for her?” I exclaim, as the horrible despair returns.

“I do not permit it,” he says. “We need you and your voice—on behalf of Atlantis.”

“But it is
my
choice!”

“Not entirely—not if your choice affects far more than you or your sister.”

I stare at him, stunned.

He in turn watches me with a careful, unreadable expression.

“But—” I say, as outrage starts to build. “I don’t understand! How can you tell me what I can or cannot do with my own life? Don’t you have a
heart?
What about basic human compassion? Have you no clue what it’s like to stand by and not help your own family—the people you most care about—when you absolutely have the means to do it?”

As I speak, I notice his face takes on a strange new expression. I simply don’t know what it is, don’t understand it . . . maybe it is not human after all.

He
is not human.

“Are you finished?” he says after a terrible pause. His voice has grown low, and very soft, like the slither of a serpent. Its chill makes the fine hairs on my skin stand up in goose bumps.

But like a stupid fool who doesn’t know when to stop, I take a step, nearing his desk, and lean forward and exclaim, completing my humiliation entirely, “Please! I’ll do anything you want me to do!
Anything!
Just let me help her! Look, I am begging you! Anything you want! Take it! Tell me if there’s anything I can do, anything I have that I can give you. . . ?” At this point, even I am not sure what it is I am saying, what it is I am offering him in my desperation. . . .

We face each other at close proximity, our gazes locked in intensity.

“You have
nothing
,” he says suddenly, and a faint line of derision comes to his lips. “There is nothing you have that I want.”

Once again I am stunned. “What about my Logos voice?”

“Your voice has value for Atlantis, which is already a given. If you Qualify, we have you.” He pauses, and again there’s that fine subcurrent of disdain. “I thought you were offering something for
me
.”

“I—” My words trail off.

He is right, what
am
I saying?

“Look,” he says in a milder tone, after that unbearable pause during which my mind is reeling. “You got what you wanted, Lark. I reinstated your sister, and she has a fair chance of earning back most if not all of her points. Under the circumstances, it is absolutely
the best
I can do for her—or for you. In fact, I think you should be grateful right now. What do you say?”

I exhale, as general numbness returns, and I am suddenly worn out, depleted completely, emotionally wrung out. There is nothing of me left here, nothing to offer, nothing to barter with. . . . He is right.

“Thank you,” I say.

He nods. “I am glad this is resolved. In the next hour your sister will be discharged, and her belongings returned to her dorm.”

“For real?”

“Yes. Now I strongly recommend you get back to your own dorm and schedule. Strange as it may seem, I have other things to deal with than Lark family drama.”

I nod, then mutter something that sounds like “Okay.”

He watches me as I turn around and move to the door. Just before I step outside, he says, “Before you go—we need to continue your regular voice training. Be here tomorrow night at eight.”

Startled, I glance again at him. “But—I thought you have other things to do?”

“Lark,” he says. “Just be here at eight.”

Chapter 46

O
n my way back I run into George halfway between the Atlantean offices in CA-2 and Yellow Quadrant Dorm Section Fourteen.

George looks like he’s been pulled out of bed, or else he hadn’t been to sleep at all, his dark hair standing up in a tousled mess. He is breathing fast from running and his expression is grim. It’s the closest to being panicked that I’ve ever seen my brother be. With him is Logan, equally stressed and serious.

“Gwen! Where’s
Gracie?
Where is she?” George cries. “What the hell is happening? What has she done? I can’t believe any of this!”

I remember with a minor delay that up to this point George knew nothing about Gracie’s involvement in the sabotage incident. I am guessing, he has just been told by Mia and the others in Red Quadrant Dorm, Section Fourteen.

“It’s okay! Gracie’s okay!” I exclaim in a hurry, putting up my hands in a reassuring gesture. “She will be released! She—they Disqualified her but
he
—Aeson Kass—I talked to him and he somehow reinstated her, so she is being let out soon—”

And then in a jumbled torrent I explain what happened.

George and Logan stand listening to me, and George regains his breathing. “What an absolutely
stupid
, flaming ass!—Oh man, Gracie, what an insane fool! How could she do this thing?”

“I know,” I say, and my own temples are pounding from renewed stress. “She’s a stupid little idiot and I’m ready to strangle her, but thank God it’s going to be okay!”

George shakes his head. “Why on earth would she even do it?”

“Get this—she was trying to impress Daniel Tover!”

“What?” Logan says. “What does Daniel have to do with this?”

“Apparently nothing.” I glance at him. “But Gracie has a little girl crush on him, and she thought she’d look cool or something.”

“Great. . . .”

I notice that meanwhile Logan has been staring at me closely, and I am not sure if it’s because of what I am saying, or if he is just worried about me.

“Logan,” I say with a light smile. “It will be all right. Really!”

“It’s amazing that you convinced the hard-ass Atlantean—Kass—to do this for Gracie. Seems to me, he didn’t do it so much for Gracie as he did it for
you
.”

“Huh?” I say. “I stalked him, begged and pleaded, and gave him every logical—and illogical—argument under the sky. I think I even went a little crazy there, not even sure I remember the insane stuff I said. But in a nutshell I reminded him that I saved him from that burning shuttle, and I think he realized he owes me.”

“Well, good,” George says. “Because, he does. You saved his Goldilocks ass.”

A
n hour later, when we’re back at the dorms, namely Red Quadrant Dorm, Section Fourteen, Gracie shows up.

She looks awful. Her hair is a slept-in mess, jacket barely pulled on, smeared eyeliner and mascara streaks on her cheek. A guard is walking with her, carrying one of her duffel bags, while she has the other, slung over her shoulder.

The moment she sees us, Gracie drops her bag, rushes forward and throws herself silently at me, and then at George. Her hug is so tight that she is choking me. Then George holds her in a bear hug, while she mutters something unintelligible, at the same time as I gently pat down her messy, dirty blond hair, and run my fingers through it in a calming way.

“You’re okay, Gee Four . . . all is well . . . you’re fine, you made it!” I repeat over and over.

“I am . . . so sorry . . . so sorry!” Gracie keeps repeating, and her face is muffled against George’s chest.

“You should start by thanking your sister,” George says. “If she hadn’t busted her ass to convince the Atlantean VIP to give you another shot, you would be back home by now.”

Gracie tears herself away from George and turns to me, and her eyes are big and brimming with liquid. “Gwen! Thank you, I love you!” she mutters, and then she’s back hugging me.

“It’s all right, Gracie, all right, sweetie! Love you so much!” I press her against me and feel the little girl skinny body shuddering. “It’s
over
,” I say. “No more horrible bad moves like that,
ever
, okay?”

She nods. “Okay. . . .”

“Promise me you will never do something like that again. Promise me you will think before you act, and you’ll remember why we’re here, and what’s really going on,” George says. “Or I swear, you’ll never live it down. I won’t let you forget it, brainless ditz! You’ll see—”

“I promise!”

We go on like that for the next five minutes, doing the “good parent, bad parent” thing to parallel the “good cop, bad cop” thing they do on TV (Mom and Dad would be proud of us now if they saw us in action), and then we help Gracie settle back in and reclaim her cot and dorm space. Other Reds from her dorm stare at us curiously, as this is all happening. . . . Fine, let them. Neither George nor I care.

“Be smart, Gee Four! Remember, you’re a Lark!” we tell her, before we head back to our own scheduled classes that are starting in about five minutes.

As we leave Gracie’s dorm, George turns to me, grim and thoughtful. “You think she’ll last?” he says softly.

I frown. “She has to. We’ll do everything we can to help her regain points.” And then I explain to George the full extent of the situation, and how I have been forbidden from giving any of my own points to her.

George exhales and bites his lip. “If it comes down to it, I’ll let her have mine,” he says.

My heart constricts painfully. I knew that was coming. “Look,” I say. “Let’s not go there yet, okay? Please . . . I can’t lose
you
either!”

“Hey, I hear yah. I can’t lose me either,” my brother quips bitterly, running his hand through his messy dark hair. But I see the darkness has taken hold in him, and the despair is back—all that despair that’s been there all along, simmering under the surface, temporarily eclipsed by the hope that we still had a chance to Qualify, to make it out alive somehow. Because now George knows that even if he Qualified, he still would have to do this thing—the right thing, for our younger sister.