The Significant (54 page)

      
“I know.”

      
She glanced around the buildings. She
felt very small in comparison to the structures of glass and metal, but there
was something comforting about the feeling. High in Anon Tower, it felt like
everything was so delicate and fragile below. As she stood in the middle of the
structures, noticing just how large and beautiful everything was as the
sunlight bounced around the angles and facets, things seemed somehow simpler.

      
“Rayal,” she said, before she could stop
herself, “remember how I told you that you made me realize how strong I was?”

      
“Yes.”

      
“I’m also feeling pretty brave, right
now.”

      
“You are very brave,” he agreed. “This is
the first time you’ve been outside in…at least a year.”

      
“It’s not only that,” she said, looking
at him. Her face was burning hot and her stomach was twisting itself into
knots, but she took a deep breath and reminded herself of her bravery and her
strength.

      
“What is it?”

      
Tarah stepped forward, leaning up on her
toes and kissing Rayal.

      
She backed away from the peck and laughed
nervously.

      
“Um, sorry…”

      
Her hand started to pull out of Rayal’s,
but his fingers tightened and stopped her from backing away. He took a step
toward her, his other hand reaching up to brush over her cheek.

      
“Don’t apologize,” he murmured. He leaned
closer, but did not kiss her. He waited for her to close the gap between them.

      
Tarah’s entire being felt like it was
flying when she kissed Rayal. She had been infatuated with the man for nearly
four years, her childhood admiration turning into interest as she grew older.
However, she had always been too nervous. Rayal never seemed interested in her.

      
As she kissed him, she knew that her
crush was not just a crush. It was love.

      
He pulled away from the kiss and smiled.

      
“Are you alright with this?” he asked
quietly.

      
She nodded quickly, her other hand
wrapping around the back of his neck, pulling him back down for another kiss.

      
Standing among the skyscrapers with the
sun’s rays embracing them, Tarah and Rayal kissed, alone in the largest city in
the Altereye System.

      
Kailynn had been too curious about the
goofy smile Tarah had in on her face and the way she giggled when Rayal said
goodbye to leave the young caretaker alone.

      
As Isa took a nap in the master bedroom,
Kailynn went into Tarah’s room and asked her what had happened.

      
She was then launched into a two-hour
explanation of what Rayal had done and their first kiss and how it was Tarah’s
first kiss and how Rayal was the best human being to ever exist…and on…and on…

      
As happy as Kailynn was that the
recently-sulking caretaker was so happy, after the first hour of the rapid
explanation, she wanted nothing more than to escape the caretaker’s room.
However, she sat with Tarah as she explained everything, smiling when she saw
the light in Tarah’s eyes.

      
There was something about Tarah’s
flustered, excited, innocent way of explaining the experience that made the
Significant envious.

      
Obviously, her relationship with Isa was
far more complicated.

      
But as she left the caretaker’s room to
check on Isa, she realized that she felt the same flustered excitement with the
Elite. She knew how she felt about Isa—that was not complicated. Their
relationship itself was not complicated. The society to which they were forced
to conform made their relationship confusing and dangerous.

      
Isa was awake when Kailynn walked into
the room. The Significant closed the door and walked to the bed, where the
Elite was sitting, her head leaned back on the wall, staring at the ceiling.
When Kailynn climbed into the bed, she wrapped her arms around Isa and rested
her head over the Elite’s chest.

      
Isa’s arm wrapped around her shoulders
and her head rested on Kailynn’s.

      
The two remained silent for a very long
time.

      
“Isa?” Kailynn finally murmured.

      
“Mm?”

      
“Why does Gihron want to dismantle Venus?”
she asked. “They don’t gain anything from it, do they?”

      
“No,” Isa admitted. “Not in reality. But
it’s the concept. Venus is, more or less, the tyrant of the entire system. She
can access information anywhere at any time, even if it’s not in her mainframe.
She can monitor all transmissions, all trade, all social interactions. She is
omnipresent.”

      
“She’s what?”

      
“She’s everywhere,” Isa clarified.

      
“There’s something else I don’t
understand about that,” Kailynn said, sitting upright. “If she’s everywhere,
and she can hear and see everything, how do these plots on your life happen?
How does she not know about everyone trying to shut her down?”

      
“She knows,” Isa disagreed. “She is just
programmed to determine credible threats from false ones. Sometimes, her
calculations are wrong.”

      
“I thought she was a computer and
therefore her calculations could never be wrong.”

      
“Her statistics are never wrong,” Isa
admitted. “Her calculations on society are correct, but individual people are
always unpredictable.”

      
“Then, if she knew that Gihron was trying
to destroy her, why doesn’t she just kill them?”

      
“Venus is not a weaponized machine,” Isa
said, her eyes going distant. “She has certain abilities—she can shut down the
planet to its core, but that is not considered weaponized. Because, from that
point, humans are the ones that will cause problems, such as sanitation and
health concerns, looting, starvation, crime—those are all results of humans,
not of Venus.” The Elite sighed heavily. “But she cannot shut down other
planets, at least not most of them. A few of them she has that control over,
but Gihron is not one.”

      
“Can’t she, I don’t know, hijack their
ships and force them to crash, or something?”

      
“She could, potentially,” Isa said with a
nod. “But that’s where her statistics come into play. Gihron is creating a
fuss, it’s true. But they have allies that are remaining quiet, for now. If we
were to attack, those allies would rear up and fight. She’s calculated the
risk. The likelihood of them actually doing any damage to her or her system is
very minimal.”

      
“But what about you? What about the
people of the planet?”

      
“Those are all things she’s considered in
her calculations,” Isa explained. “For now, she has agreed that keeping the
Elites as her ruling Syndicate, and therefore risking an attack from Gihron, is
less dangerous than removing the Elites from the Syndicate and risking social
upheaval.”

      
“Maybe it’s because I’m ignorant, but
wouldn’t social upheaval be easier than war?”

      
“Not at all,” Isa said, shaking her head.
“Anything that happens internally is far more devastating than anything that
can occur from outside of a society. In war, you can dehumanize the enemy, band
together under your leader, your city, your planet, whatever it is you believe
in as a collective whole. During a social upheaval, there is no collective
belief. Everyone wants something
different
,
but they don’t know what that is until after they succeed in overturning
everything. Then they have to pick up the broken pieces and try to make a cohesive
unit. It’s devastating.”

      
“Didn’t you say that’s what would happen
with Trid eventually?” Kailynn pressed.

      
“Trid is a very good example,” Isa said.
“Trids protest and fight for rights in Anon, but they do not seem to understand
what that really means. They just know that the way they are being treated is
wrong, and they want something different. But with the system as it is, the
entire social structure would have to be toppled and rebuilt to incorporate
Trids as they want. They don’t know how they would restructure everything, they
just know that it needs to happen.”

      
Kailynn thought over the words, trying to
process them fully.

      
“And, if we were to dismantle Venus, then
the planet would be a horrible place to live, and building a new structure
would be…”

      
“Chaotic,” Isa completed, turning to look
at Kailynn seriously. “When people are desperate for change and don’t know what
it is that they want to change, or the consequences of that change, corruption
sets in and becomes a cancer. Those who have a better understanding of the
society, whether that is because of family connections, higher education, or
any number of factors, are quick to secure their own wealth and position in
such social upheavals. That’s why, more often than not, a revolution leaves things
more broken than they were before, like what happened to Earth.”

      
“Earth?”

      
“I guess you wouldn’t have heard about
Earth before,” Isa mused. “Everyone in the Altereye System originated from a
planet called Earth, several hundred years ago.”

      
“Where is Earth?” Kailynn asked.

      
“Far away from here,” Isa said, her
eyebrows high. “And still not far enough.”

      
“I don’t understand…how could all the
planets of the Altereye System have origins on the same planet?”

      
“Earth started out as all these planets
started. Humans developed and changed things over time, and the population
grew, humans grew stronger, behaved as humans do…” Isa sighed heavily.
“Technology developed and allowed further exploration in the universe, which
eventually led to the technologies we have today. The entire planet went
through many upheavals, each more devastating than the previous. One country
had a revolution, and then another, and another, until the entire planet had
torn itself apart and tried to rebuild, but it was disastrous. Everything was
corrupt. Countries were trading people and weapons without care, killing one
another…eventually, it led to a weaponized human.”

      
“What does that mean?”

      
“A weapon that was born and raised like a
human, but had strength like you could not imagine. This weapon was the result
of testing on other humans until they created what they believed to be the
ultimate weapon.” Isa looked at Kailynn, her eyes dark. “And all that testing
eventually led,” he motioned to herself, “to this.”

      
Kailynn blinked.

      
“You mean…Elites were the weaponized
humans?”

      
“No, no, not at all,” Isa said, shaking
her head. “We’re far weaker than those weapons, but the research and technology
that creates Elites all began with those weapons. But they were as human as
possible. When they were traded around, beaten, tortured, forced to fight and
kill each other as if they were emotionless machines, they retaliated. They
might as well have incinerated the planet. The final reports and explorations
of Earth say that the planet was uninhabitable.

      
“However,” Isa continued, “they had found
the Altereye System before the bloodshed. And when the weapons began to
retaliate, the rich and those in power, who could afford to evacuate Earth, did
so. Every country bid and purchased planets based on resources and currency. It
was a political blood bath. And then, on top of that, humans were already
developed to a certain point, and they decided to develop these planets to that
same standard, killing all indigenous species, intelligent or otherwise, and
forcing these planets to adapt to what they had been used to on Earth.”

      
“…I’ve never heard of any of this.”

      
“I know,” Isa said. “Many schools learn
about Earth, but much of this information is heavily guarded. Obviously, it
would raise concerns about the Elites.”

      
Isa sighed heavily.

      
“So, as you can see, even here and now,
these planets were built on corruption from those who could
afford
to leave the destruction of
Earth. They left the others to die.” Isa leaned her head back on the wall once
more. “But, with Earth now a distant memory, more present matters push planets
apart that have their roots in the evacuation of Earth. Some planets were
less-favorable than others, and poorer countries obtained those planets. These
are planets that require more sophisticated tools to cultivate and tame for
human habitation. But, often, these planets are also far away from trade
routes, which isolates them economically and socially. This breeds discontent.
And that is the entirety of the Ninth Circle, Gihron included.”