The Significant (73 page)

      
Isa stared in horror at the Colonel. She
was not sure if the needle in her neck was keeping her paralyzed or if it was
her fear at the words.

      
“But if you kill him, you’ll leave the
room only to realize that all thirteen of your Bronze Elites are acting the
exact same way. They surround you, chase you down, tear you limb from limb, all
the while screaming, not sure what they are doing, but fully conscious of the
fact that they are doing murdering their beloved Golden Elite.”

      
“I’ll kill you for this,” Isa hissed.

      
“No, darling, you won’t.” Colonel Amori
smiled. “Because there is yet another device, remember? No microbionics, this
time. Instead, it’s far more primitive. A catastrophic failure of three of your
power processors in Anon. I believe they’re connected to Venus, too, which is
just a bonus for me. Just like Kreon, these processors will go into accelerated
failure, and before everyone has time to realize they are in danger, Anon will
be erased from the face of the planet.” He smiled darkly. “This is your test.
If you were a real Elite, you would not bother to worry about your colleagues
and your forbidden lover. Instead, you would focus on getting the people to
safety, and then you would have me executed, even at the expense of killing
your colleagues. That would be the calculated decision. More people saved from
danger.

      
“But you’re no ordinary Elite, are you?”
he challenged. “The question is, what will you do?”

      
“I already told you,” Isa growled. “I’ll
kill you.”

      
“Well, before we can get that far,” he
said, returning the device with the button to his pocket and raising the other
one, “there is something I need from you.”

      
He sat up and his hand violently grabbed
Isa’s left breast, forcing it toward her collarbone before jamming the device
against her ribcage, forcing a node deep into her skin until it touched the
processor around her heart.

      
Isa began screaming in pain, and Colonel
Amori clamped his hand over her mouth.

      
“I hate it when women scream. Shut up,”
he snarled.

      
Isa continued to scream. The pain forced
the noise out of her, cutting it from her lungs and pulling out of her throat.
Her body spasmed angrily as shockwaves went through her.

      
She was not sure how long the pain
lasted, but when he ripped the drive from her, she choked and groaned, sure
that she had been in agony for days.

      
“Excellent.” Colonel Amori smiled. “Oh,
something I forgot to tell you,” he said, looking down at Isa. “If you breathe
a word of this to anyone and try to get me arrested, I’ll pull that trigger and
force you to die with me and the rest of the city. And when that happens, my
brother will come with the entire planet at his back and destroy everything on
Tiao before taking over every planet in the Alliance. You can be sure of that.”

      
Isa tried to move her arms, but she could
not. She struggled and groaned, trying to move, her body shaking.

      
“Oh, right,” he chuckled. “It’s late. You
should get some sleep. After all, this is only the beginning. I need you rested
and ready to help me when we move to the next stage.”

      
He leaned forward once more, grabbing a
syringe and uncapping the needle. He pushed it into her shoulder and flashed a
brilliant smile.

      
“Isn’t it amazing how detailed nightmares
can be?”

      
Isa’s eyes slipped shut and she was left
at his will.

      
When Isa woke, she was immediately
terrified, but the pain in her head made it impossible for her to move very
fast. She groaned and forced her eyes open. There was no one there with her.
She saw the light on to the bathroom and sat up slowly, cradling her pounding
head in one hand.

      
“You feel shitty, too?” Remus chuckled,
walking into the room from the bathroom with a package of pills he had rifled
from the drawer and a glass of water. “We both drank too much last night and
then did too much physical activity,” he teased lightly, sitting on the bed
next to her and extending the glass and painkillers. “Here.”

      
Isa took them slowly, her mind in a fog.

      
“I feel like…I don’t know…”

      
“I know, I’m in a fog, too.”

      
“Do you remember anything out of the
ordinary last night?”

      
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Are you
alright? You look pale? Are you nauseous?”

      
“No, that’s not…” Isa looked into the
water glass. “Look at the back of my neck. Do you see any bruises or cuts?”

      
“What?”

      
“Just check, please,” Isa said, turning
her back to him and lifting her hair. He looked over her skin, but saw nothing.

      
“No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

      
“And this shoulder?” she asked, turning
her shoulder to him. He looked over the area, but shook his head.

      
“No,” he repeated. “Except we better hope
that
that
is covered by the uniform,”
he said, passing his finger gently over a bruise at the base of her neck. She
put her hand over his quickly, trying to feel the area.

      
“What? What is it?”

      
“That was me, sorry,” he said, leaning
down and kissing her shoulder. “I got a little carried away last night.”

      
“What do you mean?

      
Remus chuckled. “I will try not to be
insulted that you don’t remember.” He stood and nodded to the water. “Take
those. You’ll start to feel better.”

      
He began walking toward the bathroom once
more. Isa sighed heavily and closed her eyes, figuring that it had been an
alcohol-induced nightmare. There were no marks on her body from the needles
that she remembered penetrating her skin.

      
But it had felt so real…

      
She glanced at Remus, about to ask if he
had strange dreams as well, when she caught sight of the light bruise across
Remus’ lower ribcage.

      
“
Don’t
bruise the poor man, now
.”

      
Isa quickly looked down, lifting her
breast to look at her ribcage

      
A small bruise painted her skin, a red
dot in the middle showing an entry wound. She climbed out of bed, ignoring her
naked state, and walked into the kitchen. Rayal was making breakfast, though he
was pale and had large bags under his eyes. He was clearly not feeling any better
than he had the previous few days.

      
“Miss?” Rayal asked, confused by her
naked state and the way she immediately went to the security screens. She
rewound the recordings, looking for any movement in the hours of the night.

      
However, there was none.

      
Two days later, Isa was a nervous wreck.
She was trying to determine what of that terrifying night had been real and
what had been a dream. She knew that the security footage could be altered, and
she knew that it was possible that the needles that had penetrated her skin to
paralyze her and knock her unconscious were small enough not to leave
noticeable marks. But there was something about the situation that made her
question herself.

      
What made matters worse was that the
threat—whether real or a dream—had caused her to ask a very frightening
question of herself.

      
Would she save the people of Anon? Or
would she try to find a way to save Rayal, Remus, and the Bronze Elites? Every
time she closed her eyes, she thought of Remus coming at her, his eyes wide and
terrified, as he screamed at her to kill him to keep him from hurting her.

      
Because of these images, she had not
slept.

      
She spent her days at the Syndicate
Building carefully watching Venus’ mainframe for any sign of trouble. If
Colonel Amori had stolen codes from Isa’s internal processor with the intent of
finding a way to shut down Venus, he also held her life in his hands. If Venus’
codes started to disappear, Isa’s heart would stop immediately.

      
Occasionally, for no reason she could
explain, she would get sharp twinges of fear and her heart would begin racing.
In those moments, she was sure that Venus was triggering her failsafe, and
Isa’s heart was about to stop beating, leaving the other Elites to find her
lifeless body.

      
On the third day after the frightening
night, an operator called her office to tell her that Colonel Amori was there
to see her.

      
Nervously, she allowed the Gihoric leader
up.

      
She was expecting the other delegates to
be with him when he walked into her office, however they were not. He was
alone. And that terrified Isa further.

      
She stood by her desk, prepared to
activate her panic button in her office if necessary.

      
“Colonel Amori,” she greeted with a bow
of her head.

      
“Elite Isa,” he said. “I wanted to let
you know that I spoke with my brother and he is asking me to stay until we can
reach an agreement. He wants us to come to a compromise.

      
Isa barely heard him. She was staring at
his features, trying to discern any hint of malice.

      
When she did not respond, he spoke again.

      
“Elite Isa?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

      
The Golden Elite walked forward him, her
eyes suspicious. He retreated a step, confused. When his back was against the
door, Isa patted down the front chest pockets of Colonel Amori’s military
jacket. He tried to retreat once more, laughing nervously.

      
“Elite Isa, what are you doing?”

      
There was nothing in his pockets.

      
Isa then began patting down his side
pockets, once again finding nothing in them. Becoming frantic, worried that she
had imagined the entire night, her hands went to his pants pockets.

      
He grabbed her wrists and gently pushed
her away, laughing once more.

      
“Elite Isa, please don’t take this the
wrong way,” he started. “You are very beautiful, but I am not interested in you
that way.”

      
Isa backed away from him, her expression
confused.

      
“My apologies…” she murmured. “I don’t
know what came over me.”

      
“Are you alright?”

      
“Yes, I’m fine.”

      
“…good,” Colonel Amori said, clearly not
convinced. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Let’s have dinner tonight to
discuss what my brother said.”

      
“Yes, let’s,” Isa said. “My apologies,
once again.”

      
“No need to apologize.”

      
Colonel Amori turned and opened the door,
walking out into the hallway.

      
“Oh, Elite Isa?” he called back. She
turned around and her heart stopped in panic. “Were you looking for this?”

      
In his hand, he was holding the device
she remembered so vividly from her dream, the small, black handle with a green
button in the middle of it, just under his first finger.

      
However, before she could react to the
sight of the device and the sick smile that crossed Colonel Amori’s face, the
door closed, leaving Isa in the dull buzzing of her office, her stomach doing
somersaults.

      
That night, Isa met with Colonel Amori
alone in her home, Rayal cooking dinner for the both of them. It was clear that
the caretaker was feeling unwell. His hands were shaking and he was very pale.
Isa watched him worriedly, telling him to bring the food to the table and then
lie down.

      
Rayal did as instructed, leaving the two
alone.

      
“He seems unwell,” Colonel Amori noted.

      
“Is that because of you?” Isa asked, her
food remaining untouched.

      
“Most likely,” Colonel Amori admitted,
diving into his full plate. He took a big bite and looked up at Isa. “I will
say, I am impressed that you have not tried to have me arrested. I guess you
aren’t that suicidal.” He pointed at her with his fork. “So tell me, are all
Elites programmed to do what is needed to survive, or are you just special?”