The Significant (83 page)

      
Nearly twenty-eight hours of agonized
waiting passed before the Elites heard anything about Isa. No one slept,
sitting around the waiting room, fidgeting uncontrollably and getting up
whenever they could not handle sitting.

      
The nurses and orderlies avoided the
room, glancing in every now and then to check on the Elites.

      
The entire hospital staff was aware that
there had been a horrible accident at the Syndicate and that Elite Isa was in
critical condition, but no one knew details. However, nurses and other doctors
went in and out of the large operating room, relieving one another for sleep as
Dr. Busen worked diligently through the entire twenty-seven hour procedure.

      
As it neared twenty-eight hours since Isa
had been rushed to the hospital, another doctor slowly walked into the room,
holding her tablet to her chest, worried about breaking the news to the
Syndicate.

      
As she approached, everyone who had been
sitting swarmed around her.

      
“How is she?” Remus asked quickly.

      
“The damage was very extensive,” she said
nervously. “Fractured arm, eight broken ribs, a fractured hip, both clavicles
shattered, and the left side of her skull was damaged severely.” She took a
deep breath, closing her eyes and swallowing hard. “Dr. Busen reconstructed
everything, but we do not know if she will make it through the night.”

      
All the Elites felt the pain radiate
through their bodies.

      
“The next twenty-four hours are the most
critical,” the doctor continued. “We will have her on constant watch, and we
will let you know of any changes. If she makes it through the night, her
chances of recovery greatly increase.”

      
“May we speak with Dr. Busen?” Chronus
pressed.

      
“Not at the moment,” she said. “He’s
sleeping. When he wakes I will let him know that you wish to speak with him. If
you would like to return home, we can contact you with any news.”

      
“Thank you,” Remus murmured.

      
The doctor bowed her head and left the
room.

      
The Elites turned to one another.

      
“What do we do?” Anders asked.

      
“We’ll take shifts being here and being
at the Syndicate,” Remus said, his eyes distant on the ground. “For now, we
just say that she’s busy and that is why no one has seen her.”

      
“And if she…”

      
“We’ll prepare a statement if that
happens,” Remus said shortly. The other Elites dropped their eyes. “It’s only
one day until we know her chances,” he continued. “We’ll take shifts being here
until we receive news. No one discuss what happened.”

      
“Someone has to tell Rayal,” Anders murmured.

      
“I’ll do it,” Maki offered.

      
“Thank you, Maki,” Remus said. “Decide
among yourselves who will go home and who will stay.”

      
When the Elites had determined their
shifts, Maki went to Rayal’s room, where the caretaker had been recovering from
the stabbing.

      
“Rayal,” Maki greeted, his voice
strained.

      
“Elite Maki…” Rayal said, setting his
tablet aside, surprised by the Elite’s visit. When he looked over the Bronze
Elite’s exhausted expression, his heart fell. “What is it?”

      
“There has been an incident,” Maki
started slowly, “with Isa.”

      
“What? What happened?” Rayal demanded.

      
“I think…I think she suffered a psychotic
episode,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to the ground. “She started running
away from everyone, she fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Then, when she
stopped in the hallway…” He swallowed hard. “She threw herself through the
glass railing into the control room—two stories. She crashed into the center
platform.”

      
Rayal let out a shaky breath and lifted a
hand to his mouth, his eyes wide.

      
“Is she…she’s not…”

      
“Dr. Busen just performed extensive
surgery to try and repair the damage,” Maki continued quietly. “They say that,
if she survives the next twenty-four hours, it’s more likely that she’ll
recover.”

      
Rayal felt the tears gathering in his
eyes. He tried to swallow them back, but they still spilled down his cheeks,
causing his damaged eye to burn, but he did not care.

      
“It has something to do with that bastard
Colonel Amori,” Rayal ground out behind his teeth. “It has to.”

      
“Are you sure?”

      
“I know he had something to do with
this,” he said, motioning to his stomach. “I can’t remember what, but I
know
he was involved. And there is no
way he’s not involved in this somehow. You have to keep her away from him.”

      
“Okay,” Maki said, seeing Rayal working
himself up. The Elite reached forward and put a calming hand on Rayal’s
shoulder. “We will do everything we can to protect her. We’ll keep her away
from Colonel Amori. I promise.”

      
Rayal nodded slowly, taking a deep
breath.

      
As Maki walked back out to the waiting
room, he felt his stomach twisting irritably. He had known that the Colonel was
dangerous, particularly with the way Isa reacted when he brought up Saera and
Isa tried to plead with him for help. Being in the hospital, now haunted by the
image of Isa flying through the glass panel and colliding with center platform,
he kicked himself for not noticing the Colonel was a danger much sooner.

      
He approached Remus, standing in front of
the Silver Elite and swallowing hard.

      
“I need you to come with me to Anon
Tower.”

      
“Why?”

      
“I think I know why this happened.”

      
Remus straightened.

      
“I think Colonel Amori has been
blackmailing Isa somehow, and I think it’s finally become too much for her.”

      
“You’re on about this again?” the Silver
Elite said, groaning and rubbing his forehead.

      
“The timing is perfect, Remus, and you
should have seen the way she acted when I mentioned the Charge Blast on the
generators. Don’t you think it’s strange that they
still
haven’t reached settlement and we’ve heard
nothing
about their negotiations, yet we
find Isa beaten in the hallway of her own home and Rayal stabbed next to her?
He immediately pointed the finger at
you
.
Who’s to say that he wasn’t the one who changed the cameras in Isa’s room so
that Venus would see you two? Remus, we need to place him under arrest.”

      
Remus sighed, looking over Maki
seriously.

      
“Let’s at least speak to him and see if
we notice anything out of the ordinary,” he agreed.

      
“Fine, let’s go.”

      
“Right now?” Remus asked.

      
“Now,” Maki said strongly. “If he is the
reason she did this, we don’t want to give him the chance to run before we can
bring him to justice.”

      
Remus was about to protest, feeling like
he could not leave the hospital until he was sure that Isa would survive.
However, Chronus’ hand on his arm stopped him.

      
“We should probably get out of the
hospital for a little bit,” he suggested. “For your mental health.”

      
Remus paused, thinking about what Chronus
said, before he nodded slowly.

      
“Let’s go.”

      
Maki, Chronus, and Remus went to Anon
Tower and made their way to Colonel Amori’s quarters. As they approached the
door to Colonel Amori’s quarters, Chronus stopped and looked at the door where
the Gihron delegates were quartered.

      
“Hey,” he started, pointing at the door
when the other two turned to him, “did the other delegates leave? I haven’t
seen them in…over a month.”

      
“I don’t recall them leaving,” Remus
said, shaking his head.

      
“They must have,” Maki said.

      
Chronus looked at the door and started
forward.

      
“Let’s just make sure.”

      
He pressed the alarm on the door, but no
one answered. He then knocked, but still there was no answer.

      
“I guess they did leave,” Remus said,
stepping forward and pulling out an access card, passing it over the electronic
lock to override it. When his identity was confirmed, the door clicked open and
all three of them recoiled, backing across the hall, their hands over their
mouths as the stench overpowered them.

      
“What the hell?” Chronus choked.

      
Remus quickly went forward when he
recovered and stepped around the corner into the living room, where he stopped
in his tracks and his eyes went wide.

      
“Remus?” Maki asked, walking in with his
sleeve over his nose and mouth. “What—”

      
When both Bronze Elites saw the bodies
strung up on the ceiling with their ominous message, their hearts stopped.

      
“Fuck…” Remus breathed.

      
“Do you really think he did this to his
own men?” Maki hissed.

      
“They clearly didn’t do it themselves,”
Remus said, noting the disheveled state of the room. “Let’s go in there and
take this fucker down. I don’t care if we have to beat him into
unconsciousness. We can’t let this psycho run free.”

      
The three left the room, closing the door
behind them as they went into the next room, indicating a struggle. Remus
opened the door with the override code and they stepped in quietly, listening
for any noise from the Gihoric leader. When they heard nothing, they walked
further in. There were files and drives scattered around the room, stacked
high, some piles toppled to the ground.

      
“Where did he get all these?” Chronus
whispered.

      
“What information do they contain?” Maki
said, looking at the other Bronze Elite worriedly.

      
They walked through the living room and
kitchen, quiet and vigilant, waiting to hear signs of the Colonel moving.

      
Remus led them into the hallway leading
to the bedrooms and stopped at the door of the Colonel’s room. From his vantage
point, he could only see one boot on the floor in a huge pool of blood.

      
He darted in and turned the corner,
finding the Colonel’s corpse next to the bed, the bloodied lamp next to him.
Maki and Chronus followed the Silver Elite, staring in horror at the dead
foreign leader, their minds racing with thoughts about Colonel Amori’s relation
to General Decius, and the pride of the Gihrons. All five of the ambassadors
sent to Tiao were dead, killed in gruesome ways.

      
“Do you think…” Chronus looked at Remus,
unable to finish the question.

      
Maki walked forward carefully, reaching
down into Colonel Amori’s hand and pulling out some tangled strands of pristine
blonde hair from his fingers. He held them up, looking at the other Elites in
horror.

      
Remus lifted a hand to his mouth and
closed his eyes tightly.

      
“She was trying to tell us all along,
wasn’t she?” Chronus whispered. “And she finally couldn’t take it…”

      
Remus turned away from the body, cringing
as he tried to calm his breathing.

      
“We have to come up with a story,” Maki
said strongly. “To protect her, to protect our people.”

      
“We don’t know the entire story,” Chronus
said. “We don’t know what he did to Isa. If it was self-defense from the
ravings of a madman, perhaps—”

      
“No,” Remus said strongly.

      
“What?”

      
“This was General Decius’ younger
brother,” he said. “If we say that he was insane, that he attacked Isa, and she
killed him in self-defense, then he will deny it. He knew his brother his
entire life. He would say that there was no way he was crazy.”