Bart’s eyes shifted toward the front of the meeting. “And what about her?”
I didn’t need to follow his gaze to know he meant Adaiah. “She’s my wife, now, Bart. I love her desperately.”
He flinched, as though I’d struck him, and when his eyes traveled back to mine, something strange lurked in them. Something feral. I knew right then this would be harder than I’d hoped. I harbored some naïve belief until that moment, that my heartfelt apology would bring Bart home and things would be as they were. Perhaps better, because now I now understood what I’d done wrong in Bart’s eyes and could do better by him. The savage look in his eyes told me his feelings for Adaiah were still…very complicated.
“Bart,” I said cautiously. “Adaiah has my loyalty above all others in this world, including my brothers. Truly, the three of you are the most important people in my life. It doesn’t have to be a competition.”
Bart snorted, surprising me. It must have shown because he glanced at my face and then explained.
“You speak against competition, yet you believe in individuality and free enterprise, both of which encourage competition among people. You are a hypocrite, Johann, and while I appreciate the gesture—it’s more than I expected from you—nothing you’ve said tells me you’ve changed.”
“You’re twisting my words,” I said quickly. I was losing him, losing control of the conversation, and if I didn’t gain it back quickly, he’d walk away again. “Competition is a good thing. It encourages us to be creative, to invent, to better ourselves. But among people we love—”
“It’s different,” he cut me off bitterly. “All things change to serve you, Johann.”
“No. Listen to me, Bart. You’re talking about two completely different issues here and acting like they’re the same.” He opened his mouth, but I raised my hands, cutting him off before he argued again. “Please, Bart. Let’s not bicker. Natty and I want you back. We all—even Adaiah—want to see our family made whole again.”
He eyed me warily. “And what of our other differences?” His eyes again slid toward where the meeting progressed without us.
“I know we have differing opinions on many subjects, Bart, but come home, and we’ll figure it out. You have my word I won’t be angry at you or judge you for what you believe. Don’t expect me not to express my opinion on the matters, but we can do that and still respect one another.”
Then Bart did something that surprised me, and deepens my sorrow now. He swallowed. I noted the throat-bob. It wasn’t caused by an excess of saliva. Rather, by fear. He considered my offer in that moment. I’m sure of it. Probably wondered what would happen if he accepted. He was slowly but surely being convinced.
I felt a stab of joy, and squashed it. This wasn’t over yet. He studied the ground in silence for several seconds. I felt as though I would burst from not speaking, but kept silent, waiting for his next words. I planned to pounce on them with more reassurance.
Finally, Bart spoke. “Perhaps we—”
Crack.
I whirled to see what caused the deafening sound. It came from somewhere behind me. I could think of nothing in the meeting capable of making such a loud noise.
From where we stood, I had a clear view of the meadow. Mostly I saw the backs of audience members where they sat. A sea of hair-covered heads. On the far side of the clearing, the dais stretched across the open space, and I didn’t immediately see anything amiss.
Until I did.
One of the boulders above the meeting had somehow come loose (which must have been the sound we heard) and slid down the mountain slope toward the dais. From where I stood, it looked like it would land directly on top of President Zealey and Adaiah.
I screamed at them to move, yelling in tandem with Bart (perhaps the first time the two of us were completely in sync on anything) and ran forward. By then, Adaiah had no chance of hearing me. Others noticed the boulder falling, and a mass panic swept the clearing. The audience jumped and ran and screamed. Chairs were knocked over. A roar of voices drowned mine out.
I pressed forward, into the panicking crowd. In their mass exodus from the meadow, they carried me backward with them. The boulder crashed to the ground, and the sound reverberated in my feet. I didn’t know where Adaiah was, or if she’d gotten out of the way in time. I screamed her name until my throat felt raw. The cacophony swallowed the sound, even to my ears. I had no idea where Bart ended up—my tunnel vision for Adaiah didn’t permit me to notice if he still stood beside me—or where Natty, who’d also been in the crowd, had gotten to.
Movement from the slope caught my eye. Another boulder made its way down. Some far thought floated through my head beyond all the chaos of the moment, wondering how on earth this could be happening. As if in answer to my curiosity, my eyes fell on several dark figures on top of the boulders. This was no accident. No ill trick of karma. People stood up there, attempting to kill our leaders. No human could have moved such boulders with hands or crude tools. Each of those rocks must have weighed two tons. No. There were neurochemical powers at work here.
Those thoughts and a thousand others whirled through my mind, and my tunnel vision was thrown open wide. Bart no longer fought beside me, but my eyes fell perfectly upon Nat. He stood at the far-right side of the dais, helping some of the Core Union leadership to their feet. The boulders had not reached that far.
I screamed his name and, for a wonder, he heard me. His eyes scanned the crowd for several seconds before falling on me. I motioned frantically toward the boulders and he followed my gaze. Understanding dawned on his face. What happened next was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.
An energy unfamiliar to me gathered around Natty. Offensive energy of some kind. Because I don’t have that neurochemical talent, I couldn’t quite conceptualize it. I didn’t doubt Natty himself had gathered it. He raised his hands, and I had the vaguest sense of him sending the energy forth from his palms. The mountain above the boulders exploded
The crack from before didn’t hold a candle to the boom that now filled the countryside. Chunks of rock (smaller than the initial boulders but still deadly) rained down. The chaos multiplied by a factor of ten. A stampede ensued. People screamed. Cursed. Hysteria reigned. I pushed forward, looking for Adaiah. So much dust filled the air, I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of my nose. I called her name several more times.
Then I heard it. Her voice, behind me. I’d been moving toward her and she toward me. We must have passed one another in the pandemonium. I whirled, still blind, but feeling both the closeness of other bodies passing me and the gathering of neurochemical energy around me. Those who’d honed their abilities were using them. I prayed they’d be smart, and find a way to be effective against the bedlam.
Suddenly, the air cleared. It went from looking like a dust storm in the driest desert to crystal clear. Not natural. Yet another neurochemical ability, no doubt, and I felt more grateful for it than I could have expressed in that instant.
My eyes fell on Adaiah. She stood fifteen feet from me. The clearing of the air must have taken her by surprise as well, because she held her arms out in front of her, like a blind woman feeling her way. She blinked, looking dazed. Her eyes focused on me and relief flooded her face.
We started toward one another.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a figure approach. I didn’t think anything of it. Some audience member taking advantage of the clear air to bolt through the clearing. The figure, a man I didn’t recognize, pounced on Adaiah. He wrapped a muscular forearm around her waist, yanked her head back by the hair, and stuck the needle of a syringe against her jugular.
“EVERYONE STOP!!!”
Only a neurochemical ability could have amplified his voice so much. The jarring volume made ear drums ring and my bones ache. It proved effective. Everyone froze and turned to stare.
I stood not ten feet from my beloved, with no idea what the syringe pressed to her neck held. The man holding her hostage looke
d perfectly average. Medium brown hair, Caucasian, with tanned skinned. An unremarkable face. Dark, colorless eyes that stared directly into mine.
“Let. Her. Go,” I growled through clenched teeth. I’d never felt such hatred for a stranger before that moment.
When the man spoke again, his voice had lost the terrible amplification. In the terrified silence, I’m sure every corner of the clearing heard every syllable. “The famous Dr. Johann,” the man sneered. “Do you think you can bring us down with a test tube and a lab?”
His words so confused me, I didn’t know how to answer. I was famous to him? He had to be one of the fanatical Unionists. I’m certain the answer to ending their enslavement lay in science, yet I couldn’t muster a dignified answer. All my focus remained on Adaiah’s face, which held terror. Her chest rose and fell far more rapidly than normal, and the strain around her eyes told me he was hurting her.
“Well?” the man demanded.
“S-science is the world.” I’m sure it sounded pathetic to everyone there. It certainly did to me.
“People are the world.” Somewhere outside of my terror for my wife, I understood the man was twisting my words, trying to make me seem a monster. He would keep doing it, for every argument I put forth.
“Yes,” I said, using Adaiah’s tactic. “People are the world.” The man raised an eyebrow. My agreement took him by surprise. I pushed my advantage. “What is it you want?”
It had been the wrong question. The man’s smug grin testified to that. He held the upper hand and he knew it. “We want you to choose.”
Fear clenched down tight in my stomach, though I didn’t know what he wanted yet. “Choose what?”
Two more men sauntered forward, gripping a third man between them. I swear, my heart nearly stopped as I understood the situation I now found myself in. The man held hostage between the two Unionists was Bart.
They were going to make me choose.
“With the Union, all are equal, and if you agree to be a Unionist, we will give you both your brother and your little wifey here. But you believe in individuality above all else. To show how evil it is to place one human being ahead of another, you must choose which you want.”
“And what happens to the one I don’t choose?” I didn’t expect the answer to be good.
The man’s smile widened. “They come with us, and become part of the Core Union. Whether they want it or not.”
My spinal fluid froze. Forced into the collective. Neurological rape. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than such emotional slavery. Never to be free to feel. Or think your own thoughts. Never to be human again. Unimportant cogs in an emotionally dead machine. Dehumanization at its worst.
Every argument in the universe ran through my head in an instant. Bart already was a Unionist, even if he hadn’t given himself fully to the collective yet. He knew people in high places. He’d know how to get himself out of this situation on his own anyway. Adaiah was an innocent victim. What chance did she have?
Now, in hindsight, in regret, I realize they were all simply excuses. It came down to Adaiah being my wife. Bart has acted terribly toward me for years. To say we’ve grown apart is be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Of course I’d always have chosen Adaiah, and can anyone blame me for it?
If I’d thought more clearly, if I’d been more logical, more objective, I might have registered a few more important details. That this obscure fanatic knew both my name and my profession, though I am not well known, even among the B.C.O. leadership. That Bart talked specifically about me not choosing him, and now I was being asked to do exactly that. That Adaiah’s fear was clearly not for herself, but for me.
Looking back, I can see it now. She understood what was happening. Understood the truth of it. Knew no matter what I chose, I would lose.
“My brother can take care of himself. He already sympathizes with you. Let my wife go, please.” I extended my arm.
The man grinned so widely, I wondered his face would break. Wished it would. He dropped the syringe from Adaiah’s neck, put a palm on the middle of her back and shoved her toward me so violently, she stumbled. I lunged forward, falling to my knees, and caught her. Fearing she’d been injured, I didn’t get up right away. She rested her forehead against my shoulder and I put a comforting hand on the back of her head.
Nat appeared beside the two men still holding Bart. “You have to know we won’t let you leave,” he said. “We won’t allow you to force someone into one of your collectives.”
The man who’d held Adaiah grinned all the harder. “Of course we do,” he said loudly.
I remember feeling wildly confused.
“We’d never do something as vile as force someone to do something against their will.” He motioned to the two men holding Bart and they released him. I couldn’t wrap my brain around why they’d done it.
“Look,” the man continued, motioning to me and then to Bart, “at what individuality and its bias has brought. A family torn apart.”
I met Bart’s eyes for the first time since they’d brought him forward. I saw the hurt there. The rage. The bitterness and blame.
I understood.
The entire thing had been a setup. Not for my benefit, but for Bart’s. He’d been undecided, even considering my offer when I’d approached him minutes earlier. (Why didn’t I reach out to him sooner? Before the meeting?)
And they wanted him. Bart has powerful neurological abilities. They’d ‘shown’ him why he needed to give himself to them fully. In that instant, I’d lost him. A single moment. A single choice. A life-long relationship with my brother, gone.
Poor Natty, looking as desperate as I felt, spoke up. “You’re twisting things,” he shouted, eyes wide and face contorting with anger. “You rained boulders down on a peaceful assembly.” I’d never heard Nat speak so forcefully before.
“We did no such thing,” the man said sharply. “I saw people on the mountain as well. Fanatics, no doubt. Trying to sew dissension.”
“You’re a fanatic,” Nat cried.
“Hardly,” the man sneered. “I’m a respected member of the Core Union.”
“He is,” someone called out from behind them. I recognized one of the top leaders of the Union.
Nat tried again. “No, it was you—”
“Can you prove it?” The man’s face and voice were harder than granite.
We couldn’t. I knew it even then. We might investigate, accuse, testify, but we’d never prove conclusively who’d masterminded the attack. This man was the fanatic Natty named him, but the Union would vouch for him. They’d planned it all so perfectly.
“And this,” the man went on, jabbing a finger into Natty’s chest, “from the man who obliterated them with a power that can murder at will.”
Natty’s mouth fell open. “I was protecting—”
“Protecting? Is that what you call it? We’ll never know who those people were because you incinerated them. They might have been questioned. Brought to justice. You see?” he addressed the crowd now. “These kinds of powers must be regulated, or this kind of havoc will be seen daily. Men and women wiping out those who offend them. Those they don’t like. No one will be safe. Power like that,” he pointed a finger at Natty’s nose, “could wipe out an entire civilization in one massacring swoop.”
I told myself this was ridiculous. His words wouldn’t sway anybody. People were smart. Discerning. They’d see through this charade. As my eyes swept the crowd above my trembling wife’s head, terror filled me like an ocean tide.
They did believe it. They couldn’t see. I shifted my gaze to Nat. My terror reflected in his countenance as he scanned the faces of long-time friends and colleagues. Most of them studied him, not me. Their looks didn’t so much judge him for what happened as weigh the entire situation. Many nodded in a resigned way, as if realizing how naïve they’d been.
I rose slowly to my feet, leaving Adaiah on the ground. “You,” I addressed the horrible, dark-haired man, “are
most crafty. Anyone who knows my little brother at all knows he’d never hurt a fly.”
“Really?” The man answered. “Because he just did murder on the mountainside.”
“You’re twisting things,” I snarled.
“Am I, scientist? We all heard you demean your own brother. You who defend a killer. You who wish us to live with fear and sadness, when we can have tranquility. You who wish our children to live in fear and without absolute safety, when we can give it to them. You wish us to live with war, when we can have peace. Who’s twisting things now?”
He’d wound the issues into a knot so tight, I couldn’t fathom how to start untwisting it.
In front of me, Adaiah slowly straightened. When she reached her full height, roughly level with my chin, she faced me. She met my eyes with intensity, then slowly turned to face her attacker.
“Peace?” she said. I’d never heard barely-controlled fury in her voice before.
I stepped forward so my chest brushed her back, resisting the urge to rest my hands on her hips. I’d have snatched her away if the fanatic lunged at her again.
“You call this,” she motioned around the clearing, “peace? You want people to shove their choice, their accountability under the rug. You want them to run from their problems and repress their emotions. That’s not life. You want them to throw away their humanity, and you call it peace.”
The man looked vaguely discomfited, and quickly took on a lecturing air. ‘True peace is the absence of conflict, my dear. We can give—”
“WRONG!” Adaiah’s voice held such wrath, even I jumped. She lunged away from me and I was so shocked, I didn’t follow right away. “There will always be conflict, moron,” she said, shaking her finger under the fanatic’s nose. “Even in the collective, you can’t escape it. Because that’s life. True peace is not the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of justice. You, sir, know nothing of justice.”
I’ve never been so proud of my wife.
She shifted her gaze to Bart.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you. The fault is mine and mine alone. I was insensitive. I didn’t see what sat right in front of me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it right, if you let me. If you go with these people now, it’s something you will do because you choose to do it. You can’t blame your decision on Johann. Or Natty. Or me. It’s yours and yours alone.”
Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3) Page 29
