Tears blurred Cora’s vision and stung her eyes. Remmy pulled his arm tighter. He said nothing, but continued to hold Cora as she cried beside her mother’s grave.
In that moment, Remmy was the only thing that Cora could still believe in, could still think would ever put a smile on her face again. He was all that was real and right in the world. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer to her. It was strange to hug Remmy, something that Cora worried she might do wrong, but her arms seemed to fit perfectly around Remmy and his around her.
Cora had no idea how long she cried against Remmy, but he never faltered, remained steadfast the entire time. Remmy would always be there. Cora could feel that much.
-18-
The headquarters of the ERC Council, gray and imposing, looked even more so now that rings of sandbags and barbed wire surrounded it. The riots and Reds had finally reached the Stele and Eldritch couldn’t have been more pleased. He imagined that without his Em-Pak, he would feel quite happy right now, very proud of himself and his careful planning.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?” Captain Ortiz asked. Both he and Eldritch’s aide rode in the back of his limo, their Em-Paks beeping with increased frequency as they approached the ERC Council building.
“Yes, of course it is,” Eldritch nodded with confidence. There was no point second-guessing the plan now. Things had already reached a tipping point and he was unable to turn back.
“Sir?” the aide said as he held out a small flash drive. Eldritch had loaded it with the required override programs and Em-Pak ID numbers. All he had to do now was gain access to the main server.
“Thank you,” Eldritch smiled. He propped his left shoe on his knee and twisted the heel, revealing a small compartment. Ortiz had designed it and lined it with a thin sheet of lead, ensuring that whatever was inside would remain invisible to the x-ray machines that waited at the doors on the ERC Council building. Dropping the flash drive inside the secret compartment, Eldritch twisted the heel and locked it back into place.
“Sir, you may want this as well,” Ortiz held out an odd looking rectangular piece of plastic. Left in his briefcase, it would easily be overlooked as a random bit of office junk.
“And you’re sure this works?” Eldritch asked as he looked at the plastic box.
“Absolutely sir,” Ortiz nodded. “I tested it myself yesterday on a Red. Just twist the rear section. That will puncture the compressed air cartridge and fire the plastic projectiles. You get two shots from this weapon, Mr. Eldritch, so you’ll need to make them count, sir. I’d recommend you aim for the face or neck, sir. The bullets may not be able to puncture body armor, but will definitely deliver a kill shot when fired at flesh, so avoid a chest shot and aim for softer targets.”
“Outstanding, Captain,” Eldritch beamed.
The limo rolled to a stop outside the ERC Council building. A group of ERC officers immediately surrounded the vehicle in a defensive circle and quickly whisked Eldritch out of the limo and into the building.
Dropping his briefcase and shoes onto a conveyor belt that fed the x-ray machine, Eldritch couldn’t help but notice that his Em-Pak was chirping away like an over caffeinated sparrow. The guard on duty appeared to notice as well.
“Everything okay, Mr. Eldritch, sir?” the guard asked as the assemblyman’s belongings were put into the machine.
“Okay?” Eldritch snapped. “Are you seriously that ignorant? No, everything is most certainly not okay, you moron. There are Reds within our city walls, the virus has resurfaced and the Emos have stepped up their terroristic activities. So no, you jackass, it is not okay!” It was risky to call the guard’s bluff. But Eldritch was not known for his tolerance of underlings and he couldn’t let on that he was here to overthrow the ERC.
“S-s-sorry, sir,” the guard stuttered, holding his hands up in apology, his own Em-Pak beeping now. “I just meant that…I mean that I…”
“You meant what?” Eldritch growled. “That I should waste what precious little time I have to save our citizens and everything we hold dear to tolerate your asinine line of questioning? I should have you transferred to one of the outer cities so you can see firsthand just exactly how not okay things are.”
“No sir. I mean, yes sir. I mean…” the guard tripped over his own words. “My sincerest apologies, Assemblyman Eldritch. I was completely out of line, sir. Please forgive my ignorance.”
Eldritch took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if considering the guard’s request. “Yes, of course. Just doing your job, right? No fault in that, I guess.”
“Yes sir. Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” the guard answered quickly as he handed Eldritch his shoes and briefcase, never once having looked at the x-ray machine’s viewing screen.
“Good man,” Eldritch smiled as he patted the guard on the shoulder. “You’re right to be cautious. That’s what you’re here to do. Never know who can be trusted these days.”
“Right you are, sir,” the guard nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Eldritch slipped back into his shoes and began walking towards the elevator. Thus far, his plan had gone amazingly well.
-19-
The days in the Emo camp were peaceful and calm. Cora spent more and more time with her grandfather, Samuel, who was nothing like the stoic, cold visage she had been taught to worship by her father. Samuel was everything that her father wasn’t and Cora found it difficult to comprehend the connection between the two.
“I just don’t understand how you could be his father,” Cora said. “How can my father be your son? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Cora,” Samuel said fondly, a warm smile on his face, “life is never so simple. It’s never that black and white. I thought that it was, when I was younger and foolish. That line of thinking is what led me to create Em-Paks. It seemed logical at the time that if emotions were causing the virus, removing emotions would keep people safe. But we didn’t understand enough and made a rash decision. People wanted an immediate solution, one that they wouldn’t have to work for. The Em-Paks worked, but I never intended them to be a permanent solution.”
“But then why do we still use them?” Cora questioned. She had spent many days in the hospital tent relentlessly questioning her grandfather. Any other free time was spent with Remmy learning to control her emotions or exploring the woods.
“Because the ERC saw them as a means to control people,” Samuel said, his face darkened and aged with sadness. “I don’t know, maybe I should have seen that someone would, but I just wanted to save people, to keep them safe from the Reds.”
“Didn’t you say anything?” Cora pressed on.
“Of course,” Samuel smiled, but all the usual glee in his expression had vanished. “Even with an Em-Pak, I could understand the logical argument for slowly weaning the citizens from their Em-Paks. I reported my findings directly to the ERC Council.”
“And?” Cora asked.
“And that’s when they banished me from the Stele, from all cities actually,” Samuel answered. “I escaped before the ERC could silence me permanently. Of course, they couldn’t allow the citizens to know that, so they made it look like Reds attacked my car. Some poor soul was torn apart and buried in my coffin, but it wasn’t me. They made my death a spectacle and used it to further their agendas. The ERC assumed because I was outside of the city walls that I was as good as dead. They never counted on me surviving. Once I was outside the walls, I quickly realized that my Em-Pak was going to make my survival much harder because it took away my fear. It prevented my natural instincts, those feelings and senses that have allowed us to climb as far as we have on the evolutionary ladder. Fear is what kept me alive at first, kept me away from the Reds. So I worked out the method to remove my Em-Pak and then began leaking word into the cities about how it could be done.”
“Did my father know?” Cora asked. “I mean about your death? About the ERC and the Em-Paks? He must know now, right?”
“I’m
not sure if he does and that he’d care if he did,” Samuel said honestly. “I’ve kept tabs on him, on all of you, gleaning what small bits of information I could from newly arrived Emos and hacked ERC computer terminals. What I have pieced together about my son chills my soul. But I’m not sure how much I can really blame him. The ERC has groomed him, fostered the monster that he has become. He was young and just starting a family. I thought about taking him with me, but I didn’t want to put any of you in danger. If your father vanished, the ERC would have known something was wrong. Then the rest of you would be in danger.”
“Yes,” Cora said coldly, “I can see how the ERC groomed Father. He was doing the same thing with me and Xander.”
“I know,” Samuel nodded, “but from what I hear, you weren’t really cut out for the political spotlight.”
Cora felt herself blush, those familiar waves of prickly heat now having a name and explanation. “I guess not. I just never really felt like doing what my father wanted me to do. Xander is a different story. Are you sure I can’t tell him about you?”
“I wish we could,” Samuel said, a note of true remorse tingeing his words. “But it’s too risky. Xander is still harnessed to his Em-Pak, so there’s no telling what his response might be. It could cause his Em-Pak to malfunction and then infection wouldn’t be too far behind. It’s just too risky I’m afraid.”
“Don’t you think you could convince him to have his removed?” Cora almost pleaded. She was thankful to have more than her grandfather’s image influencing her life, and even more so now that she knew he was the opposite of everything that she had been taught, but this also made her feel an emptiness, a hole where the rest of her family should be. “Couldn’t Xander be made to see the truth as well?”
“I wish I could say,” Samuel answered. “But there really is no way to tell. From what you’ve told me, it seems that Xander is well indoctrinated by your father and the ERC. If we take his Em-Pak off, he may still react poorly and this sudden rush of emotions could kill him. Cora, it almost killed you.”
Cora remembered the day of the crash. Walking through the woods with Remmy as he carried Xander and suddenly feeling a turbulent rush of what she now knew to be emotions flooding her body. She had believed that she was injured from the accident or maybe sick. Samuel had told her that having her Em-Pak damaged during the crash caused it to work erratically and nearly overwhelmed her body. People needed to be weaned from their Em-Paks. Cora’s had just suddenly stopped working. Had Remmy not brought her to help as soon as he had, and Samuel not removed Cora’s Em-Pak, she would have suffered a massive heart attack from the strain and died. Even if she had somehow survived the heart attack, she would have become a Red.
“But mine was broken,” Cora protested. She had to believe that someone good was buried inside Xander, beneath his Em-Pak.
“That is true,” Samuel nodded. “But all people who remove their Em-Paks run the risk of being overwhelmed by their emotions and suffering a heart attack or infection. With Xander being in the mindset that he is, it’s simply too risky. It almost certainly would kill him. I’m sorry, dear, but we can’t take that risk. We can’t make that choice for him.”
“I guess,” Cora sighed. “I just thought maybe we could reach him, I don’t know, find some way to make him see. I wish we could.”
“Me too,” Samuel admitted. “I know how difficult it can be to have your emotions back and not your family.”
“Yeah,” Cora said, but then tried to brighten the conversation. “But at least we’ve got each other, right? That’s got to count for something.”
“Very true,” Samuel smiled as he mussed Cora’s hair. “And you’ve evidently found yourself something else to count as well. Or should I say someone?”
“What are you talking about?” Cora asked, feeling the increasingly familiar prickly waves of heat dancing up and down her neck.
“Remmy?” Samuel asked, his voice full of mirth and eyebrows arched comically high.
“Remmy?” Cora repeated, her voice going high and thin. But she knew that Samuel was right, could feel it in her gut and more importantly, her heart. Something happened when Remmy was around. A strange and terrifying, yet completely addicting and enjoyable feeling warmed Cora, but she had yet to place a name to it. What she felt around Remmy was something that Cora had never known, but keenly missed when he wasn’t around.
Samuel couldn’t help himself and a deep, good-natured laugh rumbled up from his gut. “Yes, Remmy?”
“What?” Cora demanded, suddenly feeling a twinge of what Remmy had explained as anger. “Why do you keep saying Remmy’s name?” Samuel’s eyes darted over Cora’s shoulder.
“Um, because I’m standing behind you,” Remmy said, a slight smile curling the edges of his lips.
“How long have you been there?” Cora snapped, her entire body now awash in those increasingly familiar waves of prickly heat.
-20-
The elevator binged loudly and shuddered to a stop. Eldritch stepped out onto the floor of the main server. Two guards turned to face him, not used to having people step out of the elevator on their floor.
“Sir?” one of guards asked, his machine gun slightly raised. “With all due respect, Mr. Eldritch, I think you may have pushed the wrong button, sir.”
Eldritch moved with purpose and sense of clarity that was only afforded by his Em-Pak. There were no nagging thoughts of self-doubt, no need to consider the morality of his plan. What he was doing was important, but beyond that, it was his nature. Why should he be made to feel bad for simply following that? Wasn’t that his design?
With a quick half twist of the small plastic box, Eldritch watched a cloud of compressed air burst forward. The projectile moved with such speed that it was lost in the space between passing seconds. The approaching guard’s head snapped back and he fell to the floor. A dark pool of blood began creeping across the polished floor.
The second guard fumbled for his gun, unsure of what was transpiring before him. His Em-Pak angrily chirped away as his hands tangled in the strap of the machine gun strung over his shoulder.
Eldritch gave the small box a second and final twist. A loud puff echoed through the hallway. The remaining guard’s hands, still tangled, struggled to reach the small hole in the center of his neck. Blood pulsed from the injury, covering the front of his uniform. Eldritch couldn’t help but think that it somewhat resembled a rather morbid necktie.
“Sorry gents,” Eldritch said, free of remorse. Grabbing the guards’ two keycards from around their necks, Eldritch slid them through the scanner in the correct sequence that very few people knew. The heavy metal door slid silently to the side revealing a large dark room.
The deafening whir of numerous fans attempting to keep the server room cool battered the sides of Eldritch’s head. It was of no matter. He would be gone soon enough or had better be.
The main server towered above Eldritch’s head, dominating the center of the room like some long forgotten obsidian obelisk. Small red and green lights danced on the sides. Locating the panel detailed in his father’s notes, Eldritch twisted the release and silently dropped it to the floor. A small port surrounded by a series of multicolored twisting wires waited patiently within the tiny compartment. Eldritch lifted his shoe, released the false heel, and retrieved the flash drive.
Looking around one last time, Eldritch plunged the flash drive into the port and watched as the sequence of lights changed. Strange that something as small and seemingly harmless as the change of a light’s color could signal what was about to come. The tiny flicker of an LED bulb harkening the beginning of a new era, one helmed by Eldritch.
Grabbing the guards, Eldritch dragged them one at a time into the sever room. Someone would probably notice that they weren’t at their posts and would definitely notice the wide streaks of blood painted across the floor, but that wouldn’t matter soon.
Eldritch casually stepped back into the elevator and smoothed the wrinkles in his su
it. He needed to look good for his television appearance. The members of the ERC Council, Eldritch mused as his Em-Pak tried valiantly to erase his smug sense of satisfaction, well that was a different story altogether.
-21-
Ripples, like liquid glass, gently moved the pine needle through the current in lazy circles. Cora found it mesmerizing. She had never known what free time felt like or could be used for. Days behind the city walls were spent preparing, studying ERC laws and politics. Never had there been time, let alone hours, just to enjoy being alive. Cora had come to realize that she had never actually enjoyed anything before the accident. Now all that was changing. Cora was changing.
A small waterfall cascaded at the far end of the pool, throwing a light mist into the air that kissed Cora’s cheeks. The waterfall roared as it crashed against the jagged rocks below, adding to the hypnotic nature of the setting. Sights like these didn’t exist inside the cities, would have been outlawed and Cora could understand why. Sitting here, lost in nature, Cora found herself sorting through a deep well of long suppressed feelings and thoughts. Many of them were about her mother, father, and Xander. More were about Remmy.
“It’s hard to look away, right?” Remmy grinned as he plopped down into the grass beside her. He began toying with a stick, drawing small designs in the dirt.
“Huh?” Cora muttered, lost in her own thoughts.
“The pine needle,” Remmy answered. “You never think to look at something like that, but then you do and you can’t look away.”
“Yeah,” Cora nodded, joining the conversation. She leaned back on her elbows, enjoying the sensation of the soft grass against her skin. “I’m not even sure how long I’ve been looking at it.”
“Yup,” Remmy smirked, “that’s how it goes. I love being out here, away from camp, from everyone.”
“Antisocial much?” Cora laughed. “I’ll leave you with your thoughts then.” She faked getting up, but Remmy’s hand shot out and grabbed her elbow.
Love Bug Page 7
