"Yeah, but it pays to be thorough, Sela." Desmond's voice was patient, yet firm. "I want to hear what you think you're good at.
She sighed and began, "I do retrievals mostly. I get stuff for people that is hard to find, sometimes even legally."
Desmond asked gently, "Do you steal?"
She shook her head, "Only if you think it's stealing to take from the Council."
"Of course not," Desmond chuckled. "What lines do you have?"
Furrowing her brow, she asked, "As in?"
Desmond spoke carefully, "I need to know what boundaries and guidelines you've set down for yourself." People jostled past them heading the other direction, each person oblivious to everyone else. "What rules do you live by, Sela?"
It was a good question. For the most part she had been winging it since she had left the Tower of Hope. After all, the Council saw fit to take as it pleased, to steal from the people. Why should anyone else see it as a moral problem to steal right back?
That was why most people scammed the magtrains. Who believed that the VIPs legitimately paid their way on the elevated train? Why should anyone else be held to a higher standard?
"I have rules…" she began, almost wondering aloud, "I don't like violence…"
It was a broad statement, entirely too broad, even though it was true. One of the reasons she trusted Gaines was that Gaines never took any business that involved murder. At least, none that she knew of. He had never offered her anything of that sort.
"I won't hurt anyone, unless I have to," her fingers brushed against the rigid pressure in the extra pocket of her purse, where her handgun waited for the worst to come.
"That's good," Desmond mused. "Honorable. What about hurting the Remaking, though? What do you think about that?"
Shooting a glance at him, Sela felt a lump in her throat. Like it or not, the Remaking was the Council's doing, and her family was tangled up in all of that.
She hated the Remaking! Hated it because of what it was doing to people in Megora. Hated it because of what had happened to her mother. Hated it because it put people like her cousin in power to hurt people.
Still, she couldn't see any way of attacking the Council without possibly making things worse for her parents. And… how could she do that?
"Well, what about you?" she snapped. "What's your grand plan?"
"I told you," he said. "Not in any detail, but I told you." Desmond spoke softly, matter-of-factly, as though anything else was unthinkable. "Victory. The end of the Remaking."
They walked in silence for a block, evading clusters of pedestrians, feeling the occasional, reflected, warm, orange glow of a sun soon to set. For a low-class district, the street was rather clean. The concrete felt less sticky underfoot.
"Before you agree to anything, I want you to think deeply about that question: just how far will you go?"
Sela took a deep breath and glared ahead. Gaines hadn't told her Desmond would vet her soul for entry into an Unmaker group. Unmakers that didn't like the term Unmaker.
Sela took a turn onto a narrow street that wasn't as nice, Desmond following after. Sticky, moldy, crushed food wrappings were kicked to the side of the alley. Broken glass, tears of cloth, bits of junk. It was disgusting. An acidic pang cut at her nostrils, like the air itself had heartburn. Evening shadows sliced over all of it.
Desmond drew up beside Sela, his head just a few inches above hers. She squeezed the shoulder strap of her purse in frustration. No longer was she afraid of Desmond. He was being meticulous, even as he kept reserved those things she wanted to know. He was good at it, well-practiced.
He watched her, patiently waiting for her to say something. Several times she started to speak and then cut off before uttering a syllable.
Sela forced her heart to slow, she blinked and took deliberate, measured breaths to calm her nerves.
Then she said, "If there's some way to make things better, I'd be interested in helping. But for now, I just need an income. I don't want to join… whatever your group is, whatever you call yourselves."
Sela expected him to say the group's name. She was fishing for it, in fact. Any information about what she was getting involved in would be helpful.
But Desmond surprised her. His eyebrows rose with sympathy and he bit on his thin lips. He was odd looking, though in a handsome sort of way.
"You have family, don't you, Sela?" The words came with a tilt of the head. His eyes were piercing!
She couldn't lie about this; he would see right through it! He was perceptive and he wasn’t trying to hide it. Sela bit her lips and tried to look away.
Desmond shrugged, "I understand your concern. I…" his gaze drifted into his memory as a wistful haze spread in his eyes. "My own family is in Sophion." That was a supercity on the Western Coast of North America, built over San Francisco.
He continued, "I think about them often, and worry even more."
Sela felt herself drawn in by his predicament. She understood. Even if they kept in contact, everything said back and forth would be fed into a database and hashed through a data-mining program. Someone involved with Unmaker activity couldn’t take that risk. It was an awful sacrifice to make.
That was why Sela's father had so seldom made contact with her. He had to do it through difficult, dangerous, and surreptitious methods. When he had sent her the handgun, it had come with a handwritten letter.
Each scrawled word was more jagged than she remembered of his handwriting. That tore at her heart, because she knew she had agonized his. It was a hard letter to have, but she would treasure it as long as she could.
Sela started slowly, "My family… I am separated from them, too." She shrugged with anguish. "Just safer that way," her voice cracked as she whispered the words.
Desmond gazed at her, his eyes in the alley while his heart drifted west. "It's not easy, what we do."
Sela shook her head slowly, "No, it isn't." The words were barely audible over the collected noise of Megora.
Desmond breathed slowly and spoke, "We've both made sacrifices to do what we know is best." He held his palms up at his sides, "I'm not asking you to sacrifice even more, Sela. I'm not asking you to join us. I can't make that decision for you. You just tell me how much you can be involved. Just help us where you can."
She swallowed, realizing she still didn't know who they were, what their plans were, whether there even was anyone besides this man. This man so young, aged by circumstance, necessity, and experience. Sela felt every bit the frightened child in a young woman's frame.
There was a strength in Desmond, though. He wasn't merely shadowed by his past and surrounded by his present.
Desmond was hunting his future.
He would shape things as much as he could, and no Remaking was going to stand in his way. His piercing eyes were stowed with quiet confidence. It was the sort of confidence that did not need to brag.
"Think about what I've asked, Sela." Desmond whispered, managing a compassionate smile. "If you can help, I would love to have you by my side."
Chapter 5
Sela tossed and turned, anxious for sleep to the point of a headache. The more she wanted to sleep, the more elusive it became. She was restless and agitated. Nothing cleansed her thoughts of Desmond's offer.
How could she join when she knew nothing about them? For all she knew, they would use her the moment they discovered her real identity. And it wasn’t just her father. Sela’s Uncle Steffen was highly connected in the government hierarchy.
Not that Sela was fond of her Uncle. He’d never really paid her any attention, except to dispense mere pleasantries. No one could find out her name was Wallis. It was too dangerous.
Whenever she returned to that certainty, the images of her father's last letter to her flooded her mind. His scratched text had been emotional. She just knew it. He had written it in a state of frustration, maybe fury.
Sela was supposed to go to Sovereign City. He had spent a lot of money arranging that escape, a
nd she had shirked the opportunity. Wasted the money. Shrugged off the chance that had been so hard-bought.
But then… had she not already made the choice to become an Unmaker?
After all, there wouldn't be another opportunity to flee to Sovereign City, none that her parents could afford. If she worked some big jobs, saved up on her own, maybe Sela could afford to pay for another chance herself. Doubtful, but maybe.
Could she really bide her time in Megora, doing her best to keep hidden… forever? Was it reasonable to think her parents might manage to escape? It was pure fantasy to think they would all flee from Megora together someday!
In some sense, her choice had indeed been made. Sela had already decided that her place was in the supercity. Only, she had not yet begun the obvious work of undermining the Provisional Council.
A sense of confidence accompanied that revelation, something she did not expect. Of course she should be working toward that end. What did she have to lose that wasn’t already at risk?
So much of her heart was wrapped up in worry for her parents, she could hardly spare a bit of it for anyone else. Sela Mason was someone she pretended to be every minute of every day. Deep down, that name was still false.
She didn't feel like Sela Mason. She still felt like Sela Wallis. That was what she was clinging to, the last vestige of her family ties. The first letter her father had sent, the one telling her to go to Sovereign City; he had written that she was not to change her name back once she was safe.
If she wound up on the SovereignCast, the name Sela Wallis would immediately get the Council's attention. Probably her face would too, but with her ghost time still in place, the Council might be fooled.
Still today, she wondered what difference it would make. What sense did worry for her parents make? They were already in danger, and it was clear now that her father was trying to make Sela safe first and foremost. She had rejected that.
That was why he sent the gun, an expensive semi-automatic. It was a short gun, squat and powerful. She had three magazines of 9mm in another pocket of her purse. That would supplement the magazine in the gun if need be. Forty rounds total, ten per magazine.
Hardly enough to start a rebellion.
It was for self-defense. The letter had explicitly declared that, and yet she was already doing work that could put her in extremely dire situations.
That in itself was a violation of her father's attempts to protect her. She didn't go to Sovereign City. She didn't lie low and get a job at a coffee shop. She didn't keep away from the elites and their high-security suites.
Sela was already rebelling against her father's wishes. Of course she would get involved in some sort of Unmaking activity! Sooner or later, it was inevitable. Her confidence grew.
Which led to the unavoidable question: how? Just who could you trust to overthrow the Remaking? With so many different groups out there forming, falling apart, or being taken apart by the Guides; it wasn't so easy to just become an Unmaker and get right to it.
It wasn't as though she was looking for a group though. Desmond was approaching her. Still, it was disquieting that she didn't even know what his organization called itself. She didn't know anything about it at all.
That made them safer to join. But it also made them less likely to accomplish anything, being so careful. Unimpeachable caution was impossible to distinguish from paralysis, safe though it may be. Probably it was some mix of those two deductions.
What was the worst that could happen though? She had already given up her father's gift of Sovereign City, a gift she desperately wanted, just… not alone. She couldn't live by herself in some other city. Knowing that she was free, while her parents were being slowly strangled in Megora.
What else did she have to lose?
Suddenly, it seemed like a very small step to begin working for Desmond. Maybe she would consider joining his group completely once she learned more about it.
What if they realized who she was?
A grumbled sigh escaped her lips in the dark. She rubbed her head with both hands, trying to scrub away the headache, push it back into the pillow. She flung her hands away and let them slap into the sheets. It didn't work. The headache was worse now than ever.
Sela had played Mason for months. It had all been practice up to this point. Fooling strangers was easy. Now was when the real performance started.
Sela Mason. Unmaker? Maybe, if Desmond’s group had a reasonable plan to achieve admirable goals.
Sela Wallis? She would have to leave that identity behind, as much as possible. Sacrifice her past for justice in the future.
It made no sense to stay in Megora, and yet continue to ignore from the things that made Megora such an awful place.
Slowly, she could feel a new blood slipping through her veins, surging with each pressure-thump from her heart. Nothing was different of course, except she felt different.
Life had almost settled into a routine; tolerable but pointless. She worked, made money, ate, showered, slept, survived. Still, all of it had been without any real meaning, because she couldn't leave the supercity, and she had no access to the reason she stayed; family.
Now, if she started working against the Guides and the PC government and the Remaking, she had a reason to be there, a reason to exist in the first place.
Sovereign City might be a refuge for those who could get there, but the biggest threat, even to them, was here in Megora, and in every other supercity run by the bureaucrats and the busybodies and the intellectuals.
Sela felt the headache ebb slowly away. Her worry had brought it on. All of the wrestling with this concern was the problem.
Sure there were reasons to worry still, maybe even more reasons now than before. At the same time though, it was… well, liberating. It was reassuring to know that any problems coming up might be okay to face, since there could be a real goal in place now.
Well, there might be, she thought.
She would audition Desmond Tine's group and see what they had in mind. See how they would go about whatever specific goals they had. It didn't sound like any Unmaker organization she had ever heard of.
A blush settled across her face in the darkness as she realized again how much the Agency of Vision's propaganda had worked on her. Unmakers had a bad taste in her mouth, like they were just a bunch of outdated relics and fools. As much as she hated the Remaking, it was difficult to see through the official line that Unmakers were worthy of nothing more than utter contempt and disregard.
That would have to change. Although Desmond Tine did not call himself an Unmaker, he shared similar ideals to those people. Sela's father did too. Her mother was being held hostage still, to make sure he obeyed commands from the Council.
Maybe it was a good sign that so many Unmaker groups existed. Even if they didn't organize very well, or accomplish anything real. The mere fact that they hated the Remakers and wanted to change everything; maybe that was a step in the right direction.
Reasonable fanatics.
Desmond drifted into her mind. He was confident beyond his age, though not arrogant. Something about him whispered of experience and wisdom earned at high cost.
He didn't seem like any other boys that Sela knew. She interacted with people her age from time to time, and most of them still held a youthful glow, even if they disliked the Remaking. So many just went on about their lives, sampling all the distractions offered to them by the powers that be.
Not Desmond. He was driven, serious, daring, and mature. She wondered about his family and how he ended up in a supercity a few thousand miles away from them.
He was handsome, lanky, not awkward in his skin, though he couldn't be called conventionally attractive.
That brought Gideon Blaize her mind. He was gorgeous, and even more so given his ongoing efforts to fight the Remaking. But Gideon did not speak to Sela one-on-one, the way Desmond did that afternoon. She had her chance to go to Sovereign City.
Desmond wasn't the sort of guy S
ela could see herself dating, although dating hadn't seriously entered her mind since she left the Tower of Hope. How could she get close to anyone? Too many boys just weren't interested in having serious conversations or being adults.
Desmond was mature and composed, and he was passionate about destroying the power of the ruling class. That was attractive, even if he was somewhat awkward looking.
As his compassionate smile slid forward from her memory, Sela felt herself drift. She was comfortable finally. Still a little restless, but now it was from anticipation.
The smile faded, as did the noise of Megora seeping in through the open window. She slipped off into a deep sleep.
As agreed, Sela met Desmond outside the restaurant. It was closed until eleven in the morning, not a breakfast joint. Which was fine. They were just using it as a rendezvous anyhow.
Desmond smiled warmly when he saw Sela, "Good morning.”
"Hello,” Sela replied.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t come back,” Desmond said.
She shrugged, “I almost didn’t.” Looking at the shuttered front door, she asked, “Should we find some place to get breakfast and talk?”
Desmond pointed down the street, “I passed a little diner that looked interesting last night. We could go there.” It was a questions as much as a statement.
“All right,” Sela answered, falling into step beside him.
The morning was warm and hazy. Toward the North, roiling clouds were beginning to gather. It might storm within an hour or two if the system migrated south.
Sela thought of her father’s research, and wondered whether it could be reversed, whether it could be used to calm violent weather somehow. The Council would never be interested, though.
It would interfere with the environment too much to manipulate weather. Although, they made secret exceptions to allow the Guides to amplify storms as devastating weapons. Perhaps Sovereign City knew how to calm the skies.
The diner was actually the first floor of an old Victorian house, built up a few feet off the ground. It looked ancient, especially surrounded by all of these ultra-modern skyscrapers. Aged oak steps creaked as they climbed onto the enclosed porch.
The Remaking Page 7
