“What?” I press, wondering what she’s hiding.
“He said to make sure you do well, whatever it takes. There have been rumors about even more changes to Assimilation since I went through.” Now she looks worried. I say nothing, I just wait with a thumping heart and hands that shake as I tag the last few blouses. “He says he thinks the Tribunal is training an army. In the last class there were five people that just…disappeared.”
“Disposed?” I ask, meeting her eyes.
“No one knows.” She looks at me with such concern that my blood runs to ice.
Fear blooms in my chest. I wonder if Ritter knows more about Assimilation than he lets on. Nothing he’s described to me sounds like this. He’s told me that assimilating persons have to learn the history and customs of Concordia and that there is a large component of physical fitness, as his world values achievement of an individual’s personal best in all aspects. But he said nothing about preparing for war.
I am not unaccustomed to physical challenge or to defending myself. My father made sure that his wife and daughter had the skills he felt women in the modern world would need: basic automotive and home maintenance, the ability to shoot a gun, and the ability to defend against an attacker. I have used what he’s taught me against bullies at numerous schools, whether they were after me or someone else. But I haven’t done much with his lessons lately. Other than putting the spare tire on the Prius for a short drive to Discount Tire, the only other recent use of his teachings was that last day at home, when I retaliated against Jake Armadice after he groped me.
Jake Armadice offended me, and I’m not going to pull some sort of revisionist history crap and say I don’t feel he actually endangered me. He did. Of course he did. He scared the hell out of me. But I have no idea how I might react in an even worse emergency.
“Mina,” I ask suddenly, “how does everyone know I’m from Attero? How did you?”
“Attero was a lucky guess,” she says, glancing down at the pile of folded blouses as if they’ve magically appeared there. “The only thing I really knew is that you were from a closed world. No Idix.” Mina smiles and calls out a greeting to two women who’ve just entered. “Slivvers from open worlds get a sort of temporary Idix before they launch. Sort of like a passport that they can’t lose.”
That confirms my suspicions. Despite his insistence to the contrary, Ritter had me hide my arm so that people wouldn’t know I was from a closed world. Whether I chose to come or not, being here and in Ritter’s company marked him as a violator or, at the very least, a conspirator.
Another few customers come in, so I try on some clothes and generally make myself scarce until the store clears out again. Mina finds me staring at myself in the mirror.
“Hey,” she says. There’s really no point in asking me what I’m thinking about. I shift my focus to her reflection in the mirror instead of my own.
“Is there anything else I should know about Assimilation?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I thought I might really be of help until Ollie mentioned how different it is now. But if there’s anything you want to ask me once you start, I’ll help you in any way I can.”
I nod. She tries to change the subject by disappearing and returning with a few more things she thinks I should try.
“I don’t have any…money,” I say. Do they call it money here? I never did circle back around to the topic.
Suddenly my discarded pants begin to sound as the logger in the pocket activates. I fish it out. Ritter pops up on the screen, looking worried.
“Where are you?” he asks, clearly torn between irritation and relief.
“I’m at Flash talking to Mina,” I tell him, careful to aim the logger at my face so he can’t see that I have no pants on.
“When are you coming back?”
I bite my tongue before I ask why he suddenly cares. “I’ll leave to catch the slide in a few minutes. Why?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I was just—you didn’t tell me where you were going.”
This time I can’t stop myself. “You didn’t seem to care when you locked yourself in the office earlier,” I reply flatly.
Ritter looks properly apologetic. “I’m sorry. Please come back. I’ll do my best to answer your questions.”
“Okay,” I reply. He’s going to be in for a lot of questions. He just doesn’t know it yet.
I’m in the first seat to the front on the final slide, the one that will stop less than a quarter mile from Ritter’s keeping, when it happens. Just as we’re cresting up through the tunnel into the sunlight, there’s a flash of something colorful. An impact.
The slides are amazing. They travel at unholy speeds right up until the stations, and then they brake hard. Sixty to zero in only a few seconds, you could say. Ritter’s tried to explain the technology of the air balancing system, the thing that keeps everyone on board from smashing against the front windshield or just plain falling down, but I still don’t get it.
What that fancy system means is that in spite of how quickly the slide can stop, we were still going more than fast enough to kill the young woman who stepped in front it.
Horrified chatter fills the slide car. No one moves as the front doors whisper open. We’re all too mesmerized by the broken windshield, the blur of color we see just beyond it.
A loud buzzing sounds. People thaw out and begin to exit the car, so I follow them. I tell myself to turn right as I exit, head toward Ritter’s. Don’t go left. Don’t go to the front of the car to look.
I never listen to myself in moments like these.
It isn’t that I want to see something fantastically gruesome, it’s that I can’t fathom that someone would step in the path of a moving train. Slide.
She’s staring lifelessly upward, arms and legs flopped in rag doll fashion, in directions human limbs aren’t ordinarily capable of. Sunlight catches the mirrored surface of her Idix and shines brightly. Blood surrounds her head and shoulders like a dirty halo. Some kind of food wrapper is clutched in her right hand, its contents, like the promise of her future, unfinished.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m logging Strega.
“Hello,” he smiles, until he sees something in my face. “Davinney?” His voice becomes uncertain.
I can’t answer him or the flood that might be a scream or a sob or I don’t know what else that’s stuck in my throat will burst forth. Instead, I angle the logger screen to the woman first and then up at the slide car, which has numbers on a display screen that will tell Strega exactly where I am.
He arrives at the same time the guardians do, a bag of some sort over his shoulder. Two guardians, dressed all in black, usher him over to the woman and wait while he confirms the obvious, that she’s dead, and then they shoo him away.
Strega finds me sagged against the bricks of someone’s keeping, watching it all. I let him apply the silver disks. In fact, for once, I’m grateful for them. They shut down the million questions whirling in my head. Why? She was beautiful and young and had her whole life ahead of her. Why would she step in front of the slide like that?
There are no answers.
Strega takes my arm, leads me away, toward Ritter’s.
“There’s nothing we can do here,” he says solemnly. “The end processor is on his way.”
Ugh. End processor? What a horrible term. “End” is the word they use for death here. So an end processor must be like a coroner or an undertaker. I’m not sure which.
As we reach Ritter’s keeping, Strega gives me a worried look.
“Are you going to be alright?” he asks, looking like he’s ready to reach for the disks again.
I nod. Speaking would be too much.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to get back to holding,” he says, frowning. Torn.
“Go,” I manage to croak. I can’t finish the thought, which is that at least there’s something he might be able to do for the ones in holding.
Strega makes no move to
leave, though. Frowning, he glances at the meld. “Listen,” he says, still staring at the closed panel of glass. “Don’t tell Ritter about this.” He looks back at me now, troubled. I want to grab those calming little disks and turn them on him.
“Why not?”
It would be nice to talk about it with someone who’s not used to a certain level of detachment from death.
Strega’s face smooths out, but his voice doesn’t. “Just please, Davinney, trust me on this. Promise me you won’t. Log Mina or Melayne if you need someone to talk about it with. Make sure Ritter can’t hear you. I don’t have time to explain now, but I will. Another time.”
“Okay,” I agree, though something inside me pushes back. I ignore it. I gave him my word, and here, the consequences for breaking it are much higher.
He gives me another pained look before very gently, very intentionally swiping my forehead. I am equally deliberate as I return it. I stand outside the keeping and watch him walk away. He looks back at me several times. Before he can decide to turn back, I find the disk Ritter gave me for the meld.
Ritter maintains the chastised puppy look once I make it inside. I don’t know how he knows I’ve arrived, but he practically meets me in the meldway. I’ve had plenty of time on the three slides home to think about things, but now I’ve lost track of everything I wanted to ask.
He sees the look on my face and assumes, however, that it’s aimed at him. With a determined yet fearful look, he sighs and says,
“A promise is a promise. Fire away. I can see you’re full of questions.”
My mind eagerly latches on to the distraction. Rather than discuss the woman, I turn back toward the flood of things I’ve been wondering about and the new things my visit with Mina created.
“How many people usually assimilate at one time?”
Mina has given me the impression that it is done in groups. If five people disappeared from a larger group, how many are there in a typical group?
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I think it varies. Why?”
“Mina was telling me that she had a friend who assimilated the year before she did. And she said her fiancé told her that several people vanished from the last class.”
Ritter looks at me evenly. “Vanished?”
“That’s what she said,” I reply. He doesn’t look…anything. Nothing sparks in him to suggest that he knows what it means, but it also doesn’t appear to surprise him. I try another question. “Is Assimilation something that everyone who isn’t born here has to do? You know, if someone decides to come here from an open world and wants to stay forever?”
“Yeah. It’s really just…immigration?” He speaks the last word as if he isn’t sure he’s got the right one.
“That’s what we call it when someone from one country moves to another country,” I explain.
“Well, Assimilation is the same thing,” Ritter answers, “but for changing parallels.”
“So, people from open worlds can decide they want to live on Concordia and move here permanently?”
He nods. “Yes. They can appeal to the local Tribunal and if the Tribunal grants their request, they have to go through Assimilation. If they complete it successfully, they get to stay. If not, they have to go back to their own parallel.”
“Does anyone keep records of the Assimilation classes?”
He frowns. “The pastkeepers might. I’m not sure.” He leads the way into the office. The wall in front of us lights up. After a few minutes of searching the scape, Concordia’s internet, Ritter comes up empty. “I’d research it more at the pastkeepers function hall if I were functioning before the Tribunal, but I’m not.”
“Are there other heralds you function with that you could ask? Or do you have any pastkeeper friends?”
He’s grabbed his logger and is swiping through screens. “Already on it,” he says. “I’m going to start with a couple of people at the local function hall, and if that doesn’t return anything I’ll go outside.”
No sooner than Ritter finishes logging, it beeps in his hand. Swiping at the screen, he frowns.
“Turn on your viewer to VC2,” he reads.
We move into the living room, neither of us sitting. Ritter touches the wall panel and the screen fills with a dark screen and an intermittent pinging sound. It reminds me of the Emergency Broadcast System and the familiar monotone refrain that it is only a test. Except this isn’t a test. The screen fills with just three sentences:
All slivvers are being called back to Concordia. Be prepared for long waits for slides nearest the launch sites. Await further information, news, and instructions.
Ritter flips to several other channels on the viewer. They all have the same black screen and same message.
Ritter voice logs Scuva. “Guardian,” he explains. “Scuva? It’s Ritter. What’s going on? Have you seen the viewer?”
I’m prepared to watch helplessly and listen to one side of the conversation, but with a few quick motions Scuva’s voice bursts through the logger as if he were in the room.
“I’m not sure yet. Only that Concordia is pulling everyone back and closing the launches until further notice. No one goes out, no one comes in. Except the Disposal.”
Ritter’s face, which had taken on a hopeful expression, falls. Of course they wouldn’t close the Disposal.
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything else about it, but I have to go.” Scuva doesn’t wait for a goodbye. His end goes dead.
We leave the viewer on to see if the screen changes, but it doesn’t. Ritter logs everyone he knows, and it is the same everywhere. No one knows anything more than we do.
Two days later, with the launch closure mystery and our impending Tribunal, Ritter’s about to jump out of his skin when Strega barges in after he clears function for the day. Instead of his usual calm greeting, however, he’s agitated. Strega’s eyes volley between us, and when he finally settles on Ritter, something in them darkens.
Ever the gentleman, Strega’s eyes flick my way again. “Could I have a moment with Ritter?”
“Sure,” I reply, logging back and forth with Mina and Melayne, who are both home alone while their guardian mates are functioning. Both Scuva and Ollie have been asked to stay late. The strange message on the viewer has both of them nervous, wondering if their men are in danger. The only difference between them is that Ollie is military and Scuva is more like police.
Strega and Ritter go into his unit, presumably for privacy, but Strega is so loud I wonder why he thinks he’ll find any anywhere in the keeping. I can’t quite make out the words at first, but Strega’s angry, something I haven’t encountered yet.
“Bullshit!” Strega cries. His voice becomes muffled again. I catch only parts of what he’s saying. “She’s —ey’s scrier.” There’s a long part I don’t catch before his voice rises and every word is clear. “Why in God’s name would you take her to Mom and Dad’s? It’s not like she died and they forgot what she looked like! Did you think none of us would recognize her? What if the Tribunal knows it, too? Did you even consider that before…parallels…for her scriers?”
I wish I could have made out the entire conversation. The pieces are all there, I think, but I can’t fit them together. I can tell by the movement of shadows in front of the meld that Strega is pacing. I can hear him clearly as he passes close to the meld.
“You couldn’t just let it go,” Strega accuses. “No. And now look what you’ve done, you mucker!”
Mucker is usually an affectionate Concordia term for someone who goofs up, but there is no affection in Strega’s voice. His voice is like a shaft of steel, and from the sound of his reply, his words have cut Ritter deeply.
“Don’t you get it?” Ritter yells back. “There’s something wrong, Strega. Really wrong. People aren’t killing themselves. They’re being murdered. She was murdered!”
“Oh, stop! Not this again!”
It is Strega’s turn to plead. And either because he’s a caretaker or merely becaus
e he’s Strega, he also soothes. I don’t catch it all, since his voice becomes low and calm again. Something about love and pain and letting things go that can’t be controlled or made sense of. And then I find myself just outside the meld, drawn closer by the mystery of what a scrier is. Strega’s voice catches. “If you get disposed of, Ritter…” His shadow approaches the meld.
I flee to the rear of the keeping, to the platform with the view of the canals, ashamed of my eavesdropping. With a sigh, I slip off my shoes and sit on the edge of the platform with my feet in the cool water, waiting for one of them to come find me. Usually the ringing laughter of children playing along the canals can be heard in the distance, but today, with the unchanging message on the viewer, the world seems to be hiding and holding its breath. The only sound is the wind through the trees.
When it becomes clear no one is going to collect me, I go back inside in search of Ritter. My feelings are hurt, if I’m being honest. I feel abandoned. Forgotten. And then I roll my eyes at myself. Being stranded here has made me self-centered. The world doesn’t revolve around you, I remind myself harshly, hearing my father’s voice in my head that last day home. We continued our argument after he got home from work, before I yelled that I was going to Rae’s to study for finals and went to a college party, instead. I force down tears, wishing my biggest problem was moving for the thirteenth time.
Ritter is in the cleanse, in front of the sink. I hear tubes clink together, so it is sleepbringer and moodleveler. But it is also ridiculously early, which means Strega no doubt put in an override for the sleepbringer. In any case it means Ritter will not be company tonight.
I wander the keeping, remembering the argument we had two days ago when I realized it lacked pictures and mementos of any kind.
“Put them back, Ritter. Hiding the fact that you have friends and a family and a life isn’t going to make me feel any better about losing mine!” I’d all but screamed at him. But he hasn’t. His walls and shelves have glaringly obvious bare spots where the people he loves had hung or sat in framed photos.
Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) Page 10
