Chapter Two
“Nervous?”
“If you tried, it’s possible you might find a way to understate it more.”
Was he nervous? Well, he had just been curt with Nantale, if that was any indication.
He saw her teeth peek through a smile. “I am prone to trying.”
There were obvious follow-ups to that. Several. Dozens. Each flitted across his mind at speeds incomprehensible to man and vanished back into the ether, never to reach his lips. Instead, he stared at the reflective black surface of the table in front of him, counted the beats of his heart and wondered when the damn exam would start and end his suffering.
Nantale swung her legs around the side of her chair and toward him. She leaned her side against its back and folded her arms. Delen felt her there, watching. His heart rate doubled. Seconds passed before she spoke. “Can you recall the last time we found ourselves alone together?”
In fact, Delen seemed to be struggling to recall anything. Her gaze sat on him like all the soil in Field, crushing him into his seat. Panicking, he picked a length that seemed outrageous to him. “A year, at least.”
“Would you believe four?”
To get her to stop staring, he would have believed two hundred and twenty-seven. “That’s a long time.”
She scoffed. “Remarkably so. If I were prone to worry, I might believe you were avoiding me.”
Soil turned to steel. He felt a blockage in his throat. “I, ah,” his voice broke.
“Mind off the exam, yet?”
He turned to her, wide-eyed. Her face lit in eight shades of glee before she burst out laughing. “Oh, Delen, your face was priceless.”
Education’s lights dimmed. Nantale leaned forward, doing her best to don a more serious nature. “Here we are. Let everything go. Be yourself. Everything will be fine.”
He nodded absently.
“Hey.”
He looked over at her. The warmth on her face melted his rigor.
“When we finish, meet in Pyre. Jokes aside, I would like a few moments together before the Celebration begins in earnest.”
“Yeah,” he winced as his voice cracked yet again. “Sure, of course. I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
Their tables’ displays flickered, casting purple-orange, then green-red, then white luminescence across the room. She turned from him with a regretful shrug and peered down at the scrolling text before her. Reluctantly, he did the same.
Delen knew, or rather had been told by everyone and therefore assumed, that the exam was tailored by AEGIS specifically for the user. It was meant to be the final mark of adulthood, a test to show that the taker had learned what was required of them during their time in Education, in their respective position, and in Aldridge as a whole. Law decreed no one could speak on the specifics of the exam. Staring down at the table in front of him, Delen finally understood why.
He was watching himself. Watching himself watch someone else. Judging by what he was doing, he could assume who it was. His breath caught in his throat.
What is the second Cornerstone?
The words hammered onto the screen. Chunky, thick blocks of blinding white, one letter at a time. Delen tried to swallow. His eyes darted to Nantale. A horrid, warbling noise mewled from the table, ripping his attention back toward it.
The video had shrunk and shifted to the top left of the panel. It had not ceased playing. A new one filled the screen.
The object of Nantale’s scrutiny is not your concern. What is the second Cornerstone?
Delen blinked. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to step back into his early education. Cornerstones. Ten years ago. Twelve? Life in Aldridge was so far removed from the beliefs that guided the Ancestors that they spent little time learning them. The Cornerstones had shaped the Ancestors, who had in turn shaped Aldridge’s future. All their laws were derivatives of the world built by those first principles. He just needed to remember what they hell they were.
His hands moved over the panel, producing a keyboard. He typed.
What is not public is private.
Once more the image on the panel shrunk and raced off to a corner, the text vanishing as it moved. Yet another took its place.
Public?
He could make out the details of this one. The dark, beautiful hair flowing over the chair. Shame wormed its way through his intestines. He shook his head.
The text winked out, then slammed back, bright as ever. Delen closed his eyes against its intensity, shaking his head once more. Again it left, only to tear its way across the screen a third time.
“No!” He practically shouted. Nantale briefly glanced his way, but not briefly enough to stop her table from making that miserable wail.
Gone. Back. Delen grimaced and hammered the answer into the console.
Minimized, bottom left.
The Cornerstones which built your society and guided your gods are as inconsequential as rainfall on the dirt above you. Is this your view?
“Sh-” anger nearly ripped the reply out of him, but he clamped his mouth shut and set his fingers to motion.
She is to be mine, where is the harm?
Immediately, the next video. This time he watched Beatrix and Cameron Belov deep in the throes of carnality.
Yours?
Numbly, his fingers typed out the no.
Yet another of the joined couple, from some other date. The same question. The same answer. Again, and again. Beatrix and Cameron. Katya and Rotero. Edward and Mara. Oler and Yali. Others from before, whose names he had never and would never know. Time, after time, after time. The clips formed a grid along the screen, each new block punctuated with a single-word accusation.
Yours?
Even as the last black block of the grid was replaced, Delen knew the image was not complete. There were more. He could sit in Education for the rest of the day, through the night, and into the next and still there would be more. AEGIS found no need to go that far, at least. Her message was clear enough already.
That last block, that last video, was once again of Nantale. He could tell, even looking back through time. Through the pudgy cheeks, the tangled mess of black frizz atop her head, the disaster of a meal in front of her. She had the same eyes, even then. The same joy.
Yours?
No, he typed.
Whose?
Aldridge’s.
The grid disappeared.
You understand. Now, we can begin.
A question – one of the kind he expected to encounter – popped on the display. The change of pace was so abrupt it took him a full half a minute of reading it to realize its banality. He keyed in the answer with more than the requisite amount of uneasiness. It left, and the next appeared.
Routine settled in. A question, then an answer. Rinse, repeat. Despite that, he could not rid the prior portion from his mind. He wondered everyone had gone through something so targeted. So personal. He wondered what Nantale had experienced only a few paces away. Wonder, it would remain. Delen knew he would, could, never ask. That way lay danger.
Nantale left some time later. Her station fell to inert dark, sinking that half of the room along with it. Thinking came easier, then, and he made his way through the rest of the exam with little hesitation. Certainly not a flawless performance, but as he shut down the terminal, he felt the weight of it slough away. He sighed, slid back in his seat, and reclined his head. A moment or two passed. He let the calm of the dim room catch up with him.
“That was a hell of a thing to do, AEGIS.”
“Would that you knew.”
Delen lifted his eyes to the thin strip of shiny black material that ran along the edge where wall met ceiling. “We’ll talk about this later.”
She did not reply. He felt no need to continue.
He started walking, not giving a thought to where he was going. His mind was elsewhere. On recordings. On secrets. A few people stopped him as he walked, ushering along surface-level probes into his state of mind. How did it go, was he ready for the big day, had he completed his preparations. Small talk, the lot of it. He gave them small answers in reply. Went well, he sure hoped so, yes, all finished. Checking boxes. When they went about their day, he was glad.
“Good, you made it.”
Nantale. Delen blinked and found himself staring through the open doorway to Pyre. “Seems so.”
She smiled. “No need to stand out there. Come in.”
Every part of Aldridge had its particular fingerprint on its citizens’ psyche. Quarters, naturally, had the benefit of being home. A place of comfort and rest. Commons, of satisfaction, warmth, and joy. Hub; unmatched awe. On and on. Every corner of the bunker had its impact, had its stories. None came close to the presence of Pyre.
The room was curiously large – a cylinder just over thirty feet in diameter and fifteen in height. Like the rest of their home, its walls were constructed with perfectly placed, unblemished metal that continued to shine centuries after its construction. The same material comprised the ceiling, save for the meter-long, six-inch-wide cuts which curved up and into external piping. Below them, raised, abrasive semicircles ran from edge to edge. In the center of the room, just behind Nantale, set the focal point. A four-foot wide, pristine, clear tube rose from floor to ceiling. Only the refraction of the wall behind it and the displacement of the room’s vibrant light gave any clue to its presence. At its base, in a straight line from the door, a small black panel had been built into the floor.
That tube was the incinerator, where all of Aldridge found its end. And rebirth.
Stepping into Pyre was a religious experience for Delen in much the same way he knew others felt about Hub. It was a place of death. A place of power, sadness, and joy. An end and a beginning. That simple room, so meticulously built and shockingly plain, was the crux of their lives. The Ancestors had seen to that.
Delen thumbed the three crescents, then crossed the threshold.
She turned back toward the incinerator as crossed the empty space between them. He drew up beside her, glanced her way, and saw tears threatening to spill over her tightened eyelids. He quickly looked away and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
“Does it scare you?” Her voice shook.
Some combination of the fear and anger in her voice threw him off balance. He did his best to cover it. “Yeah. I don’t think I’m ready. Or, I mean, I am, it’s just-”
“Not the Celebration. That’s nothing. Just years. I mean this.” She nodded toward the cylinder.
He thought that, perhaps, there was a Best Answer hiding somewhere. After a moment’s deliberation he determined it was out of his reach, and the truth would need to suffice. “That isn’t the word I’d use. Intimidating, maybe. Imposing. Impressive? Some set of I-words.”
She allowed a forced smirk. It quickly faded. “I hate it.”
The blunt admission made him forget who he was with for a moment. “The Ancestors built this,” he said, aghast.
She nodded, blinked, and the water which had threatened to overtake her eyelid did just that. It quickly ran down her cheek. She let it go. “Have you ever dreamed of the Ancestors?”
Another twist on the path. Delen switched gears to try and keep up. “Often.”
Nantale shook her head, coaxing a tear from her other eye. “No, not like that. Not the stories, or the lessons. Have you ever found their memories? Lived them?”
“No, I-”
“What about Eselda? Rinnet? Pate? Ancestors, what about your own mother?”
“Nantale, what are you-”
“I have never experienced them. Neither has Ezequiel, and I know from how you are right now that the same holds true for you.” She turned to him. “They tell us that Pyre, this… this thing, gives the dead back to us. We take the ashes and feed them through to Aldridge. No, not we. I. I do it. My mother does it. My family follows the rituals, we keep to the teachings, we do everything they set for us to do. Why have I never felt them again? Their ashes are in me, but they might as well be set beneath the ground, like the old world.”
Delen was blindsided. He had no idea how to respond, but she did not wait for one.
“I cannot sleep, I am so frightened by this machine.” She took a step back. “Have you stopped to look who is younger than us?”
He did as instructed. Ezequiel and Vanesa; already paired. Behind them were James, Vlad, and Alejandro. Three boys. Something on his face must have revealed his understanding.
“The Council allowed it because they are so close in age. They will not allow another. I have been there for an ‘equality’ burning. We both have. Laylia’s boy, do you remember? I collapsed. They had to carry me out of the room.” Tears rolled down her face in thick droplets. “What if they take ours? Delen, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let them. I would rather die than put my baby in this damn machine.”
“We’ll have a girl.” He said. The words trickled from his mouth with no conviction.
“And if not? What then?” Her voice continued to rise.
We. Those two letters. The word had more or less slipped out of his lips, but something seemed to tighten behind his ribcage. Anger laced with a sort of zeal. Another, thinner sentiment swam through which he found difficult to identify. Pride?
“They won’t touch our baby.”
She went to him, half falling, half scooping him into her arms. He felt the hot wetness of her tears bleed through his shirt and the staggered, unconscious sobs that rolled through her. Was he the only one who had not known her fear, or the only one who did? As far as he knew, she had never shown a single indication that this lurked beneath the surface. None of that mattered now, he supposed. It was in the open. She had confided in him, and he had been her strength. Perhaps, somehow, he was more prepared for the Celebration than he realized.
Delen let himself hold her until she pulled away. She looked up at him, sniffling, and smiled. “Thank you. Even if there is nothing we can do, thank you.”
“Just,” he shrugged, “try not to worry about it?”
That coaxed a laugh. “A bit rich coming from you, no?” She shook her head. “Sorry, that was cruel.”
“No, you’re right.”
“Typically, yes.”
He looked back at her and saw that gleam in her eyes. He nodded, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Welcome back.”
Nantale took his hand, leaned in, and kissed his cheek. Fire blossomed across his entire body. He tilted his head up every so slightly to look her in the eyes.
“Our first kiss,” she said through a grin. Then, seeing his face, shook her head. “No, not that one. Do you remember? I would understand if not. You were, what, just turning five? That sounds right. A few days after. I was here, watching mother run through low-ramp cycles in the undercarriage, probably for a rubbish burn, assuredly bored out of my skull. You came running through those doors, tapped me on the shoulder, and planted one right there.” She touched the same place she had just kissed. Her finger left the skin beneath electrified. “I was so shocked I did nothing; just let you fly back out as quickly as you had entered. You were like that, then. Carefree.”
He made at a casual shrug, but he knew it fell flat. “Kind of makes you wonder what happened, huh?”
She kept his eyes. “I believe I know what happened. People do their best to hide here, but there are only so many places to store secrets. Eventually they begin to rot, and we go on pretending we do not notice the smell. But we do. I did.”
Delen dropped his gaze. He watched his feet shuffle, once again conscious of every muscle movement. Nantale would have none of it. She put her hand under his chin and lifted his face back to hers.
“This is my fault.” Delen furrowed his brow and made as if to reply, but she cut him off with a wave of her arm. “Not directly, I understand that, but if I had pulled you aside years ago, I could have killed the seed he planted in you. You never understood how you made me feel back then. How excited I was to see you. Without knowing, it was easy for him to make you doubt. To make you believe you were something else.
“A confession, then. I let you fall. I let him grow that other you right in front of me and did nothing because I was young and stupid. And what could I do against the opinion of your father? I am so very sorry, Delen. You are enough. You always have been. I hope you can believe that, now, after everything. I hope you can believe I am every bit as nervous and hopeful and, and… and thrilled about tonight. You were never waiting alone.”
She kissed him. Not on the cheek, not in passing, but truly. Fully. Her arms closed around him and he felt the weight of her. The reality of her. Long, black strips of hair touched the sides of his face. The feeling of it all was nearly impossible for him to describe. It was as though the inside of his body had lost its matter and become pure energy, which had leapt from him and into her. He felt a great, cavernous hole in his chest that thrummed with impossible vigor. Time faded away. Whether a second or an hour passed was irrelevant. When she pulled away, that same glimmer in her eye and crook of a smile, Delen was quite certain he would die on the spot.
He did not. Even if later he wished he had.
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