DOUBLE EDGE
1035 Words
"I've already spoken to Halloway and Vex," Siurelav said, his voice cold and clinical. "They agree. We can't risk a trial. We need to stabilize the market immediately."
"And how do you plan to do that?" Kael asked, his muscles bunching. He felt the urge to reach across the table and wrap his hands around the Archon's perfect, synthetic throat.
"We need a massive influx of Virgin Emotion," Siurelav said, his eyes gleaming with the pink light of his hood. "Something to flood the market and drown out the noise of the Sinks. A Grand Gala yield. But we don't have time to harvest the masses."
The Archon looked at Adia, then back to Kael. A cruel, thin smile touched his lips.
"Her," Siurelav whispered. "The Reactor, while you... the Void, you’ve created something the Mint has never seen. A resonance that generates heat from nothing. So, you're gonna step out of your CEO seat for a moment, while you extract her dry yourself."
Kael felt a cold chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature. "You’re talking about Disposal."
"I’m talking about an IPO," Siurelav corrected. "The ultimate sacrifice for the ultimate profit."
"I have clearance," Kael said, his voice rising. "I can block any Disposal order. You don't have the votes."
"I don't need the votes when I have the High-Directors' fear," Siurelav said, tapping his tablet again. "They’ve already signed the confidential directive. Contamination Protocol 00. You’re not being arrested, Kael. You’re just being... demoted."
The Archon stood up straight, his pink hoodie flaring as the mists inside it reacted to his excitement. He looked at Adia, who was staring at him with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"You should be proud, little sun," Siurelav said to her. "You’re going to be the most expensive thing in history. Every drop of your joy, every spark of your defiance... it’s going to be bottled and sold to the highest bidder."
"You'll burn for this," Adia said, her voice a low, dangerous hum.
"I’ll glow," Siurelav laughed. "There’s a difference."
The Archon turned to go, his robe swishing against the floor. He stopped at the door, looking back at Kael, who stood like a statue in the center of the room, his wrists glowing with that faint, crimson light.
"Don't bother trying to fight it, Kael, just strip that CEO seat for a moment while you extract her. When we see nothing have changed you, you're back." Siurelav said. "The Extraction Vats are already warming up. They’ll be here for her in an hour. Get ready."
The door cycled shut, the seal hissing once more, leaving Kael and Adia in the silence of Interrogation Room One.
The pink-green light lingered in the air, a sickening reminder of the man who had just left.
Kael stood motionless, staring at the closed door. He could hear it now, the faint, distant sound of the sirens in the High District, the noise of a city that was preparing to devour him.
The hypocrisy of it all hit him like a punch in the stomach. He had spent twenty years enforcing a law that the man in the pink hoodie broke every time he took a breath. He had emptied thousands of people to maintain an Order that was just a front for a greedy, silk-wrapped monster.
Adia’s voice broke the silence.
"Kael," she whispered.
He didn't turn around.
"He’s gonna to kill us," she said, her voice shaking. "He’s not gonna to turn me into fuel, he'll use you as well."
Kael looked down at his hands. The tremors were worse now. The crimson light at his wrists was pulsing in time with the frantic, terrified beat of his heart.
He thought about the Vats. He had seen people go into them. He had watched the light leave their eyes as the machines stripped the feeling out of their very marrow, but he never be the one who actually did it. He had always thought it was a necessary sacrifice. A way to keep the world from falling into chaos.
Now, he realized the chaos was already here. It was wearing a green-brown robe and smelling like rotting fruit.
"Kael, look at me!" Adia shouted, her shackles rattling against the table.
He turned.
She wasn't looking at him with pity anymore. She was looking at him with a wild, desperate hope.
"You believe him," she said. "We’re the same to them now. We’re just... currency. Can't you see it? Is that what you want?"
Kael didn't answer. His mind was a riot of numbers and logic gates, all of them failing, all of them crumbling under the weight of the resonance.
He had an hour, maybe less. Once the board met to formalize the Archon’s directive, Kael would be striped off his seat and he would have no controls again over the procedure.
"Kael..." Adia whispered again.
He looked at her, begging, and for the first time, he didn't see an Asset or a Source. He saw the girl who had given a mother a memory of her son in a rain-slicked alleyway. He saw the only thing in the world that was actually real.
Kael walked toward the table, his boots striking the floor with a finality that made Adia flinch. He reached for the magnetic tether control on the side of the table.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
"Something inefficient," Kael muttered.
He didn't look at her, nor did he analyze the consequences, nor the risk. He just felt the cold bite of the room and the heat of her skin and the absolute, terrifying necessity of the moment.
He leaned over the table, his face inches from hers. The crimson in his eyes was a storm now, a swirling, violent red that matched the glow of her dampeners.
"Don't move," he said, reaching out, his hand hovering over her wrist. The sympathetic pain spiked in his own shoulder, a sharp, burning reminder that they were fused.
Kael’s thumb hovered over the biometric scanner on the table's edge.
"Kael..." Adia breathed, her amber eyes searching his.
"Shut up," he whispered, his voice finally steady. "We're leaving."
He pressed his thumb to the scanner.
...
- Writer
