MEMORIAM (21 page)

She turned and pointed at Plantarch. “This is a capital offense. She is not alone, I gather?”

“Stella, they’re dropping like flies. If the Head keeps killing them at this rate then there won’t be any Pax left.”

“All the better. Give me her present location.”

“Tracking her now.” He sighed. If he didn’t hang for treason he would surely hang for murder in front of God. A map of the base appeared on the main screen and a red dot flashed in the center.

“Where is she?”

“She’s moving. She was in the dome,” Plantarch said in a surprised tone. “How did she get up there?” He said it more to himself than to Stella.

“She has a Memoriam session,” Stella replied. “But why was she in the dome? Who are those two with her?”

“Stella, let it go-”

“NOW.”

“One’s a healer,” Leihper spoke up. “Samford Pately. He’s been in the system for seven and a half months. Same as her. The other is a hunter – Vincent Garlezzo.”

Stella’s jaw clenched. She went over and shoved past Plantarch, joining Leihper’s side.

“Stella, calm down. You need to think about this-” Plantarch was interrupted by the video feed that was projected onto the main screen. It must have been Leihper who projected it. Violet Hansen was talking;
‘as I was saying, we wanted to pick one of the busiest times of day to start the escape.
Plantarch’s eyes darted over to Stella, whose face had gone rigid as Violet said the word ‘escape.’

“Stell-”

“Retrieve all video archives of Violet Hansen, Plantarch.”

“It’s probably not as large as you think,” Plantarch said.

“Do it.”

“Stella, don’t.”

“Now.”

Plantarch reached over his screen, typing in a code. Videos began loading on the screen. Plantarch walked closer to Stella, lowering his voice so the soldiers around him could not hear. “Leave her alone.”

“She’s breaking the law.”

“Maybe she didn’t know.”

“You defend her as if you are one of them. If you want to join the Pax then go ahead. No one is stopping you.”

“No, I don’t,” Plantarch said, “but you can’t keep tracking down innocent people like dogs. It’s wrong.”

Several clips of Violet Hansen from the past two months were found and now playing repeatedly on the main screen. Stella’s mouth opened in disgust as a clip of Violet appeared on the screen, entering the weapons vault, then coming out with her hands full, then another one of her in the laundry division, hiding them with the healer. More clips followed; one clip showed a redhead named Mary Taergle with Violet and Sam in the dome of the centicular.

Stella licked her lips nervously. This had gone too far. Clips of Violet Hansen now covered the entire main screen. Every person in the control room had stopped working to watch the clips play out. A clip of Violet Hansen stabbing someone flashed, then another of her in the training center with Trent, her trainer. The last video that played was of Violet in Memoriam. Her recollections were reeling on the screen – an image of a little boy with brown curly hair, and another of the Head.

How was this happening?
Stella thought.

Violet Hansen was tortured and her memories manipulated after her last attempted escape. She shouldn’t have been seeing her family. Memoriam, after all, only worsened memories. Memoriam seemed to have the opposite effect on Violet, though. She was
regaining
her memory.

You could hear the silence in the control room as Stella stood, glued to the screen. She slowly turned to Plantarch, whose face was white.

“Let it go?” She clenched her jaw. “This is rebellion. The Head warned me of people like this who would seek to destroy the Trux rebirth. Traitors like her deserve to die.” She lowered her voice so only Plantarch could hear. “Cancel her Memoriam treatments immediately.”

“It’s too late, the order was already given.”

Stella walked over to Plantarch and stopped inches from his face so that he could feel her steely breath on his cheeks. “You may not have to worry about your job much longer. Perhaps your age will claim you dispensable to the Head. Those wrinkles don’t go unnoticed.” She smiled sadistically and passed Plantarch, heading back over to the lift. “Send a notification to the Head. Tell him we found a rebellion.”

***

Stella waited an hour until the Head arrived at the base. She ordered a platter of cold gels and trinkets in preparation for the Head’s arrival. The clips of Violet Hansen had been collected and stored on her memory disc, ready to show the Head. She had also sent for a skryer; the Head would most likely execute Violet as soon as Stella informed him that she was the source of yet another rebellion, and Stella wanted to be ready.

Stella heard the door to her office open and stood up, smoothing out her skirt and listening to the slow
clunk clunk
as the Head climbed the stairs with his cane, his beady eyes meeting her anxious ones.

“You have news for me?” he asked in a raspy voice.

“Yes, sir.” She bowed her head slightly and gestured to the chair across from the desk.                    The Head stared at her, tilting his head. “You have forgotten your place already.” He pointed to the chair across from the desk and Stella swallowed, stepping out from behind her desk and sitting opposite, letting the Head take her chair.

“Right. Sir, please, I have troubling news about that girl who attempted to escape two months ago. She’s rebelling again, this time with the entire base.”

The Head smiled, his peeling lips stretching over his yellow teeth. “And who, may I ask, is causing such a disturbance?”

“She is a hunter. I found proof that she was stealing weapons and meeting with others in secret.” Stella leaned over the desk and opened the memory disc. Clips of Violet Hansen began to play in front of the Head, floating above the disc. A glint of anger flickered in his eyes as he watched the clips. Who did this girl think she was?

“How many have joined her?”

“We have found three so far, but there could be others.” Stella selected Violet’s image on the disc and blew it up so it was enlarged. She then found Samford Pately and Vincent Garlezzo and added them. The redhead, Mary Taergle, was added as an afterthought. Another clip of Samford and Violet kissing played in the corner of the floating screen. The Head tilted his head.

“How long ago was this?” He pointed to the clip of Samford and Violet.

“Almost two weeks ago, sir. That’s beside the point-”

“I was not finished talking.”

Stella clamped her mouth shut.

“Give me a rundown about this girl, Stella.”

Stella paused. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“Tell me her history. Surely you have her report somewhere.”

Stella stood up and shuffled through the images on her disc, passing documents and dragging one up to the screen where the Head could see it.

“She came into the base six months ago.” A picture appeared on the screen. The woman seen in this image was almost a completely different person than the Violet Hansen the Head had seen a month ago. This one had full cheeks and short cropped hair that hung around her ears.            “She was experimented on, wasn’t she?”

“Y-yes, sir.” The Head pointed at the video of Samford and Violet kissing.

“Then tell me this. How did she find her way back to her loved ones when her memories were supposed to have been tampered with? She was supposed to forget that man along with her brother that escaped.”

Stella froze. “I d-don’t understand.”

The Head slammed his fist on the table. “SHE REMEMBERS! HOW?”

“Sir, Memoriam is still being developed-”

“Yes, but I created the program. Don’t you understand? We
s
et up scenes where she was in constant fear of being around the people she loved the most. She should be afraid of him…but she’s not…”

He fell quiet. Stella wasn’t sure whether to continue in fear that he would blow up again. “The program is failing....” He made sure he said this quietly so Stella could not hear.

“Sir,” Stella said. She cleared her throat. “Sir, I have a skryer on hold for her execution.”

“No. I am done with this base. There is no need to continue executions.”

Stella’s jaw quivered. “But sir...she’s a rebel. We have proof.”

The Head faced Stella. It was then she realized her mistake: trusting that the Head would fulfill his promises.

“Others will fall because of her actions, I will make sure of that, but we need not do it ourselves. Let the Pax choose their own colors – blood red.”

Stella was silent. The Head stood up and walked over to the wall surrounding the base. “Others will fall, one by one. The red head-”

“Mary Taergle.”

“-yes. We will let the skryers have her. She seems the least significant to Violet. Send a skryer to fetch her.”

“And Violet?”

The Head crossed the room and stopped at Stella’s desk, sliding his finger across the levitating screen until he found the image he was searching for. He enlarged it so Stella could see.

“We will let him kill her. He was experimented on, too, after all. It will be a bit of a bonding experience since they both lost their brothers, don’t you think?”

“I thought it was against the law to attack another hunter.”

“I am the law,” the Head replied.

“And what about the healer, Samford Pately?”

“Have you ever been in love?” The Head had bent over the platter of gels and picked out a cube, holding it up to the light.

“Sir?”

“Have you ever been betrayed by a loved one?”

Stella was confused and didn’t say anything in response. The Head continued.           “Samford Pately is just another one of Violet’s playing cards. She will use him to escape and then drop him. Even if her love is true, he will believe otherwise when I am done with him.”

“Will he become an experiment like Violet?”

“Of sorts.”

“That still leaves Vincent Garlezzo.”

“He is not a threat. He will be dead soon enough.” The Head was making his way across the room and down the stairs. Stella followed him, panic in her voice.

“Sir, wait. You can’t be sure- ”

The Head turned and slapped Stella. She fell back on the stairs, her face on fire, holding back tears as the Head towered over her.

“Send Mary to me. Violet will be killed and Severin is to do it. How hard is it, really? If you fail you will be dealt with by me.”

Stella swallowed, clutching her cheek. She kept her head down as the Head descended the rest of the stairs and left. Her hand shook violently as she touched her bleeding lip and pulled herself up, stumbling over to her desk. She pressed the call button and waited until a skryer showed up a few minutes later.

“Find Mary Taergle and send her to me.”

The skryer left the room. She quickly went over to her memory disc and found Severin’s tracker, sending a message to report to her office. She would tell him his next mission in person.

Stella hastily wiped a tear that slid down her cheek, swearing under her breath.

“Damn you, Head,” she whispered. “Damn you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“We can fix those. I can search the secretary’s office and figure out how to break in and activate the system. Vince-” I was distracted by the small voice in my ear that spoke.
Your next
Memoriam
session will commence in fifteen minutes.
Both Vince and Sam stared at me.

“What is it?” Vince asked.

“I have another
Memoriam
session.”

“When?” Sam asked.

“In fifteen minutes.”

“You can work on trying to find an alternate way other than the lift to get down to the weaponry, okay?” Vince said to me.

“Okay.” My whole body seemed to go numb. I kept thinking of what Trent had said about Memoriam and how old memories weren’t supposed to seep through.

Sam reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’ll be okay.”

I wanted to say, ‘I know,’ but I had a bad feeling. If my old memories were coming back, then what did that mean? I stood up shakily and went over to the door, then stopped.

“Wait for me, will you?”

Vince smiled. “Of course.”

I swallowed and turned the knob, stepping out onto the balcony. People below were shuffling to their quarters. Was this plan really impossible like Vince made it sound? Was it worth the risk of thousands of lives being killed for the sake of freedom?

I took the stairs down to the centicular. I was passing through a large group of people when I bumped into someone. My mouth fell open in surprise when I turned around and saw Mary.

“Mary!” She didn’t act surprised to see me. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said. She didn’t reply. I opened my mouth then closed it again. “Mary, what’s wrong?”

Her hand slipped into her jumpsuit and pulled out a small hand gun. I instinctively backed away, hitting other people who were passing me.

“Mary, what are you doing?” Mary’s chin was glazed in sweat. Her forehead creased as she raised the gun and pointed it at my chest.

“I know you have been meeting with Sam without me. You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?”

None of the people around us seemed to notice what was going on. Mary moved closer. “I know what you’ve been up to. You’ve been sending information to the base leaders. I was ready, though. The second Sam introduced you, I knew you were trouble. That’s all hunters are – Trux planted amongst the Pax to kill us all. You’re on your way to tell the secretary about me right now, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a Trux. Both of us know that.”

“I don’t care what you are.”

“Mary, listen to me, it’s not what you think.”

“Oh really? I find that hard to believe since hunters are the Head’s
favorite
. You really should learn to be a better liar.”

“Mary, please.”

Her chin wobbled. “I trusted you.”

My head felt like it was being squeezed into a small bottle. I noticed stares, feet that should have kept moving but stopped. If this kept up then it would form a crowd, and that was the last thing we wanted. I licked my lips and held my hands up slowly.