“I wondered: What else in my mind also existed in yours? What could we achieve, if we worked together?” He glanced up to the sky even though there was nothing to see, the stars long-lost to the omnipresent smog. “Seventy-seven stratums between us, yet I felt closer to you than I had when we were but one floor apart. I hoped, if the circumstances allowed, we’d meet again. Now we have, and now you know.” Actinium finally looked to her. His gaze was solemn. “All my secrets, untold and told.”
The night seemed to expand. It swallowed the sound of life and death, shifted the hospel to a universe away. It absorbed Kasey’s body; she was a cluster of synapses, firing her from one emotion to the next. Sympathy to suspicion to empathy to discomfort. For Actinium, gravity didn’t exist on Earth. Gravity existed in her. It was heady. Overwhelming.
It couldn’t stop her from circling back to the pity Actinium hadn’t asked for.
Just as Meridian’s appearance had thrown Kasey out of orbit, so too did learning that she and Actinium weren’t hurting over the same, recently opened wound. In seven years, she could be like him. Still bleeding. An actual ghost, dead as far as the world was concerned.
“Is this what you really want?” she asked.
The distance between them didn’t change, but the magnetic charge did, Actinium’s every emotion so similar to Kasey’s that they could have physically repelled each other.
“You answer,” he said, then transmitted her a file.
A classified P2C document, beyond her permission level. The text was dense but Kasey was used to skimming for key points.
The first one was already bolded in the title.
… Deep-sea pipe leak …
The rest rushed by … Cleanup underway … minimal risk posed to populace … limited ocean foot traffic … mild adverse health outcomes for the majority … low chance of severe outcomes … avoid alarm … responsible party to front the costs … words a whirlpool, pulling her gaze to the bottom of the document, where she saw a familiar face among a row of faces.
A familiar name.
Their entire family, residing fifty stratums below the Mizuharas.
Celia’s murderers, found by Actinium.
“They’re not just out here.” His voice was quiet compared to Kasey’s pulse. “They’re among us, too, in our cities, relying on us to protect them from a world they ruined. And in spite of that, in spite of their ranks, they think they deserve more.”
“Who?”
A voice, behind them.
Heartbeat slowing, Kasey turned.
Meridian stood several meters away, silhouetted by light from the hospel.
How much had she heard?
“Who do you think ruined the world?”
That much at least. But the situation wasn’t unsalvageable. All Kasey needed— “Those with ranks mid-five digits or more,” Actinium said, and Kasey looked at him in horror. Why? But she knew why. It was the same reasoning behind sharing the P2C file with her. Remember: You have a stake in this too. “Or those who pollute,” Actinium went on, airing out the words that he and Kasey had shared, in the dead of night. “Past or present tense irrelevant, since all environmental damage is permanent within our life spans.”
The night seemed to hold its breath.
“Fuck you,” Meridian spat at Actinium, before turning to Kasey. “Well? Say something.”
Something. People were rarely literal and Kasey knew Meridian didn’t actually want her to say something, but to refute everything. To deny that Actinium’s thoughts had ever crossed her mind. To lie. It’s what SILVERTONGUE would have recommended, given Kasey’s minimal conflict settings back when she’d installed it. Minimal conflict was what she still wanted. Her mouth opened.
Her throat closed.
Her anger wasn’t all of her, but it was a part of her, and she was tired of hiding parts of herself, however inhuman, from people.
Her silence was telling. Meridian backed away. Something dawned in her gaze, and Kasey both dreaded and embraced the accusation headed toward her. The true reason behind her and Actinium’s mission, seen through. The facade dismantled— “So that’s why you never offered to help.”
Kasey blinked. “Help?”
“Oh, please!” hissed Meridian. “Your mom helmed the HOME act! Your dad oversees immigration! You could have put in a word for my relatives if you wanted to!”
The thought had never occurred to Kasey. Did that make her a bad person? Or did that make her … Kasey? “You never asked.”