Chapter 21
The Begon
Pesh speaks, “On the word of Shantavia, our deadline will be a week. After that, we have to turn in The Begon to The Lawtem. Everyone, back to work!”
Everyone hurries to their computers, their fingers sprinting to the keyboard. Pesh looks at me, staring at me like a dream, but I am distracted.
“Wait, what’s that?” I ask.
“The Lawtem is the only independent entity in the entire island of Commonda, am I right?” Levon looks to Pesh.
“Yep! And we have an in to The Lawtem. Justice Emmanuel Reeyes. His daughter went to Oblivion, but she never came back. She was sent to The Seventh Zone. A few weeks later, he received a message saying that she had drowned in The Selection, and her body could not be recovered. He ordered countless investigations, but The Commons went scot-free. He has an eternal grudge against The Commons, and his whole purpose in life is to destroy De Londe, like us.”
“And you know him?” Levon asks.
“No. But Doctor Val does,” Pesh responds.
“Doctor Val knows about this?” Swin rises up, shocked.
“I tell her limited things, but she knows enough,” Pesh says, puzzled at Swin’s sudden response. I notice Swin lost in a thought as though he’s just been triggered. I turn to him, but before I can speak, Levon goes toward him.
“Do you know Doctor Val?” she asks.
“I know her like everyone does,” he stammers, distracted by Levon, then sits to avoid eye contact with her.
She leans in on his shoulders and whispers in his ear, “You might be good with technology. But you’re not good at lying.”
He turns her way with a spark in his eyes. “That’s not true. I am really good at lying actually, that’s why you can’t tell that I lied about my name. But it’s irrelevant,” he says, then turns back to the computer.
Levon’s forehead is puckered in confusion. She draws back, rolling her eyes. “Well, you never told me your name, so how would I have judged you were lying?”
“Okay, since you’re dying to know, it’s irrelevant,” Swin says.
“Yeah, it is irrelevant. You’re irrelevant.”
“I’m Erelevant.”
“What?” Levon responds, confused.
“My real name is Erelevant. I’m Doctor Val’s nephew. But she thinks I’m dead. Let’s keep it that way if that’s okay with you guys?”
“Why does she think that you’re dead? What are you hiding?” Levon asks Swin.
“Oh, I’m not the one who’s hiding their true feeli—”
Swin is interrupted by Pesh. “Okay guys, the chip, The Begon, that’s what we’re talking about!”
“Right.” Swin turns to his computer screen and continues working. “My goodness! My intuition was right,” Swin erupts.
“What?” Pesh asks.
“The reason you haven’t been able to hack The Begon is because Patron De Londe is The Begon,” he comments.
“What?” Levon asks.
All three of us draw closer to Swin’s computer to look at Patron De Londe, who is sitting in his dining table, signing documents.
“Yeah, okay he’s not really The Begon, but he has a chip, let’s call it The Sensor, and this sensor is in his head, which powers The Begon. So as long as he does not want it hacked, it won’t be hacked,” Swin says.
“Wow, no wonder he hasn’t been going crazy looking for it,” Pesh realizes. “But how do you know this?”
“I know because the thing in his head is made up of the same chemicals and technology I used to create my 20/20,” Swin says.
“You really should think of an original name,” Levon interrupts.
“I’m open to any suggestion from you, Levon. You can even change my name, first and last name if you want to!” Swin flirts.
Levon scoffs, making a face.
Swin continues describing and showing us the image tomography of Patron De Londe’s anatomy on the projector in front of us. “But here it is!” Swin says.
Pesh, Levon, and I step forward to take a closer look as Swin zooms into Patron De Londe’s head. The students behind us turn our way and begin to watch and listen as well.
“So what? You’re a doctor now as well?” Levon probes.
“That’s my passion, medical technology. My dream is to be like Doctor Val, without the political side of her!” Swin comments.
“Okay, Doctor Swin, what are we supposed to be looking at?” I ask.
Pesh smiles at me, and we shake our heads at Swin and Levon’s constant back and forth.
“I used strong magnetic fields, field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of his organs to make sure everything was normal, but while in the process, I noticed a chip-like substance on his head,” Swin explains.
“How do you know it’s not a normal implant?” Levon asks.
“Because normal implants don’t show up the way this does! I’m sure of it. I made my 20/20 originally as medical tech to help monitor disease progression when in another format and help the elderly, so I know when it’s being weaponized for something like this!” he responds.
I notice Levon’s eyes light up when he mentions that he wanted to help the elderly, but she looks away instantly to hide her emotion.
“Yeah, yeah. I think he’s right,” Pesh says, looking intently at the image.
“You can’t hack this Begon right here until you get Patron De Londe’s thoughts to release the information. Damn, I thought I was the only one who knew this technology. I thought I was gonna be like the next Einstein or something,” Swin expresses.
“Someone’s full of themselves,” Levon teases.
“What if we can hack the sensor in his head instead?” I comment to keep the conversation in focus.
“We can try. I mean, we can’t control his thoughts, obviously! But we can try to send a virus through the sensor that forces him to get his doctor person to take it out, whoever that is!” Swin responds.
“How long is that gonna take?” Levon asks.
“I can send a virus into the chip. What’s the deadline again, guys?” Swin asks.
“A week for the team to collect everything you hack into a chip. A few hours for you to hack this sensor if that’s possible?” I ask.
“Everything’s possible if you believe!” Swin comments while typing.
Levon rolls her eyes at his optimism.
“I’ll give you an ETA in few minutes,” Swin says. His hands begin to race on the keyboard, nonstop, his eyes fixated on it.
“In the meantime, let me show you guys your rooms.” Pesh turns to Levon and me.
Pesh leads us through the regal hallway and to a door. We come to a stop.
Just as Levon and I are about to enter through the door, he secretly takes my hand, though Levon notices it. “I need to tell you something,” he whispers in my ear.
“Now?” I look into his eyes.
“Later.”
Levon notices us whispering and coughs in a suspicious way.
“I’ll let you two catch up,” Pesh says with a subtle smile, then his gaze unintentionally stays on me.
Levon looks at us in realization of our attraction. Pesh tilts his head, then walks out, a smile in his eyes.
Levon and I enter into the spacious room with two beds.
The walls are pure white, and there are geometric diamond and square lights hanging from the ceiling.
The floor is covered with marble-like tiles with beige and white undertones.
There is a Rubik’s cube–like dresser on the side of both beds with a lamp on top.
I walk to the dresser beside the red bed and open it up to see brand new clothes and a stack of towels. “This is quite impressive!” I comment.
Levon looks at me, stunned. “You know what’s impressive? You and Peshhh? Whattt?”
“I don’t know, it just sort of happened,” I walk to her and we both sit, staring at one another.
“You are not me, my dear. Things don’t just sort of happen for you. You’re my good, innocent, precious baby sister.”
“Yeah, but he helped me find you. And that’s all that matters to me!”
“Mmm, maybe I’ll hesitate from annihilating him completely until we’re out of this mess.”
I smile at her joke. Something about Levon isn’t quite the same.
It is as though she operates as usual, but I can tell that her soul has been through terrible things that I cannot put my finger on.
It is as though I don’t even know her anymore; but I try to completely ignore that thought and continue as usual.
But it is weighing on me.
To love, one must be transparent with the subject of affection; but I feel as though her heart is too cloudy for me to find windows to see her reflection.
But I ask her anyway, knowing I will not get much, but hoping, praying, at least I will get something. “What about you? We have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too. Come here.”
I step into her arms and hold her. “What did they do to you? What experiments were you involved in? What happened?”
Levon puts my hair backwards, removing it from my face. That’s when she notices. “The question you should be asking is—what happened to your hair?” she screams, dramatic.
I’m caught by surprise. “Um, oh.”
“The water definitely messed with it, but I saw how you looked when you first found me. You haven’t straightened your hair since you were in first grade, don’t tell me you’re trying to impress Pesh because—”
“No. The Commons made me, but it’s okay now.”
“Oh!” She tells me I can have a shower before her, but I make her go first. She says to me everything a mom would to their long-lost prodigal daughter. She always played the role of the mother against our parent’s apathetic attitude.
Before she leaves, I turn toward her, with a feeling in my spirit that something is wrong.
It’s like a space between us, like a wall blocking my view from her entire soul, like I need to break it softly, so I start to turn away, but my heart won’t let me, so I turn back to her, look at her and ask her again, “You are gonna tell me what happened, aren’t you? ”
She looks worried at first, but then she emits a safe smile, still with a glimmer of dread in her eyes. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”