Chapter 25
The Sacrifice
Our ship has stopped moving. We can no longer hide under the sea anymore.
To complicate all this, we think we may have been compromised.
Swin was panicking last night because he learned that Justice Emmanuel was arrested for an unknown crime.
Justice Emmanuel gave us a password that would enable us to plug the chip into The Lawtem and broadcast it so that Patron De Londe can be arrested by the authorities.
But now that Justice Emmanuel has been arrested, we think our cover might be at risk of being exposed. De Londe may or may not be onto us.
I walk out to the computer room, adjusting my black and beige battle jumpsuit.
The space is vacant as the Commoners have begun making their way to Doctor Val’s house from the underground path on the shore.
The only person here is Swin, who is hard at work hacking The Begon while transferring the files from it onto the chip that he and Levon will turn into The Lawtem.
“Where’s Pesh?” I ask, turning to Swin who is in all black.
“Um… he left,” Swin mutters.
“What do you mean he left? I was supposed to go with him!” I rush toward him, confused.
“He said it’s too dangerous for you both to go, just in case Londe tries to kill one of you!”
“What!? That’s why I was going to come! He needs back up! I need to go to him!” I exclaim.
“Please, Shantavia! He told me to tell you to stay here. He begged me to tell you to stay here. Please!” Swin blocks my escape.
“I can’t. He’s in danger.” I walk past him.
“Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’ll just talk and it will all go well—”
“Wow, what wishful thinking.”
Swin resigns and looks to Levon to convince me.
Levon turns to me and holds my arms. “Shantavia, how about this? If you see something off from the cameras and you think he’s in danger, then you can go help him. For now, let’s just watch and see how he’s doing, okay?” Levon pleads with me.
Reluctantly, I concede.
I look at the computer near Swin to see a view of Patron De Londe’s mansion.
Patron De Londe sits on a glass chair in a circular-domed room with glass windows and silver-floor coverings. The transparent elevator doors open, and Pesh walks in. In the corner, Beatrice watches like a bodyguard.
“Hello, Son. I’ve been waiting for you. Have a seat.”
Pesh looks at Londe with a controlled and unrelenting gaze as he sits down. He grits his teeth to hold back his irritation. Their eyes collide. The atmosphere seems heated.
Patron De Londe watches Pesh with a direct gaze. He begins to speak, “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue. Talk.”
“I didn’t come here to talk. I came to give you this.” He gives him the decoy Begon we created last night.
Puzzled, Patron De Londe takes it, then looks at Pesh, suspicious. “Mmm, okay. Thank you. But I want something else. I want my son back.”
“You have no son.”
“That’s an awfully ungrateful way to talk to the man who raised you.”
Pesh scoffs.
“Tell me about Shantavia.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“But she does, doesn’t she? She’s come between us and created this mess; you do remember what happened last time such a tragedy occurred?”
“You will not threaten me with the death of my good mother by your heartless hands.”
“Hands don’t have hearts. You never really were good at anatomy, were you? Really, what are you thinking, Pesh? You do know if I go down, you go down as well.”
Pesh’s eyes dart up, clearly sick of De Londe’s constant derailment and disparagement. So, he tries to re-focus the conversation. “The Begon I stole from you is right there in front of you. Isn’t that all you wanted? Now you don’t need to self-destruct it.”
“Let’s say I don’t believe this really is The Begon, what then?”
“Check it. Do a quick scan,” Pesh states.
Beatrice takes the fake Begon and runs the scan. “It looks real,” she responds.
“Looks can be deceiving. Begin to check every file on it right now!” Londe commands.
“Yes, Londe.” Beatrice takes the fake Begon and leaves the room.
“He’s still talking to him, so that’s good,” Levon says. “He won’t self-identify this hour, so we have one hour of extra time. Hopefully Pesh can buy us another one!”
“Let’s say you really are surrendering, and that really is The Begon, what about the files you’ve been collecting on me?” Patron De Londe says.
“What files?” Pesh responds, confused at Londe’s knowledge.
“If you’ve been freeing students, I’m sure you’re taking them somewhere, and if you’ve been taking them somewhere, I’m sure you’ve recorded their experiences. It’s just logical, right? To have back up files?” Londe presumes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pesh pretends.
“Yes, you do. Even if it’s one person. Shantavia, Levon…
who’s the other deviant? Swin. Of course I have their names!
The guards who reported the incident stated that apparently I was the one who sent you on special duty.
Now I don’t recall any such duties, do you?
” Londe demands, his lips curling into a crafty smile as he continues, “Even if it’s only just one…
two… three people you’ve saved, I want to see all three of their dead bodies, and more importantly, the evidence you’ve collected from their testimonials! ”
“Like I said,” Pesh says calmly, feigning a composed demeanor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There are no back up files.”
“You’re too smart for that. There must be! Or you would not give this to me. I’m not proud of most of what you’ve become. But I am proud that I did create you to be somewhat of a genius, like me. Geniuses don’t ever surrender without a backup. So, tell me, where’s the backup? And who has it?”
“Like I said, I have no backup,” Pesh emphasizes, becoming uncomfortable.
I’m becoming uneasy.
“Really? Is it Shantavia who has it? Or is it Levon? Or—what’s the other guy’s name again—Swin? Or is it with someone else in The Commons? Because whoever it is, I will find them and I will kill them,” Londe declares.
The camera suddenly goes off.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I rush to figure out how to turn the signal back on.
I look to the right to see that Swin has finished hacking The Begon.
He is now inserting the chip into Levon’s arms. I look away, too unsettled to see the sight of the blood since I cut myself when I was 14.
I’ve seen blood before obviously, but somehow it feels different on Levon. I overhear their words.
“Ouch!” Levon says.
“You can scan this from your arms at The Lawtem, right?” Swin inquires.
“Yeah,” Levon confirms. “Since they are no longer encrypted and are just files now, thanks to you, I simply scan my hand through their reporting machine and enter in the password Doctor Val gave us.”
“Right. But remind me why you made me implant the chip in you again?” Swin asks.
“Since you finished earlier than expected, I just thought, we should do everything we can to ensure we are safer. What if we are caught by the authorities on our way and they search us.” Levon arches a brow. “What then, huh?”
“They’ll see that we do not have The Begon because you will be The Begon.”
“Exactly! And they’ll let us go,” Levon says.
“Ahh, she’s brains and beauty all in one!” Swin flirts.
“I’m gonna punch you if you don’t stop!”
“Okay. Okay. You act like you don’t trust me, yet you’re letting me put a chip in your body.”
“Just shut up and get this done!”
“You wanna help shut my lips up, I’ll be down!”
“You’re so stupid! Do you ever stop flirting?”
“Absolutely. I did about two seconds ago. We’re way past that stage. Now, we’re getting to know each other.” He examines her, then softly asks, “Why did you come to The Commons?”
She is silent and turns away, and for a moment, he looks down, resigned.
But after a few seconds, she responds, “I wanted to be the first female president of the Common World. For the last fifty years, no president, monarch, or ruler could prevail that didn’t graduate from The Commons.
It controls every party, every government—in the entire world.
So I thought why not join? It turned out to be the biggest mistake I ever made. ”
“Why do you want to be president?” Swin inquires.
“It’s none of your business.”
He looks away, humbled. Her eyes flutter in regret, and she begins to open up to him, letting her guard down for a moment.
“My dad died when I was seven. Some people claimed that it was an accident, that it was food poisoning, but I knew that his competition found a way to get rid of him in their last private meeting together. The Commoners liked him too much, and they were afraid he was going to win. I know because he wrote me a letter telling me this right before he died. But the government didn’t do anything when my mom found me and tried to get justice for him.
I want to finish what he started. For The Love of The Commoners, hmm? ”
“Wow.” Swin stares at her, and for a moment, their eyes stay on each other.
Suddenly, she cuts it and moves on without a hint of emotion. “What about you? Why did you come to The Commons?” she asks.
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean you didn’t?”
“I mean I did apply several times, I just never got accepted. I had an “in,” but she backed out at the last minute.”
“As in every time, you mean.”
“Rub it in, why don’t you!”
“I can elaborate if you’d like,” she says, hiding her smile.
He smiles, rolling his eyes.
Levon raises her chin and looks at him with a furrowed forehead. “So if you didn’t go to The Commons, then how did you end up in The Seventh Zone?”
“I went to get revenge.”
“I don’t follow. Revenge for what? And what do you mean? I didn’t know they take workers who aren’t students.”
“Unless you were bait for a crime.”
“You were bait for a crime? Whose crime?”