36. THIRTY-SIX #3
“Choice,” she repeated. “New energetic realities aren’t formed by a stone falling this way or that. Something must make decision.” Little did anyone know that the scientific reality of what most considered to be magic was free will.
Against the light, their shadows stretched long across the stone floor, fleeing toward the raven-black corners of the room.
“The ruxechorin at center of every device is attune to frequency of just one of those seventeen trillion strata—created consciously, decades, centuries, eons ago. To stumble upon it? Is like reaching into the ocean and chancing upon very specific grain of sand.”
“To make the distortion apparati functional, we need to attune them to the same strata ruxechorin pulls from?”
“Precisely. If you have only key, it do nothing for you without keyhole.” Which was why the circuit was so important—it was the hammer that could smash both.
“Why not synthesize another chemical core that works with a different stratum?”
Attilatia deactivated the lamp and stuffed it into her pocket. Her eyes adjusted to the newfound dimness, and she dealt the final blow. “Because ruxechorin was synthesize by harnessing genetic signature of Ruxian it was collected from.”
Slow comprehension stole over his expression.
Those had been dark days in Azadonian history.
Her grandfather, her own blood, had been the one to experiment on Seraphindo’s descendents—prisoners, their powers repressed by a Chori root called coludium.
Unethical, her father had said. Inhumane.
He wouldn’t tell Attilatia what became of the subjects, which was the same as telling her they’d been bled out and sewn back together a hundred times.
Something wilted behind the boy’s eyes. “So the only way to distort from a different stratum would be…?”
“To attain a different Ruxian.” Which was impossible. And the world was better for it. Distortion, as with many great things in history, had been built on a foundation of greed and death with the hope that it could be so much more. But foundation tended to beget legacy, in the end.
“What is your name, anyway?” she asked.
“I don’t have one.”
“I thought you said you weren’t always a Tume’amic?”
“I wasn’t. I didn’t have one then, either.”
Now she was the one to stare. She’d never met a more peculiar person in all her life, and her mother was a politician.
“You said we’re all slaves to something,” he started. “This enslavement of yours. You think you’ll escape it?”
That would be a magic act, wouldn’t it? She spared the “success” glyph on the report a final glance before stuffing it into a file. “That, or die trying.”
“Let’s say you were me. How would you recommend I do so?” The words of this boy with no name were more refined than most of the cabinet’s.
“Make yourself pivotal. Figure out one thing your captor want more than anything. And find way to give to them. Do you know what your Tohatu desire above all?”
The boy swallowed. Then he nodded.
“Perfect. Better yet. You find a way to give it to him. And you find a way to take it away.” He was still staring. He looked so serious. “Why you asking me, anyway? I’m no case study in freedom.”
“I like you.” No hesitation. No regret.
“What do you like about me?”
His eyes scanned her, his calm confidence nearly disconcerting. “Everything.”
Her stomach bubbled until she feared it might come out of her. “Then there probably something wrong with you, too.”
“I’m willing to accept that.”
A tingling lit her limbs and the space beneath her belly.
She wondered if she was misreading him—she probably was; he hadn’t stepped closer.
He hadn’t given any indication… but she might never have another chance to do this.
And if it was terrible? Well, this boy certainly wasn’t going to tell anybody.
She took three clumsy steps forward until somehow, someway, her lips had bumped into his and gotten stuck there. She’d always wanted to kiss a boy. But usually, any time they opened their mouths, she changed her mind.
The boy’s hands landed on her waist. His tongue found hers, delicate and warm.
His mouth sealed around her upper lip. She did not change her mind.
She was the pools of the lesotho. She was the pounding of the drums. The things most other people enjoyed never seemed worth the hype, but this…
this was good. This, she wanted to be good at.
He took a step back so suddenly Attilatia nearly fell forward. “I’m not allowed to do this. To be here.”
“Oh—I—” What a convenient excuse for her being intolerable.
“Suit yourself.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and pretended it didn’t sting that he would choose his abuser over kissing her.
“I’ll return you, then.” She hadn’t intended for the edge in her voice.
She wasn’t sure what she’d intended to begin with.
Attilatia started for the tunnels back into the legislative chambers. She remembered, too late, the pilfered bag of nuts, still sitting at her workstation. She didn’t turn back for them. She didn’t want to look him in the eye.
Behind her, she heard the boy stop, and the undeniable crunch that meant he had taken a bite.