Chapter 21 #3
Doctor Val interrupts, wise and calm, her tone graceful like the voice of a wise spirit. “What I am worried about are these students. What conditions could they possibly be under that they would need to escape? I was under the impression that The Seventh Zone was a safe working environment.”
“Is she pretending not to know about The Seventh Zone?” Swin whispers to Pesh.
“No, she knows about it, but she doesn’t know all the horrible things that happen,” Pesh responds.
“I thought you said she knew?” Levon asks.
“With limits, I said. She knows students are there, working at low wages and against their will, but she doesn’t know that they’re being abused and killed,” Pesh states.
“So, she’s only against De Londe because they are abusing the students?” Swin asks in a whisper.
“Yeah,” Pesh responds.
“Strange moral compass,” Swin mutters under his breath.
“And that’s strong enough for her to help us?” Levon asks.
“Yeah. If she wants to know anything more, she’ll ask… when she’s ready,” Pesh adds.
“So how are the Aristocrats behind The Seventh Zone?” I ask.
“They are behind the business side of it and the forced labor. However, De Londe is the one behind the killing,” Pesh explains.
“Guys, can you stop talking? Let’s watch!” Swin shouts.
Pesh pushes Swin’s head with a smile. Swin grins, knowing he is the one who has asked the most questions. Levon shakes her head, and we all look back to the screen, continuing to listen in on the conversation.
“If we allow these children to pick to work there, then there will be no need for them to escape! I have always been wary of the choice of The Seventh Zone officials and the need for forced labor,” Doctor Val says.
“Wary of my choice in officials? Like a certain Doctor Val who does not respect the system,” Shay rebukes in a strangely calm undertone.
Doctor Val replies, “I worship the essence of this system; hence I never support these plutocratic kids who are given upgrades without considerable merit. The concept of upgrades defies our Commons merit system,” she articulates calmly.
“Money is merit, Doctor Val, great Secretary of Education,” Shay grumbles. “Money is education. Money is your job, with all due respect. Great Doctor Val.”
Londe swirls his tongue with a sigh, obviously sick of the bickering.
He raises his hands for Beatrice to pour him another drink.
The second she pours the last drop, he lets go of the glass cup and it crashes to the floor, red blood spilling.
I mean red wine. All eyes turn toward the sound, and dread consumes the entire room.
“Silence please. Someone give me something tangible. Madam Dey?”
Madam Dey gulps and looks up, blood running through her flushed face. Upon my request again, Pesh catches us up on the background story behind this Patron pleaser. Apparently, Madam Dey was a former Lerod in The Commons, but she never became a Patron.
She begins speaking softly, choosing her words to impress the counsel, as though to validate her intelligence and usefulness, “If we have searched the entire island and have not found them yet, I say we search under the island.”
Oh no.
“I'm listening,” De Londe reels.
“They’re coming for us!” Levon says.
“They won’t find us,” Pesh responds calmly, eyes piercing through the screen into his Father’s.
“It is true that I haven’t seen my son at home since the incident. He must be plotting something. We need to find him. Dispatch the crew using chemical detectors to see if you can find any hidden hideaway spots,” De Londe commands.
“They have special detectors. They’re gonna find us!” Levon says.
“No. They won’t. Not from that. I built this hideaway to combat all those detectors. I built it to be the antidote against every substance from The Commons,” Pesh says, confident again.
“Okay, then we need to get cracking, Swin boy, no time to waste,” Levon responds.
“Haha, very funny! Cracking code… Didn’t think you made jokes.” Swin chuckles.
“Shut up and get to work,” Levon orders.
Swin exhales with a light beam of pleasure and begins to type on the computer screen, aiming to hack the code.
“Pesh, I’m sure your technology is top notch. But I’m sure Swin thought the same thing about his 20/20. Maybe they’ve invented even better technology that you’ve never heard of!” Levon says.
“Wow, that hurt! But I do agree,” Swin says. “And if that is the case, they’ll soon find our underwater hideaway and then, they will kill us all!”
“Do you have to be so dramatic?” Levon looks to Swin.
Pesh looks my way. “Shantavia, can you do a probability analysis for me? How quickly do you think they can find us?”
“Do you have a map of this underwater ship and its surroundings?” I ask him.
Pesh grabs a map and pencil from the drawer near the computer and hands it to me.
I open it up and mark all over it with a pencil, trying to calculate the odds of them finding us.
“Okay, if I calculate it with this map and it takes them one minute to search this huge part of the ocean, then the probability from the mainland to where we are right now, and where we could go is approximately 2000 minutes or so, I think.”
“What’s that in hours, Newton?” Swin asks.
Pesh’s eyes strike Swin’s, causing him to look down, almost scared, simmering down from the jokes. “It’s about 33 hours or so, Swin,” Pesh firmly replies, standing up with a sigh.
“So we need to hack The Begon and get it to The Lawtem in just over 24 hours’ time.” Levon looks to Swin. “Is that possible?”
Silence.
Swin looks at his computer screen, frozen. His jaw tightens. Suddenly, he looks at us with a flushed face, frightened. And for the first time, he does not have confidence. “No. That’s not possible. That’s not possible at all. I don’t know how we can do that!”