Chapter 18 #3
‘This isn’t the first time I’ve been wounded, nor will it be the last. I can deal with it. You need to deal with it, too, and get this done.’ A phrase that sums up Mace Hardfield. ‘What’s happening?’ he says. ‘Why can’t you block the sensors?’
‘I think I’m not hitting the right sensors.’
‘Then find them.’ Mace lifts his sword again, and I realise that he won’t budge on this, and arguing will only waste us time. ‘And will you ever learn to follow orders? It’s exhausting to fight with you for every inch.’
Though I hate him for being such a self-sacrificing arse, I grudgingly comply. ‘Going in three, two, one?—’
I teleport towards the left side, not far from the entrance.
I haven’t tried the sensors there. Mace is struggling, and fighting, and I can’t fail him.
I bring my hands to the ground, send a shove of my blocking power, and then blissful silence falls over the hangar.
I’m nearly too afraid to look up at Mace, but he’s standing in the middle of the empty room, the sword hanging from his hand.
He’s still bleeding, though, but that’s not something I can fix right now.
Not yet.
‘How do we make Stella show us the hidden information blocks?’ Mace asks. Always focused on his goals, even if he’s hurt. And I hate him for this. Because it pains me to know that he isn’t taking care of himself. That he hasn’t, in the past nine years.
Is that true self-worth, if he thinks he isn’t worth anything unless he is the very best? Unless he pushes himself to his limits and beyond? I’m not sure. From where I’m standing, it seems to me that he always has something to prove. Which makes us more alike than I thought.
The empty space in the middle of the hangar shimmers blue. A holographic image materialises right next to us. Six Commanders – they must be The Founders, since I recognise Stu and Franka – are sitting at an oval table in what seems to be the Command Room.
Franka sits at the top of the table. ‘Aurelius, present to us the newest intelligence reports.’
A man flicks his wrist and a holographic simulation of a spreadsheet appears between them, rotating a few inches above the table. It’s one of the men on the old digital posters that Mace and I saw on our way out of The Citadel.
‘As you can see, most of the people who left The Citadel because they rejected the new laws pertaining to the Warriors – and who they’re allowed to partner with – returned after less than a week in the Disputed Lands.’
Stu must have won the argument and passed the law according to which Warriors are only able to partner with other Warriors. A law that holds to this day. But how did that happen? There are so many gaps, and we only have so much information to work with.
Aurelius goes on to say, ‘The sensors we hid in the Disputed Lands revealed that as soon as the neighbouring kingdoms realised that a large number of Warriors were moving about in search of food and shelter, they began setting traps for them. Not even the children were spared.’
My stomach convulses. The people who lived in The Citadel, a few years after it was founded, had no more choice than we do, when it came to their lives. Hundreds of them left the city, and they either died, or came back and complied with the new laws.
Franka rubs her eyes. She seems exhausted. When she looks up and straight at me, I see it: the circlet on her head, the thick, golden band around her arm. I point at the circlet. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘Sure looks like it,’ Mace says, frowning.
What he means is that the circlet and the band are markings of royalty.
They are the bearings of a Queen. ‘But we are taught that The Citadel has always been a republic,’ I say.
‘That we never had a king or queen. That Stella never, ever selected one from among Central Command, unlike in other independent cities.’
Mace tries to fold his arms, then winces. ‘Can you think of a reason why Central Command would have lied to us, then? Why they keep this information blocked out from The Citadel?’
He has a point. If there was something Central Command wouldn’t want us to find out, it would be something like this.
Kings and Queens are supposed to have more power than the rest of Central Command. More intricate ways of tuning into Stella’s features. Is it any wonder that the Commanders wouldn’t want that to get out? To prevent anyone to have access to more power than them?
‘This has heavy implications,’ says Mace. ‘This means that Stella probably has the Regalia, the circlet and the band. The question is why our AI has never granted them to anyone else since then.’
‘As far as we know, at least,’ I mutter.
‘True,’ says Mace.
‘Maybe the security protocols forbade Stella from choosing royalty?’ I say.
‘I doubt that,’ Mace says. ‘All the AIs on the continent have the same protocols when it comes to choosing Central Command, and the power it wields. No Central Command could have changed those protocols, without causing Stella to self-destruct.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘There is only so much that can be changed within Stella’s programming.’
Franka says, ‘We’re asking too much. This isn’t what we promised the people.’
‘We promised the people that we’ll build a city where they won’t be hunted,’ Stu says dryly. ‘A place to live.’
‘What kind of life are we offering them?’ Franka says. ‘One where we take the people’s choices away?’
‘They’ll only choose poorly,’ Stu says. ‘You know what Stella’s calculations say. We need more Warriors. And we need powerful ones.’
‘Couldn’t you at least consider IVF? It would be a kindness,’ Franka says.
Stu scoffs. ‘It would cost us too many resources. Resources we don’t have. We’ve been through this already.’
I think I’m going to be sick.
I hate Stu. I hate him from the bottom of my soul.
‘This is no way to live,’ Franka says softly.
Stu scoffs. ‘If these people want to live, they’ll do what we say.’
‘He’s awful,’ I hiss. ‘But, as Queen, why couldn’t Franka just override his decisions?’
Mace says, ‘The ruling monarch can’t pass laws on their own. They need to subject decisions to the vote of Central Command. The monarch never has the right to absolute rule. Trust me. I know these things.’
‘History geek,’ I mutter.
‘If Stu had enough support within the rest of Central Command, then he must have found a way to pass the laws he wanted to pass.’
‘We can always ask,’ I say. ‘Stella.’ An image of her materialises next to the table, but she’s a little different from the Stella we know. She’s taller and she glows blue, not gold. ‘Could you confirm if Franka Ursa was Queen?’
‘Confirmed,’ Stella says.
‘How was she chosen?’ I ask. Why did you choose her?
‘She had a unique set of capabilities that the AI sensors were particularly responsive to,’ Stella says. ‘Her set of powers enabled her to form shields around the entire Citadel when under attack and use the technological network for similar actions.’
‘What similar actions?’ I ask.
‘This information is not included in this block.’
‘Great,’ I whine. ‘We’ve hit a wall again. Simply fantastic.’
‘Stella,’ Mace says. ‘What Quarter did Franka belong to?’
‘This information is not included in this block,’ Stella says.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ I say, sarcastically.
‘I trust that the Central Command who hid this made it hard for us on purpose,’ Mace says.
It’s not the first time I think it may not be a coincidence that this information about Franka has been hidden away, and that information where my own set of powers is concerned is missing from The Citadel.
What Stella always told me is that there were others like me, in the past, that I wasn’t an anomaly, but she couldn’t remember exactly what I was.
And Stella has no recollections of Franka, as far as I can see.
On the other hand, I might be suffering from Main Character Syndrome, and it would be the same as typecasting myself as a long-lost princess, because daydreaming is my superpower, even if no one knows it.
So I dismiss this idea. Allen did say that there were training protocols for at least two Quarters that were missing from Stella’s mainframe.
Chances are that I belong to the other, not-Queen-potential one.
But Mace is like a dog with a bone. ‘What would determine you to choose a Queen or King? Why haven’t you, in so many years?’
‘This information isn’t included in this block.’
He groans. Stella is dangling these tantalising snippets in front of our noses, but it’s not enough to get an accurate idea about the whole picture.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to show us, Stella?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says.
The image in front of us dissolves, and a new one forms. It’s Franka standing in the Command Room, with Stella in front of her.
‘They’re going too far,’ Franka says. ‘And there’s no knowing if they’ll ever stop. They keep saying this is temporary, but it’s becoming worse and worse. What do you think?’
Stella touches a fist to her heart, bowing her head, giving a Queen her due. ‘I’m only here to serve. I’m not entitled to an opinion.’
Franka clacks her tongue. ‘You’re smarter than this, Stella. Tell me what you really think.’
‘If you say that, I must.’ Stella smiles. ‘I think the situation is … worrying. Central Command is taking advantage of the fact that the people are desperate and hunted everywhere they go, to push through with whatever laws they want.’
Franka nods. ‘This is exactly how I see it. I need— Things could go from bad to worse. There’s no telling who might be in charge. I need a way to guide this city in the future. Who will be there to stop them?’
‘What do you have in mind?’ Stella says.
It’s almost painful for me to watch how Franka reaches out for Stella, how she talks to her as if she were a friend, an advisor. Because how often have I done the same? Maybe I wasn’t so wrong in seeing a friend in Stella.
Maybe I’m not out of my mind to feel betrayed after she blanked out our map so we couldn’t see the attack from Team Silver and Team Bronze coming.