Fix by Ferrett Steinmetz

Author:Ferrett Steinmetz [Steinmetz, Ferrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: [No data]
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2016-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Love is Not Enough

Eight ’mancers were to be honored at today’s memorial service: two dead of old age, one by accident, five sacrificed sealing broaches.

Everyone agreed Numbers would have been pleased to see his death take place on a statistically average day.

Aliyah hadn’t wanted to go to the memorial service, but it would have felt disrespectful to stay away. She was raw after breaking down in the Unimancers’ arms yesterday.

She’d always been her family’s anchor. Here, she’d become someone who relied on people.

Why couldn’t she rely on the people who’d raised her?

The Unimancers, for their parts, had kept a respectful distance, like waiters standing in a restaurant’s corner. The people of Bastogne had taken their lead from the Unimancers, refusing to condemn her.

She longed for someone to yell at her, to give her something to fight against…

But Aliyah’s only human contact had been Ruth, come to top off her euclidosuppressants. She craved that drug now. She wanted her ’mancy locked away.

Getting to the mess tent involved dodging messy smears where light boiled inside like tea in a kettle – the scars from yesterday’s rift. The Unimancers acknowledged Aliyah with encouraging smiles. How could they? She’d killed three people. Yet though she scoured their expressions for traces of disgust, not a one of them blamed her.

She thirsted for their forgiveness. Worse, knew they’d give it.

That opened up doors she wasn’t ready to step through.

Today’s ceremony was overseen by a pot-bellied, dark-skinned man in a crisp military uniform. He stood at the head of the mess tent, looking somber; his nametag, drowning in a chest full of medals, read KANAKIA.

Aliyah stared. This man had beaten her? With his balding fringe of gray hair and his bulbous nose, General Kanakia looked like a store clerk, not a warrior.

Yet when he turned his calm gaze upon her, she felt like a virus under a microscope. Aliyah bristled; that gaze spoke of hours studying videotapes of her, implied nothing she could do would surprise him. Occasionally he bent down to whisper a question to Ruth, and Ruth always nodded as if to confirm the truth of whatever he’d surmised.

They spoke – Ruth arguing strenuously, the general reluctant – and came to a conclusion.

Ruth thanked him and came over to get Aliyah.

“The general says Numbers’ memorial service will have classified information you’re not cleared for.” Ruth cracked open a storage case, strapped a bow and quiver over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

“I killed them,” Aliyah said. “I can’t walk away–”

“If you truly honor them, then you won’t make this memorial about you.”

Aliyah couldn’t have blushed faster if she’d been slapped.

“That’s not fair,” she protested. “You’ve got all those salesmancers and psychomancers and marketingmancers inside you. Are you manipulating me into doing… doing whatever you want?”

Ruth nodded. “Check my eyes, Aliyah.”

Her eyes were a speckled hazel, kind enough that Aliyah wanted to trust her–

–they weren’t jittering.

They hadn’t jittered during this whole conversation.

Had Ruth severed herself from the collective?

“That’s all…” Aliyah wasn’t sure how to say it.

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