| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
It’s been another few days since the fruitless meeting in Ambassador Hall.
Resi has been trying to go over the heads of the ambassadors, and secure an
audience with the Presidents of Sanggar and Pekat themselves, but no such
luck. It’s looking like Cortez was right. There’s no place for them on the
island anymore. Their numbers haven’t stopped going up. There are now 428 of
them. Fortunately, it’s not the rainy season right now, so the kids who have
to sleep outside of the dorms are doing okay. They’ve lived on an island
their whole lives, so it’s not like any of them isn’t used to the elements.
Resi is trying to hold it together, but everyone is looking to him to fix
this. They have less than two weeks to figure out where to go, but it’s not
so simple. Leaving Yana is the one thing that no one wants to do. They’re
islanders. That’s their whole thing. They didn’t choose any of the four
original houses, but they didn’t choose Kinkon either. They can’t stand the
thought. But if they leave, they can’t just let the Bungulas plop them down
wherever there happens to be open space. They’re not familiar with the
planet’s geography, but there has to be more than one island. Maybe even a
better one?
“Caprice,” Resi says as he’s walking towards his unit. “You’re with me.”
“Boss,” she replies respectfully as she’s following him down the hall. The
way she justifies her involvement in this is that the Kidjums were supposed
to end for good, leaving her free to choose a new destiny for herself. She
says she couldn’t help it that the Assembly decided to go back to the old
ways. That was weeks ago. She’s quit her job, and found a new one. She’s the
only older person here.
Resi pops his head into the room. And there’s the only younger person
here. He steps back out and looks down the hall. “Hey, Chaya! Are you free?”
“Yeah, need me to take her?” Chaya was the Ilah girl from his first
non-Kidjum who challenged his decisions. Not everyone from that fateful day
is part of Resi’s personal Fold now, but a lot of them have proven
themselves capable of serving well as his advisors and delegates. Chaya, in
particular, is good with Kala, so she takes on babysitting duties when Resi
can’t look after her, or needs some privacy. She takes Kala’s hand when she
comes out of the dorm on her own, knowing the drill. “Let’s go get some
bolon de verde.”
“Not too much,” Resi instructs.
Caprice closes the door behind her. “I think you need to stop trying to talk
to the presidents. They don’t have time for us. They don’t care.”
“Oh, I’ve stopped,” Resi agrees. “We only have one more option now, and it’s
not Yana. I’m hoping that you know where we could go, given your history.”
“My history?” Caprice questioned. “What do you mean?”
“You’re Kinkon,” he says. It’s not something they ever talk about, but while
she looks Tamboran, she’s clearly had a lot of experience on the outside.
“What the hell are you talking about? No, I’m not. I was from Naino. I grew
up as a fisherman. I hadn’t realized I hadn’t told you that. That’s why I
always wear blue.”
“The color codes don’t really exist anymore, and that’s not a Kutelin
thing.”
“They were when I was a kid. Naino wore mostly blue. I don’t understand why
you thought I was Kinkon, because I know how to work a nanoparticle
microinjector?” They don’t use a lot of technology from the outside
world, but the Bungulans insisted on providing them with medical supplies.
They said it was a humanitarian issue. No amount of non-interference laws
could overshadow basic existential ethics.
“No, your name. Caprice is not Tamboran.”
She stares at him for a few seconds. “Yeah, my parents gave me a western
world name. That’s not illegal, and it doesn’t mean I’m from one of the
other settlements. I’m Tamboran through and through. I’m sorry if you
thought that I had some special knowledge about what else is out there, but
I probably had a worse education than you. I skipped half of the school days
because I had to deepsea fish with my family.”
“So you do know about the ocean,” he presses. “Have you seen any other
island, just when you were living your life, not studying it?”
“I’m sure there are a ton of islands out there. We didn’t go to any of them,
because that’s not deep sea. The only specific one I know off the top of my
head is Anchor Island, and we all know that one.”
“That’s the one with the elevator?” Resi asks rhetorically. “That would be
in our own knowledge archives.” He takes out his device, and looks it up. He
reads as much as he can without the silence becoming too awkward between him
and Caprice. “It was ours. It’s only forty-two kilometers away, and used to
be an extension of Yana. We gave it to the colonists not too long ago,
historically speaking.”
“Yeah, that sounds right. I think our ancestors would mine guano there for
fertilizer. But then they stripped it clean, and had no further use for it.
They traded it for something—I don’t remember—but it was only recently that
the Bungulans started using it for their space elevator, since we’re at the
equator.” She looked up to think. “You were probably just being born when
that was all going down. Somebody stole the top part of the elevator, and
nearly started a war, so they had to build a new one to replace it.”
“Did they ever...figure out how to plant there? Or is it still barren?”
“No, I don’t think they care about that,” Caprice answers. “They just just use
it to go up and down. So if you were hoping they would, for some reason,
give it back, I don’t see why they would, and I don’t see what we would do
with it.”
He sighed and frowned, looking down at the floor, defeated yet again.
“But. Even though I’m not Kinkon, one thing I know about them is that Anchor
Island doubles as a waypoint. When they choose to leave Yana, they go there
first, and start to acclimate to a new way of life. I obviously don’t know
exactly what that entails, but every time they’re needed, the Anchor people
come here in a really fast boat, and ferry them over. I think such an
excursion is not a big deal for those people. They could probably make the
trip on their lunch break.”
“How often does someone’s subconscious choose Kinkon during a Kidjum?”
“In my experience, a few people a week. It fluctuates, though. During
periods of great strife, we usually end up with more, because kids believe
there’s a better life for them on the other side of the ocean.”
“Is there?” Resi asks her. “Are we stupid for not choosing Kinkon too?”
She’s silent at first, looking away, then looking him in the eyes again.
“Probably.”
Resi nods. “Thank you for your help. I’m sorry this conversation started out
so combative. Now. I think I need a camera. For now, we are no longer
accepting applications to join House Kutelin. The Kidjums must start again
so someone can choose Kinkon for us, and trigger that boat. You and I
are gonna get on it.”
No comments :
Post a Comment