Microstory 2672: Allegiance

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software

Resi demanded to speak with the Assembly, or whoever was trying to stop House Kutelin from exiling to Anchor Island. They refused, as always, but Zenith and the Bungulans were not happy about it. The purpose of this island is to facilitate movement and communication. Refusing to meet your opponent is the first sign of being on the wrong side. So Zenith pretty much forced it to happen. Since Speaker Lincoln committed suicide, she was replaced by the next in line. Sherman is now the interim Speaker, and will serve in this capacity until a new appointment can be made. He brought his granddaughter here for some reason. She is fifteen years old—having not yet gone through her Kidjum—and Resi has never heard of her before, but she looks familiar, like she showed up in a dream once recently, or something. That can’t be it, though. He hasn’t dreamed even once since his botched Kidjum. She really has no business being here, but he can’t argue against it. She looks at him like she knows something he doesn’t, which she surely does.

“Can we all be civil, or do I need to remain here to mediate?” Zenith asks.

“You may go,” Speaker Sherman tells her.

“You do not need to mediate,” Resi begins, like he’s going to agree. “But stay anyway. They are your guests. I would like you to see who they are.”

Zenith closes her eyes and bows slightly before taking a seat against the wall.

It’s important that Resi speaks first, so he can seize the upper hand. “Tell me. Where do you expect us to go? You won’t allow us to return to Yana, and you won’t let us live here. So what other options do we have? What do you want, or think we should do? Should we kill ourselves, like your coward of a former leader?”

Sherman isn’t pleased by his words, but his granddaughter has the strongest reaction. She doesn’t speak, though. “It may sound like a contradiction, but I assure you that it’s not. You may not stay on Yana. You may not live here on Anchor Island,” Speaker Sherman says.

“There’s nowhere else!” Resi cries. That was the wrong move. He has lost his advantage now. He needs to stay calm and in control. Let his enemy see no emotion. No one ever taught him that, it just makes sense.

Sherman is successfully managing to follow Resi’s internal advice, so it must be the right call, at least in theory. “I am not here to give you answers, or options, only restrictions. It is our job to manage the affairs of the Tamboran nation, and to engage with other cultures when necessary. House Kutelin is not a culture whose sovereignty we recognize. Therefore, there is nothing we can do for you.”

The other Fold Leaders begin to yell and argue against his ridiculous position. Resi motions for them to relax. “You may not think that you owe us anything, and the truth may be that you don’t. But if you don’t answer me, you will be the ones declaring war against House Kutelin, not the other way around. We do exist, and the other Houses know us. You may tear us down, and wipe us out, but your will lose your power over Tambora. The people will not stand by. You will lose your reëlections, and you will have accomplished nothing good. Is that what you want?”

Sherman only smiles. “I’ve told you, I’m not here to give you any answers. This conversation is over.” He looks over at Zenith. “I have fulfilled my promise. I gave him five minutes. Now we’re done. Please arrange my transport home. Resi and his people must leave within one day, and the rest of his House must leave Yana a week after that. If I find out you’ve been harboring any members of House Kutelin after that, the Accords will be broken, and you know what that means.”

“I do.” Zenith wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t going to go against him either.

No one on this planet has the authority to do anything. If that’s true, then maybe he should stop asking for what he needs. Maybe he should just take it.

Resi watches the Speaker and the Assembly walk out of the room. As she passes by, Sherman’s daughter flings something from her device to his. He doesn’t look at it until they’ve all left. It’s a note from her. She wants to meet on the rock beach. Alone.

Here it is. Here’s where the relative or assistant swoops in with a knowledge bomb, and our hero has to decide if she can be trusted or not. In half the movies, she can be, and in the other half, she can’t. If she can’t, and is still loyal to the villain, the hero seemingly takes her advice anyway, only for it to turn out that he knew the truth the whole time, and was playing the long game to dupe them both. There is no workaround for this trope. If you operate inside of the system, there is no way to beat that system. The reality of her loyalties, and the hero’s actions, are equally dictated by the needs of the story. This is real life, which means what he chooses here could result in failure, and even casualties. No author is trying to make it more interesting, or lead things down the right path.

“You’re not going alone,” Vantu insists. “You must be protected.” Vantu is a bit of a brute, but a very kind one, and very protective of anyone smaller or weaker. That’s usually not Resi himself, but he’s been particularly clingy on this trip due to the high stakes. Still, it won’t be necessary. Resi already has a plan.

“If they want to hurt me, there are easier ways to do it. A Bungulan-run island is the worst place to try something fishy. They got drones flying all over the place.”

“They only react so quickly,” Vantu argues, “and won’t be able to stop anything. Let me stay out of earshot, but in line of sight, so she knows she’s being monitored.”

“Really, it won’t be necessary, but I’ll let you walk with me,” Resi tells him.

He follows the girl’s directions, and heads towards the beach. He sees her standing there on the rocks, hair blowing in the wind. She’s changed her clothes into an asymmetrical shawl loosely wrapped around her waist, and what at this distance looks like a flower bikini top. She must think that he will listen to her because of it. He doesn’t advertise his asexuality but he doesn’t hide it either. If she’s done her homework, she’ll know that this won’t work. Or maybe she’s just hot. They are in the tropics, after all. He shouldn’t assume what her motivations are. He has no clue who she really is, or what she wants. He can’t trust her, though, that much is absolutely certain. She appears to be rather patient. She’s not folding her arms, or even shifting her weight between legs. She’s a statue, which may be telling him all he needs to know.

Resi looks over his own shoulder at Vantu, who nods, acknowledging that this is where he will remain so he doesn’t interfere with whatever is exchanged here. It doesn’t matter. Resi turns back at the stranger. He slowly draws his open hand up against his forehead in salute. Then he steadily swings it forward dramatically. If he could see her face from this distance, it would probably look confused. He doesn’t go up to see if he’s right. He just turns and walks away. The only way to win this game is to refuse to play.

Microstory 2671: The View From Up Here

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1

Resi is on Anchor Island now, as is every Fold Leader in his House. They all came here in a boat, while Resi got to fly in what he initially called a helicopter, but which was apparently known as a shuttle. They are in a conference room of some kind. It’s very sterile and lifeless. They aren’t used to it. Just about everything they do on Yana is outside, even when they’re under a roof. Fully enclosed spaces are mainly for sleeping, and maintaining valuables. That’s what keeps them a unified peoples, and is a core tenet of their sociological philosophy, even if they’re not entirely aware of it. They’re in the tallest building any of them has seen in real life, towering over the surface so high that the view from this side makes it look like they’re just sitting on top of the ocean itself. They’re all looking out the window quietly together. Resi wishes it was showing the island itself. Caprice’s information was out of date. This place is no longer a wasteland.

“Thank you all for waiting.” The invincible shuttle stranger takes her seat at the head, waving her hand across it invitingly. She taps on the wooden table like it’s a device. It turns out to be just that when a trapdoor slides open, and lifts a glass of water up for her. When she notices the way everyone is looking at her, she taps more to activate everyone’s own personal interfaces.

They begin to play with their preferences, but Resi is all business. He’s at the opposite head, and has to raise his voice a little. “How long until the others arrive?”

“The others?” she questions. “It’s just little old me.” She doesn’t look the least bit intimidated, being surrounded by all these crazy kids, with no one to back her up. This isn’t a contentious meeting, though it will be complex and complicated. He wouldn’t want to be alone. “My name is Zenith Gerard. I am the Anchor Island Representative. Only about a thousand people live here permanently. The rest are traveling up the elevators to Anchor Station, or down from it, as well as a few who are transferring from Yana to the mainland. As I am most familiar with the way Yana works, and how it differs from the rest of the stellar neighborhood, particularly Greater Bungula, I’ve been asked to speak with your personally, rather than bringing in a diplomat from elsewhere. Before we begin, are there any customs that you must set up, or rituals that you must perform?”

“No,” Resi says. “I’ve been trying to meet with you for days, and would like to get on with it, so we can come to an amicable understanding.”

She’s confused again. “There is a procedure for reaching out to us.”

“I was not made aware of it,” he explains. “We are exiles.”

“Yes,” she replies with a sigh. “I recognize that, and wish that I could help.”

“You could,” Resi tells her. “You have the room. You said it yourself, only a thousand people live here. We don’t require much. We can build our own infrastructure, we just can’t stay where we are now.”

Zenith nods. “I hear you, but this is a more delicate situation than I believe you know. I’m not saying no, but even if you agree to live as we do, you are facing opposition from your island leadership. You should know, they’re in the other room, fighting against any aid that we might be inclined to provide.”

Resi fumes. “They are the ones who are pushing us out. Where do they expect us to go? The bottom of the sea?”

“I don’t think it’s about that,” Zenith begins. “I think they’re worried that if you leave, others might follow. Your exile is meant to be...undesireable. If you land on your feet, you show that it’s possible to leave Yana.”

“What does it matter, what they want?” Resi questions. “You have the bigger guns. They can’t do anything to stop you. Just make the call, and screw ‘em.”

“Our first thought is never of violence. That is one thing that we share in common with your island. You have to understand, Mr. Brooks. Your way of life is against the law for everyone else in the Core Colonies, and unheard of in the neighborhood.”

“What are the Core and the neighborhood? What’s wrong with our way of life?”

“The Core includes the systems closest to Earth,” she says. “They were colonized first, and are expected to maintain post-scarcity economies. Anyone who doesn’t want that is given the tools they need to travel even farther through space, to the Charter Planets, or beyond. We do not allow capitalism. The stellar neighborhood lies before the Charter Cloud, and don’t have to be post-scarcity, but they all are. Yana is an exception.”

Resi stands back up, and walks over to the corner. At this height, they can actually see Central Mountain in the distance, though only through a sliver of the glass. The rest is opaque, until now. It suddenly turns transparent, so Yana can be seen in its full glory. The other kids stand to get a look, but he looks back at Zenith. “You are more advanced than we realized. Or I should say, we are less advanced than we should be.” He slips through the crowd. “Stay here, look at the pretty island.”

Zenith stands too. “Capitalism does not disallow innovation, but it can slow it down, especially for a smaller population of protected peoples. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we obviate that. We control the weather. We hold back the tsunamis. We cure your diseases. You’ve not progressed much, because you’ve not needed to.”

 “So, where does this leave us?” Resi asks, trying to maintain composure.

“There is one way for you to become integrated into our society,” Zenith tells him, “but only the one. It’s how we’ve been doing it for centuries.”

“The Kidjum.”

“We respect your traditions,” she goes on. “Your Kidjum process is baked into the accord that I signed with your ancestors. It is how someone from your culture becomes one of us. Your leaders are willing to take you back as long as you validate their conventions, and if that ends with a few people coming here anyway, then that’s fine with them, because that is how it always was.”

“There’s something fishy here,” Resi complains. “They gave me this House, and took it away five minutes later because they didn’t like what I did with it.”

She nods. “I would have to agree, but it is not my place to take sides. The accord was with your governing body, and House Kutelin is not a recognized faction of it. In the eyes of Bungula, everything happening between you and your nation is an internal matter. I’m trying to find a way to get you need without breaking that fragile accord.”

Resi turns around to face the other Fold Leaders. He thought they were admiring the view, but they’ve been watching the two of them like an audience. “This has to be a group effort. Do we return to the Kidjum, and risk losing our momentum, or do we stand together, and fight for a home, whether that’s there, here, or elsewhere?”

It starts out slow, but dominos quickly as the other kids sit back down in their seats. “Let’s talk,” one of them says. She looks at Zenith. “Thank you. You can go now.”