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Resi is ill. He was hot and sweaty during his speech, and he doesn’t even
remember the end of it. He’s just waking up now in his childhood home. The
last time he was here was three years ago, but it feels like he’s never
really been here at all. It feels like that was a movie, and now he’s fallen
into the screen. He’s delirious. Kala walks into the room holding a wet
towel. She dabs his forehead with it, and then drapes it across his face.
He’s breathing heavily and erratically. “How did I get here?”
“Father brought you,” Kala explains. “He wants to speak with you, but he
doesn’t know if you’ll want to see him.”
“Bring him in.”
“It can wait,” Kala offers.
“I’m okay. Bring him in. Thanks, Kal.”
Father comes in after she leaves. He sits on the edge of Resi’s bed, and is
silent for a moment. He sighs. “I think it’s time I tell you the truth. It’s
gone too far.”
“What has gone too far?” Resi squirms, trying to find a more comfortable
position, but his muscles are achy.
“You are not actually my son,” Father begins. Just with those few words,
apparently that’s no longer the right thing to call him any more, though.
“You are not even Tamboran. When we first discovered that we were not in the
garden of heaven, a faction of us asked for advanced technology. The rest
stayed as they were.”
“Kartika already told me this. She didn’t mention you, though. Is
everyone an immortal?” Resi asks.
“No, but I’m sure she didn’t tell you everything. She couldn’t have. She
probably forgot. There’s a reason you can’t figure what the Assembly’s
motivations are. A little over 200 years ago, a plague swept the island. All
three nations were affected, but none worse than Tambora. To be fair, we had
a greater population, and of course, still do. That’s because a Bungulan
cloned themself a body that looked more like us, and infiltrated Yana. He
claimed to have discovered a plant that could cure the plague, and they were
right. Well, I mean, they just used science, but it did cure us. Most
islanders are immune now, but there was a problem. The immortal faction—our
fearful leaders—suffered permanent brain damage, and it is that damage that
persists, even when they jump to new bodies. The reality is that every
member of the Assembly is a little bit crazy. I was not one of them in the
beginning, but a few friends and I discovered their technology, and decided
to become like them. We have been trying to get ourselves elected to offices
ever since, and son, we have always failed. They know how to run a campaign.
They’ve been doing it for a long time, and they grease the right palms.”
“What does any of this have to do with me?” Resi questions. He’s still in so
much pain. He can’t even process his father’s words. He’s just listening to
them.
“When the Kokore called you to the First Tongue of Aether, she said that
there was one other in the past, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That was you. You are that Bungulan, Res. You saved our island, and in
doing so, doomed yourself. Since you were just as much of a clone as the
members of the Assembly, your brain continues to suffer its negative
effects. We put you on ice, so you could be studied. Don’t fret, you agreed.
You see, you went against the Bungulan authority to help us, so you could
never return to your normal life. So we couldn’t ask them to research the
problem on our behalf. Non-interference, and all that.”
“But you think you figured it out, so you moved me to this body, and raised
me as your child,” Resi guesses.
“Pretty much. The Assembly, I suppose, realized what we did, and concocted
this bizarre plan to turn you into a hero so you could be knocked down to a
villain. Don’t try to understand their reasoning, they have none. Some
Assembly members wanted you to create the Fifth House so you would take all
of the recruits and leave. They think the island can’t provide for our
blooming population, and they may be right about that. But there was
infighting. Some started to see you as a genuine threat, and came up with
demands that you literally couldn’t fulfill, because they were paradoxical.
Now-Speaker Keller put a stop to it. He’s one of us, not of
them. We finally got him elected when we realized that the only way
to beat them was to simply pretend to be one of the originals. He’s just
been lying, and it’s working, because as I said, they’re nuts.”
“But Keller is the one building the army.”
Father shakes his head. “Keller isn’t in charge of the military. He only has
so much power as Speaker. He has to pick his battles, but he doesn’t want
war.”
“So I’m a Bungulan, trapped in a Tamboran’s body, suffering from a plague,
which I contracted 200 years ago. How do my visions fit in?”
“You’re visions?” Father asks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My Kidjums. Kartica said that I was actually seeing the future.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Father clarifies. “You never told me,
and they certainly wouldn’t have either.”
“So it could still be true.” Resi finally forces himself to sit up. “If you
were born centuries ago, then you know that the myths are true, and our
ancestors were saved from Earth using time travel, which means that kind of
thing is real, and I could really be seeing the future.”
“I...can’t argue against that, but I’ve seen no proof of that. I wasn’t born
until after our people came here. Unlike Kartica, I never saw Earth.”
“Bungulans have technology that we don’t understand,” Resi reasons.
“Predicting the future might be as easy for them as forecasting the weather.
If Central Mountain is going to erupt, we wouldn’t have the technology to
detect that, but they could, and I could somehow be channeling that
knowledge.”
“Central Mountain? If anyone else were to tell me that it was about to
erupt, I wouldn’t believe them, but you’ve been nothing but kind to our
people since you showed up, so I will. The problem is, you’re sick. Our
scientists thought they fixed you by erasing your memory of your past, but
the plague has obviously caught up to you anyway. That’s why I’m fessing up
now.”
Resi sits all the way up now, and swings his legs over to hang off the edge.
“Then we need to find whatever plant,” he begins with airquotes, “I
used to stop it in the first place.”
“We don’t have any,” Father reveals. “I would have already given it to you.
The Assembly might have kept it, but Keller hasn’t located their
secrets.”
Resi nods. “Then we need to go in ourselves. Let’s stop trying to play the
sneaky game. Let’s just take the fight to them.”
