One Heartbeat

This is my last entry on smart paper. Tomorrow, I will switch to the old-fashioned method of writing, complete with ink. I haven’t written like that since grade school. Maybe I won’t get as much ink on my fingers.

I know the store where I can find it. Aneti showed me. As far as this digital beauty goes … I can’t risk it. The handwritten text is searchable. I know people who can look into the data with a few quick keystrokes. I know someone who could even be reading as I write.

I missed a day. 3 Telenekhin of Poràkol. The day before—the last day of the second week—Aneti and I spent the evening at a holographic garden. For me, it was a splurge. I have indulged far too much my first few weeks in Galasu. Yesterday, we slept at my place and Nurannyi turned her music up so she couldn’t hear us through the wall. Likua tried to call me again and I almost answered, but we got … busy. Intense. And  I couldn’t have answered anyway with Aneti in the room. After a while, I just ignored the screaming messages. But that doesn’t … that doesn’t explain why I missed yesterday.

Likua caught me yesterday evening in my room. He hacked my communication band so his call went through automatically. I had been watching the news for the first time, lying on my stomach in front of a bowl of fruit. When the screen changed to his room, a wave of panic went over me and I scrambled to a sitting position. The fruit tumbled onto the floor—an unlucky sign for an unlucky evening.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

At least he had the composure to be polite, because he looked anything but. I tried to escape from the anger and turn back to the news. He had taken complete control of the unit. “You’re not falling in love with the woman you intend to betray,” I said softly, hoping that he wouldn’t hear. He did.

“I’m sorry, Salus, but what you did is risky. I don’t want you to get hurt. You have no professional experience in this line of work. What if—”

“A bombing in Vepessa. Two assassination plots in Mena–”

“Two? Who said anything about two? There’s only one.”

“Last time we talked about it, you told me two. I can reference it right here.” That reference is an embellishment—I couldn’t have shown it to him then, but if you’re reading this, Likua, you can easily access the older entry. But he did say those things, and unless he changes it, it will always show that what I said was right.

He stared at me like a light-entranced animal. “No. There has never been more than one. I must have misspoken. I must have … maybe you don’t have the updated information. Maybe we thought there were two at one time, but there … there is definitely only one now.”

Connections popped into being almost spontaneously like Enahari spinning order out of the universe’s chaos. They hummed in my head and I felt powerful, intelligent—all of the confidence I had lost suddenly appeared at the same time. Likua and I were standing on by the falls again and this time, I turned away from him and ran into the arms of fate or the wind god. Enashisha wrapped around my arms and whispered secrets in my head. I … I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I can even write it, but I can copy the dialogue word for every gods-damned word.

I said, “Do you know Karatau Meiyenesi?”

Likua looked away from me and licked his lips. He paused there for exactly six seconds before he moved towards the computer. The search lasted almost forty seconds. “Records show that he lives in Galasu and is the only man with his surname. A recent article—”

“You know him a bit better than that, don’t you, Likua?”

“I’m trying to keep you out of this as much as possible, Salus.”

“It’s a bit too late for that.” I cleared my throat. “And … I will do this alone if you don’t give me a worthwhile answer. It would at least help me know that my emotional sadomasochism is justified.”

“Salus, I …” Likua leaned his head against the computer. His breath clouded against the monitor. “I can’t say anything. I really wish I could, but … I can’t tell you why. All I can give you is smoke.”

My voice sounds stern when I replay the conversation. Perhaps he looks more nervous than confrontational, as I interpreted his body language at the time, and perhaps he really couldn’t speak. “I don’t have to work with you on this. I’m far enough in that I can do the rest myself. It’s just evidence we need, right? Just enough to take them down.”

“You can’t do that without us.”

“No, you can’t do that without me. Everything will be fine. I’ll figure out what’s happening and stop waiting around for the information to fall in my lap. Real life isn’t an opera.”

That’s where I hung up.