The world remains, p.35
The World Remains, page 35
“But Camilla and my dad and Cal . . .”
“For the sake of social justice, Seriah. To the rest, you’ll be seen as the woman that freed the falsely imprisoned.”
Seriah sniffled.
“Just sit and be still and watch,” Olté coaxed. “It’ll all be over soon. And then things will change. We’ll pick a new side.” His words were a soothing whisper. Believable. Comforting. His deceit at its peak.
Reluctantly, Seriah turned her device to Station Eight.
The biggest impact was about to hit Deca City.
The Sunder Hound commercial was on.
“Feet. Ears. Teeth. Arms. Cover up unsightly scars! Anything lost can be re-found! So call your nearest Sunder Hound! Ba-duuuum!”
A few seconds of crowding around Seriah’s disc was enough to tell that it was showing a miniature version of the programs from the massive outdoor screens. When the jingle finished, a woman appeared in the picture, looking very personable framed by a fake scene of a glittering lake. I’d seen her before. It was the woman that looked like Seriah but wasn’t Seriah.
“Programming today is brought to you by the Historical Society.” Seriah’s sister, Camilla, smiled at the camera sweetly. “Don’t forget to download your ‘36 calendar, featuring real-life candids of Hamlets Espane, Scandria Three, Atlantica, and more!”
Olté’s jaw tweaked.
Camilla continued, “And now it’s time for the climate with Meteorologist Jeru Crosswith! Jeru? How’s our weekend going to be? Should we unpack our gust goggles?”
The camera cut to an oily man with a gleaming white smile. “Thank you, Historian Camilla. Boy, you’re getting better at this by the day. Maybe we’ll be able to convince you to stay permanently? No?” He guffawed. “Well, we’ve still got a few more days to convince you.”
Someone from beyond the picture’s frame seemed to be prodding him along.
“Hm? Boy oh boy, this weekend indeed is going to be a windy one! You called that one, Miss Camilla. With a westward push off the coast, we can expect wind speeds of . . . of . . .”
But the smiling man was distracted by something behind the camera. His face fell for but a moment before he recovered with a cough and pearly smile. “Apologies, I fear the autumn winds are getting to me. As I was saying, the winds are . . . the winds are going to . . . ”
But again he was distracted by something in the near distance. He said something under his breath to a person out of view. Then he nodded as though listening a few times before bringing his focus back to the viewers.
“Uh, not sure how to put this, folks.” The meteorologist laughed flakily. “But it looks like an interesting turn of events for us here at Station Eight. It seems a young man claiming to be a Purité has just invaded the newsroom. You heard me right; I said a real life Purité had invaded the newsroom. But is this just another maneuver by the Sheralton Campaign for Purité rights? Stay tuned for the breaking story right after these messages.”
The screen cut to an advertisement for tattoo alteration.
“This is . . .” I was piecing things together. “This is also on the big screens out there?”
Olté nodded.
Oh. My. God. Kinamo was going to appear on the screens?! That was their plan?! “He’s going to go on there and tell everyone that he’s a Purité?! SERIOUSLY?!”
Seriah let out a sick sounding sob and dissolved into her chair.
“But –! They won’t believe him!” I said. “He doesn’t look like a Purité right now, and they’ll think he’s just a loony person!”
“It doesn’t matter if they believe him or not,” said Olté. “It makes for a scandalous story, so they’ll run with it.”
But at that moment, something went wrong with the disc. The commercial cut away mid-sentence and went black. Whatever it was, it was good news to Seriah. Perking up, she solidified into a shape recognizable as a person. “Oh! Oh goodie! Camilla’s intercepted it!” She giggled like someone who’d just been pulled from the edge of a crumbling cliff. “Camilla’s putting a stop to –” The screen blinked and sounded off a shrill, annoying note, before going black once more. Seriah continued to rejoice, for it was a sign that Camilla was still exerting influence.
But the joy was short lived. It lasted only until the screen flashed to a heavily-makeuped woman with a slicked hairdo.
“Station Eight’s Carissa Jessings here, with a breaking report. I’m standing inside of the Sector Six Broadcast Center where a young man with a compelling story has managed to break through the elevation systems framework, all for the sake of sharing his story with the world. The young man claims to be a Purité escaped from Hamlet Scandria Two with the aid of – get this – a few rogue Historians. Wasn’t aware such a thing existed. So just how does he say they accomplished this feat? Watch to find out.” The video frame widened to include Kinamo. He was standing next to the newscaster wearing an unsettling expression of ‘woe-is-me’.
They’d never believe him. He’d fall into his weird speech pattern, and they’d write him off as a person craving attention or someone mentally unstable.
“My name is Kinamo,” he said, looking directly into the screen’s center. “I don’t have a second name like you people do. I am Kinamo, and I have been called by the Maker to deliver the truth to you, the true Remnants.”
And then, as Seriah, Olté, and I watched, he told them everything.
Well, not quite everything.
He left out Seriah’s name. He left out my affair with Olté. He left out the fact that the Historians had committed unlawful death. But the rest? He told them the rest. Composed and even, he told the whole thing – more eloquently than I’d ever heard him speak. As if another person’s tongue were composing his words.
“Our Hamlet suffers the same illness that has traveled through the Desolics and Histo is doing nothing to stop it. They are letting our people die. If you don’t believe me, fetch the other two Purités currently taking asylum in the clinic of this building. One of them has the disorder, and she pledged full cooperation. I implore you to put a stop to the actions of Histo. I implore you to do something before it’s too late. Please. For the sake of my family. For the sake of our people’s future, let us go.” Kinamo stopped there. But though he stopped, he did not lift his gaze of earnestness.
The newscaster was blotting her eyes with a tissue. A move to spice up the story? Either way, it made Kinamo look good. It made him look like a victim.
“Not sure if you’re getting this, Kevvin,” said the newscaster, “but can we zoom in on his eyes? Notice that they are an unflecked blue, almost impossible to replicate. And his dialect is spot on, too. If I were a betting woman . . .”
Seriah rubbed her temples.
“Well, there you have it, folks,” said the newscaster. “Elaborate hoax by the Sheralton Campaign? Or true Purité escaped from the Hamlets? Log on to our drive site to take the poll and tell us what you think. And don’t forget to stay tuned to Station Eight, your only coverage of the ongoing investigation.”
Epilogue: Scattered Seeds
The screen in the corner of the room was playing: “The three Purités have been identified as residents of Scandria Two. Based on a discus drive provided by the unnamed Historian offering assistance, we can confirm new information on Histo’s falsification of their census records. Sources say that there may be as little as ten percent of the Hamlets still in healthy existence. The Purités were taken into custody by the Sheralton Campaign for Purité Rights last week where they'll be able to look forward to a brighter future. The question remains as to why . . .”
I couldn’t listen to any more of it. “Shhh,” I told the thing.
Because he knew how to operate it, Olté switched the screen off and then joined me on the side of the plushy gold bed – accommodations courtesy of the Sheralton Campaign. “It’ll get better, Ash,” he said. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll run from here, too. It’s the first week of a long, long time.”
“A bright future? Did you hear that? Unbelievable!” It was a lie. A sickeningly sweet lie.
The future isn’t so bright.
“In their own way they’re trying to help,” said Olté. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Psh! Of course I know that, okay? But . . . Ugh! I don’t understand what they’re thinking! That Sheralton woman says that once the lawsuit goes through, their goal is to ‘integrate’ the Purités into society! How stupid can she be?!” I was bursting inside my flesh. I was ready to pour it out onto the floor.
Olté was on cleanup. “Cool it, spazoid. That’s a good thing, right?”
“But you’ve seen the way they’ve been with us. Everywhere we go, there are masses of them trying to touch the hem of a ‘Purité’s robe’. Trying to catch a bit of us to take along. How can we coexist with people like them? How can people as different as we fit in with a world so far detached?!”
All I’d wanted was to find a cure for Sella. But now the rest of them were going to be thrown into a world they weren’t ready for. Only a few weeks of this madness had been enough to convince me:
Whatever the right path was, it wasn’t this.
“What are we going to do, Olté!? We can’t let them be released into the wild! They’ll get eaten alive!”
Olté was quiet. “What did you expect to happen, Ash?”
“I don’t know.” I slumped, defeated. “But it wasn’t this. We should have let things stay the way they were. We were foolish to think that we could pull the pin holding such a delicate system in place. To think it would not all come crashing was a foolish notion.”
The most childish notion of all.
I once thought that Olté and Sella were all that mattered. How wrong I was. How blinded I was. How close-minded I was. The world is much too big to close my heart off to so many. Dole and Lale and Mae and Terra and Croix and Seriah and Bennet and Viley.
And it’s my fault and Olté’s that things turned out this way.
Olté cupped my face in his palms. “Don’t worry, Ashy.” He kissed my forehead, like he had when we were kids. “I told you before. It’s the first week of a long, long time, and I don’t intend to stop here.”
I have no choice but to make amends. Before I die, I’ll make amends.
Thanks for Reading The World Remains!
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If you enjoyed the style of this book, you may also enjoy Seconds: The Shared Soul Chronicles or Zillow Stone, also by Brindi Quinn!
More Info
About the Author:
The World Remains was MN author Brindi Quinn’s seventh published work.
Shortly after finishing college in 2010, Brindi began her mad dash into authordom. The Heart of Farellah Trilogy was first to hit shelves in 2011, and she hasn’t stopped since. In addition to her debut trilogy, Brindi’s publications include: Seconds: The Shared Soul Chronicles, a third person sci-fi romance; Sil in a Dark World: A Paranormal Love-Hate Story; Atto’s Tale, the miniseries spinoff to Heart of Farellah; The Eternity Duet, a two-part fantasy romance; The Death and Romancing of Marley Craw, a sexy postmortem tale; and The Ongoing Pursuit of Zillow Stone, a post-apocalyptic series.
Brindi considers herself a nerd, indulging heavily (when she can) in video games, anime, manga, horror flicks and good sci-fi TV. Brindi recently set off on a grand adventure. After spending a time near the northern coast of California, she’s currently tucked away in a cozy hobbit hole near Seattle.
Follow Brindi on Twitter:
@Brindiful
AND connect with her on Facebook:
Facebook.com/Brindiful
About the Cover Artist:
Ben Clemann is an amateur artist from Minnesota; and though his degree is in Youth Developmental Studies rather than Visual Arts, he has still been drawing since before he could pronounce the letter "r". Among his studies in youth culture and pop artistry, he also enjoys other pursuits of many things of academic and artistic nature, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology, and a wide array of arts visual, musical, literary, and martial. A true "Jack of All Trades" . . . and master of none.
You can view other artwork of his at:
www.otakumako.deviantart.com
Brindi Quinn, The World Remains
