shiver (FEATURED) | ✓

o29

vance

"Do you think there are any left?"

"Any what left?"

"Survivors."

Oh.

I hardly know what to say to that. Do I believe that anyone made it out alive, apart from the few of us living in Tetrahmon? No. Not really. It makes no sense. The world outside is barren. There is no life left, except for the few coniferous trees that were not ripped out by the driving winds, the gales, the hailstorms. So I tell him, simply: "no."

"But..." I hesitate. Can I allow doubt and opposing or varying scenarios to divert me from the straight path that is that of Tetrahmon and Project Chrysalis? Can I allow it? I must, or else there will always be a risk that my conclusion is false. "But it is possible. The Project is without fault, Adamík, and therefore we must trust it."

Within my peripheral vision, I see him nod his agreement.

Neither of us takes their eyes off the landscape that is so magnificently presented to us. All of it, buried under snow and ice. All of it, to start anew.

It is better, this way.

The world before our time is gone; the earth is cleansed and purged of war, of disease, of famine, of poverty. To the council, it's a liberation.

For the remainder of the week, Adamík and I are tasked with the observation and the courses of the drones as they leave Tetrahmon. There are fifteen that leave every other hour. We set the course of each individual object, tasked with supplying whatever survivors that may be left with information from Tetrahmon. More specifically, we are in charge of the expansion of Project Chrysalis.

This is what will make the world a better place.

Often, my thoughts turn to Bernard. Evanna. The other person with them. They are so, so young. Too young to die, that's for sure. Perhaps Malcolm will let me save them. Bernard, however... no amount of mercy will protect him. I wonder just how expansive the Red Hand is, just how many people it has poisoned with its illogical ideals. How many people will die because of it?

The executions will be so numerous that they'll no longer be in public. Even a people as good as our true citizens are still human. A 'mass-murder' of people that look just like them could stir up something bigger.

Despite the danger the Red Hand poses to us, I don't lift a finger against it.

Adamík is by my side nearly every hour of light: my opportunity to tell him what I know presents itself an endless number of times; over coffee at the drone station, an interruption in our discussion of latitudes and longitudes, a red pin amongst the endless grey ones on the map that gives name and territory to the Project's success.

We send drones over the endless, frozen world that has become akin in shape to... Pangea, was it? Anyways, it stands as such: no more continents, no more superpowers, no more nationalities. Only beautiful conformity.

Just unity, pure and simplistic.

▿

Jonathan comes to visit us, from time-to-time. I've considered discussing my illness with him, but he won't understand. I can't go crying to him for help anymore, now that I'm an adult. Although he always leaves us with critique and some sort of sharp remark, Adamík never utters a word of complaint. He really is somewhat of an inspiration. His collectivity is admirable.

"You know, the third stage is beginning," Adamík tells me, one morning.

"Are they doing something to the citizens again?" I ask, drawing my finger across the map, and marking a cross on a point where the drones haven't been sent yet.

"Mhmm."

I roll my eyes. "Do you at least know what it is?" I turn my head briefly to smile at him.

"I think it's some mandatory screening. To test which ones went positive or negative with the serum."

It suddenly strikes me as to how little we really know about the Project. As to how little I know. I'm not even sure what the chemistry behind the serum is. "Do you know what happens based off the test results?"

Adamík shrugs. "I don't know. I suppose we'll have to find out."

This is the first time we have spoken this much since NW-60's death.

I can feel Adamík's eyes boring into me from the other side o the small room. "The girl. That you mentioned, at some points surrounding NW-60's death. Why is she so important to you?"

I run a hand through my hair, let it slip down to rest in the curve of my nape, allow myself to see Evanna again, what she's done, what she is... And the file on her. "She's not a girl. She's a monster, and she needs to be eliminated."

And yet, one part of me is asking myself whether I really believe that or not.

"Why do you say that?" He asks, clearly somewhat shocked.

"I have my reasons. But do not tell anyone about her, do you understand, Adamík? I have faith in you, I trust you- but please. Malcolm and the rest deny her existence: there is no way in which we can prove them wrong and no way in which we can tell whether they are playing a trick on us. So please. Just keep quiet about it."

Adamík has no trouble in stowing my worry away. "Of course," he says. "Is there anything else you know but you'd like to tell me?"

I know I can trust him, and yet why is it so hard for the words to find their way to my lips? Could it be the time, now, that I tell him all? Could it be now that I spill the Red Hand's name out, Evanna's, Bernard's?

I shake my head, offering him a small smile. "No. There is nothing more to say."

I turn back to my plotting of coordinates, this little job, where I mark crosses down on words, but I know that deep down, somewhere, someone is raising the old flag of revolution.