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Behind all suffering is the belief that what is happening, should not be happening.
-Master Fjeld
***
Keralan lay back, cradled perfectly by her Una 2. Her eyes were closed; soft tones sounded from within it, politely interrupting her peacefully quiet bedroom at well-spaced intervals. She'd had the sensing bed since she was five years old, and it knew her better than a human being could ever hope to. The bed kept record of all her sleep patterns based on biofeedback, sensed movement, and sound. Over the years it had learned and orchestrated the collection of musical tones, vibrations, positioning, and lighting that would best sync with her natural internal rhythms to help her to slumber like the dead each night.
Keralan knew she would not be able to drift off to sleep no matter how comforted she was by her Una. The time was nearly hour 14, in the early afternoon. Her lesson would begin very shortly. She was not in the mood for learning, but she also didn't enjoy facing her uncle's disappointment when she failed at anything, especially promptness. He had always taught her that the measure of time differentiated humans from animals, and constantly criticized those who were late as if they were inferior beings. His rather negative perception of others had greatly encouraged a strong desire in her to prove that she was good enough, at least to him. It mattered to her what he thought, more than anyone else.
Her arm vibrated as it always did when a message or alert came through. She sighed forlornly and groaned as she pulled away from the warm fluffy embrace of her Una and sat up. She didn't bother looking down at her arm. She recognized the pattern of the vibration and knew it meant she had two minutes to get to her uncle's office. She stood up, taking a long breath.
As she stepped through the automatic door, she heard the Una say goodbye to her and wish her a wonderful afternoon. She shook her head and continued.
***
Henry stared down at her from the pulpit he always lectured her at. Keralan thought the shiny dark wood of the ancient relic of the past matched him well, for Henry was like a thing of the old days. He wore his hair long, pulled back at the nape of his neck with a smart black leather cuff. He always wore the same gray tunic, black pants, and a patterned gray sash at his waist. No one else dressed like that. His chestnut skin, dark hair, and brown eyes, however, were quite common.
His moderately aged face waited for her response. He'd been asking her about Stobruken Province to the far west. It was one of the principal manufacturers of building materials for homes and small business operations, as well as claiming a high standard of living. Keralan smiled to herself proudly. She had studied the province data thoroughly. There was little he could ask that she would not be able to have an answer to.
"Their weakness is that they cannot supply their own bonding medium, as Mulon Provence provides it," Keralan explained.
Henry's eyes raised just a little at her. This was all she needed to know that he was surprised at her knowledge and it warmed her within.
"Good," he said flatly, never betraying any hint of praise with the tone of his voice. "And why can't they make glue themselves?" he asked.
"Because..." Keralan faltered. For a moment, she'd forgotten the reason. She was glad when her mind kicked in and filled in the gaps. "Because," she continued, "their local resources for glue are scarce and even if they sourced the ingredients, it is far cheaper for them to get the finished product from Mulon."
Henry nodded, pleased, and moved onto the next subject.
Keralan listened to him lecture for twenty minutes about the effect of supply and demand on the smaller provinces. She'd heard it all before. The subject particularly bored her. It was obvious to her the precariousness of being one of the least powerful provinces, but that was not the case with theirs. Keralan could care less about things that did not concern her.
"Are you even listening?" Henry asked sternly.
Keralan had slumped her body to the right, resting her elbow on the desk in front of her, her head in her hand. Hearing his tone, she sat back up to attention.
"Yes, of course Uncle."
Henry peered down at her with a frown.
"Keralan," he began slowly, "you are already approaching your mid-twenties. You will have to take over Synpol someday. It is vital that you learn as much as you can about working with other provinces. It could mean the difference between life and..."
"Death," Keralan inserted quickly. "Yes, I know, Uncle. You've only told me this a thousand times. I already know all this."
He let out a long breath into the still room and nodded.
"This is true," he conceded, "but I won't be here forever to guide you. I simply want to be sure you are ready."
"Ready for what, Uncle? The end of the world?" Keralan retorted. She sometimes got very frustrated with his concern for her, but underneath it all she understood what he was doing. It was simply a matter of being tired of hearing the same thing over and over.
Henry sighed.
"You don't know the future. Perhaps one day you will need to deal with hard things."
Keralan didn't want to think about such things, but she also didn't like the look on Henry's face. He was frustrated with her as well, which was something she could not tolerate.
"I know, uncle," she said softly. "I know. I will listen. I'm sorry."
Henry pursed his lips and nodded. He moved on to new subjects that had nothing to do with her future responsibilities at Synpol Corporation.
***
Keralan was in the middle of chatting with her friends through the full-size wall screen in her bedroom. She could see them in their own rooms almost as if the wall wasn't there at all but opened to two other rooms with a divider down the middle. They lived in the province of Miliri, where Keralan lived as well, but more than half the time they did not speak in person. Much of Keralan's time was spent at Synpol or in her lessons with Henry.
Ria had just discovered a new source for fine custom shoes and was showing them off when Keralan's arm vibrated.
She looked down at her forearm and the message that appeared across her tan skin there. It was from her father.
Come to my office.
"Ugh," she muttered. "Sorry, I have to go."
"But you didn't get to show us the new painting yet!" Letta complained.
"I know," Keralan said, "I'll message you in a few."
Keralan breathed out in a frustrated moan. She tapped at her arm, pulling up the control panel window, which shone with many different icons. She disabled the wall screen, instantly reverting it to the plain white it usually was and stood up. She sent a quick message back to her father as she made her way.
It was not unusual for her father to call her to his office. Rupert Bismar was the Head of the Synpol Corporation of Miliri Province. Keralan regularly helped him with data sorting and the management of Synpol's corporate operations. It wasn't one of the top corporations in Eurafrasia, but it was an important one. Her father and his team produced water filtration systems that the other provinces depended upon. In the highly polluted world they lived in, whether water was scarce or plentiful, all of it needed to be made pure. This kept them in good economic standing.
Keralan flitted into the office and found Henry standing beside Rupert. His tall thick muscular frame made her father look rather small and unassuming sitting at his grand mahogany table in his shiny brown leather armchair. Rupert was small for a man, and his dark hair was thinning at the crown of his head, barely screening his shiny scalp. Through tired aging eyes, he peered up at Keralan as she went to stand before them. She could sense that something was wrong. She waited patiently for one of then to speak.
"You have been summoned, my darling," Rupert said in a small soft voice. Then, when Keralan didn't respond, he clarified, "you are to be transferred."
Keralan didn't comprehend it at first. She laughed, thinking it was a joke. Her father could be a bit of a trickster at times. He liked to keep things light and fun when the mundane dragged them down. That was one of the things she appreciated most about him. However, she had never known Henry to participate in pranks. She looked back and forth between the two men. Her father did seem more serious than was usual. He cleared his throat and began to read out loud from the rectangle of glowing skin on his left forearm.
"This summons is for Keralan Renata Bismar, for employment transfer to the Giova Corporation, within the Shebai Province, year 2247, day 337, to be delivered promptly at the 18th hour."
Keralan was stunned. Transferred? She scrunched up her face in disbelief. It didn't make sense. She was the daughter of a Corporate Head. People in her circle didn't get transferred. Not without consent.
"But that's...ten days from now!" she declared. "They can't just make me go! I don't want to leave."
"Keralan," her father said, "this comes from Shebai. From Giova, no less."
Everyone knew the province of Shebai. It was one of the most prosperous places and one that most people would feel lucky to be transferred to. Giova was the top corporation in Shebai and all of Eurafrasia. Keralan was aware of the wealth and prestige. But she wasn't interested. She hadn't applied for employment or transfer. She was happy where she was.
Keralan stared across at her father. He cleared his throat louder this time and then said, "I am sorry, but you must go. And there is nothing that I can do about it."
With growing apprehension, Keralan studied her father's dismal face.
"What do you mean there is nothing you can do about it?" Keralan countered, shifting her weight and crossing her arms over her chest. She was used to her father being in charge. He was a rank two Corporate Head. The only person more powerful than he, in Miliri, was Lana Biedorf, rank one, who ran the Malatt Corporation. They managed the province as partners rather than as rivals. However, Miliri was only a midgrade province, so within the full scope of rank even Lana didn't have the authority to deny Giova their request. Keralan knew this, but it didn't make it any easier to accept.
"Can't you just tell Giova that I'm not available? I never asked to go to another corporation. Maybe it's some kind of mistake. Didn't you at least try to negotiate with them?"
Her father had no response. He looked down at his lap, toying with his fingers nervously.
Keralan turned her attention to Henry.
"Uncle," she implored, "this isn't really happening, is it?"
He peered at her sadly and then lowered his eyes as well. That was when it hit her. She knew that he, perhaps even more than her own father, would never allow anything bad to happen to her. But there he stood, passive and weak in the face of the kind of corporate bullying he himself had spoken so strongly against.
Keralan uncrossed her arms and made fits with her hands by her sides. She stood motionless, staring into space, as reality gradually sank in. She felt her whole body welling up with a new emotion; one that was so unusual for her that she didn't even recognize it right away. It rose from her belly, into her chest and her throat. Her upper body began to shake. The feeling grew and took her over.
She looked around in desperation, spying a vase of rare flowers sitting on a decorative table to her side. As if she were possessed by some unseen force, she reached for the vase. Before she could stop herself, she had hurled it far across the room over her father's head. She watched as it soared and finally connected with the fancy gray stone wall. The vase shattered in a sickening crash. Water slapped the wall. The flowers tumbled out while sparkling glass scattered across the floor.
Still shaking, breathing in uneven bursts, she felt the anger burn and twist inside her. Then, she witnessed the expression of absolute shock on the faces of the two men. Immediately ashamed of how she had behaved, a more familiar emotion consumed her and her eyes brimmed with tears.
Saying nothing, she fled the office as fast as possible, ignoring the Synpol employees she passed in the halls. She went as quickly as she could to the familiar white door that connected Synpol to her household. The door opened automatically for her, as always, reading the chip in her arm. As soon as she was through, she let go and allowed the tears to come. She ran through the living room, up the exquisitely carved wooden stairway, down the hall, and through a door on her left.
Keralan threw herself onto her Una and wept like a child. The luxury of her surroundings, the rich décor, the prized possessions; they all could have been turned to dust and Keralan wouldn't have cared. Everything had turned to dust already in her mind. She wondered how something so awful could happen to her. She was being robbed of her life. Things would never be the same again. Her life was over.
It didn't occur to Keralan that change could be a good thing. Like most people she clung to what was familiar, and at the time she had no choice but to go through the process of feeling her loss to its fullest depth. She was young and had no past experiences of change and life disruption to drawn upon. To her, it was a most terrible fate.
Out of anger and pure determined stubbornness, she refused to leave her room for three days. She barely ate and neglected her studies in protest. She blamed her father and Henry for not being able to help her, and so would not speak a word to them. But most of all, she cursed whoever it was at Giova that had sent the summons. She spent hours sending message after message to the employment office stating that she did not wish to be a part of their corporation. No one ever responded.
She was used to having access to a vast amount of information about the provinces and their Corporations, so she decided to do some research on Shebai. It became apparent quickly, however, that much of what she wanted to know was only available to residents. Even her most advanced searches on Giova gave her little idea of the kind of place she was going to. All she could gather was that Giova was very exclusive and private.
Finally, when Keralan had exhausted her short list of ideas to cancel her summons, and she was quite hungry, she came out of her room. Fortunately for her, none of the servants, employees, or even her father, said a single word to her about her transfer or her behavior. All that Henry said to her, before resuming her lessons, as if nothing had changed, was, "there is something that my mother always told me when I couldn't see my way forward. She said, 'even the mightiest storm shall pass', and they always have."