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Aerie looked out at the night sky projections from the top of her unit housing. She was still huddled up in the jacket she’d been given at the hospital. It was the only comfort she had that night.
She saw the projection of the moon on the underground sky of New Hope and instantly bristled.
That’s not what the moon looks like.
The memories inside of her from before her injury pounded themselves into her mind’s eye, even as the pain accompanied it. There was a picture of the moon, so bright and full of light, with its pockmarked face calling out in perpetual delight.
Or maybe agony, now that she thought of it.
Another memory came to the surface; this one was easier to recall. It was from several weeks ago, not long after the mid-quarter break.
The moon was there, in her mind, only much smaller, though somehow brighter. She was watching it from the top of her tree, the Memory Tree, after she’d sneaked away from one of her class trips to journey to the city’s surface.
“Moona,” she murmured, and she suddenly wondered what had become of her kitten. Was she still up there, curling up in the branches of the Memory Tree?
She sighed as the pain in her head once more increased, and the hole in her heart seemed more pronounced than ever.
“Hey.”
Aerie glanced over to see Brock come up onto the roof beside her. “Hey,” she murmured. She was not up for another attempt at conversation. All throughout dinner, it had been hard enough to smile through all the snips and jokes at her expense from her siblings, and Serena’s relentless flirting with Brock was no better.
Even when the General came and stepped in, Aerie somehow felt more awful. Claire’s earlier comments about people needing to protect her stirred continuously inside her mind.
“Are you okay?” Brock asked. “I was just talking to the General, and I noticed you were gone. He said you might be out here.”
“I’m okay,” Aerie said. She shrugged her shoulders. “Just another headache.”
“Oh.” He scooted closer to her. “I’m sorry.”
Aerie was surprised. “No one in the URS apologizes.”
He grinned. “Well, sometimes you have to,” he said. “It’s just not generally a good thing. In this case, though, I am genuinely sorry you’re not feeling well.”
“Thanks.” Aerie patted his hand.
“Are you cold?” Brock asked. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Here, let me help you warm up.”
“No,” Aerie said, drawing back from him.
“What’s wrong? Are you afraid of me?” Brock asked. His tone was hard, and Aerie knew he was struggling not to let his emotions get the better of him.
“No,” Aerie replied. “I’m not.”
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked. “Before we graduated, you were always willing to talk to me. Ever since I got accepted into the military and you didn’t, I feel like there’s this barrier between us. I mean, I know you’re probably jealous, but I still want you to come with me to the Military Academy Ball.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Aerie grumbled. “I’m angry at you.”
“What?” He was clearly upset. “Why are you mad at me? I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not my fault that I got into the military and you didn’t. I told you that it would’ve been better if you’d just followed instructions and did the report you were assigned.”
Aerie felt her mind slosh around inside as she tried to keep up with his pace. There were so many things she wanted to address about how wrong he was.
“Okay, first, let me start with this. I just want to be left alone for a little while, okay?” Aerie said. “Since I’ve been back, everything seems to move so slowly, and so quickly. I mean, I forgot it was my birthday!”
“You’re angry at me for wanting to spend time with you?” Brock asked.
“You’re just too persistent about it,” Aerie told him. She sighed. He’d always been her friend. Before her injury, she knew she’d liked him. It was just ... now, she didn’t know what, but she just knew something about her life was missing. Something more than just two or three weeks.
She hugged herself into the jacket, and, swamped by the scent of it, she also knew something wasn’t just missing. Something was wrong—seriously and sinisterly wrong.
“Okay,” Brock said. “I’ll try to give you some more space.”
“Thank you,” Aerie muttered.
“I hope you feel better soon,” he said. “If there’s something I can do to help, please let me know, alright?”
“Alright,” she said. Aerie fully expected him to leave at that, so she was surprised when he just relaxed and looked up at the fake moon with her.
A few moments passed between them in silence, and Aerie allowed herself to relax a little bit, too.
She tensed up immediately when Brock began to talk again.
“You know, I’m glad you told me that I’ve been too pushy lately,” Brock said. He gave her a sheepish smile, which, on him, looked distinctively out of character. “I was sort of going to ask you if you wanted to start seeing each other more.”
She frowned at him.
“I guess that’s a bad idea,” he said, immediately retreating back into silence.
“We already do spend time together,” Aerie told him.
“I meant ... I meant in a different way.” Brock looked over at her. “I wanted to see if you would agree to apply for cohabitation.”
“With you?” Aerie’s cheeks flushed over. Cohabitation was usually the first major step in getting a private unit. Cohabiters could apply for a small apartment where they would live together for a contracted amount of time, and, at the end of it, if they wanted to continue the relationship, they could apply for a full union. From there, children—charges—were either planned or adopted in order to create a unit.
“Of course, with me.” Brock’s tone was more straggled as he said, “I’ve known you for a long time, and I think we would be good together. I know you’ve been injured lately and things feel a little strange, but they won’t always be like that.”
“Hopefully.”
Brock hesitated. “Well, I’ve been waiting to ask you for a long time. I know the General has high standards for who is interested in you.”
Aerie let that sink in as Brock waited. I wonder why the General doesn’t seem to have the same sense of responsibility when it comes to Serena and my brothers?
“I’ve never noticed it,” Aerie admitted. “He always seems to be ... not here.”
“He’s here now,” Brock pointed out. “Which is why I know our time is limited.”
Aerie grinned. “Did he really give you a time limit?”
“More or less.” He smiled back at her. “But he knows you’re a full citizen now. You can make your own decisions.”
“Not the important ones,” Aerie said, before she could stop herself.
Brock flinched, and she instantly regretted it.
“I didn’t mean you,” she amended quickly. “I just had another bad day at work. I’d love to transfer.”
“You can always reapply for the military next year,” he said. “Or you can go to university. I think you’d like that better.”
“You mean you would like it better if I went on to higher learning, don’t you?” Aerie teased.
“You’d be safer,” Brock said, giving her a sheepish grin. “Dictator Osgood has told me that MENACE is once more on the move. He’s been ordering more troops to attack some of the places where resistance camps have managed to get a foothold. They’ve been getting bolder lately.”
“That doesn’t sound good for you.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m stationed here, where they have all the latest advancements in flight tech and piloting available. They want to keep me here. I’m almost disappointed by it, to be honest.”
“You want to fight MENACE?”
“Of course. They are a disease on this earth,” Brock insisted, his tone edged with bitterness. “They’ve caused all sorts of problems for people, breaking up units and devastating those who are left behind. And did you know that they support religion? It’s disgusting. How could they support something that’s utterly harmful to the world? It’s only right that they get their due.”
Aerie was surprised by how personal his speech seemed to be. She had to wonder if MENACE had done something specific to Brock or his unit. He seemed too angry to simply want to defeat them for personal glory.
The more she thought about it, the more that theory made sense. She’d let him borrow the books with the General’s accounts in them. With the battle details and the analysis of MENACE as a tribal group, they were the perfect source to learn about the nation’s enemy.
She watched as he ran a hand through his short brown hair and grumbled, clearly struggling to get his thoughts back under control.
Time to change the subject, Aerie decided. “So, you think I would be good at university?”
“Absolutely,” Brock said, clearly relieved at the new direction of the conversation. “I know you aced your environmental education. I heard General Lowell talking about your final presentation the other day.”
“My final presentation?” Aerie was surprised to see she’d forgotten about that as well. She couldn’t remember the presentation itself, but she was able to remember the research.
That was how I found Moona, she recalled. The kitten had been aboveground, scrounging around for food, when Aerie found her. She smiled, thinking of her dirty face.
“Yeah, I think you really impressed them. Master Harrick even sealed the presentation. She said she would put it through to the university counsel for further study.”
“Really?” Aerie’s eyes lit up. “Maybe I should go back to school after all.”
“You would have access to a lot more resources,” Brock said.
“I’ll have to think about it some more.”
“Well, you would have to finish up your year of service in Comms Sec. And I would want to be finished up with my basic training before we did anything.”
“We?”
“Yeah,” Brock said. “To apply for our own unit.”
“Brock—” Aerie felt discomfort choke her once more.
“Come on, Aerie. I know you. I know you would be happy going back to school and working through the research sector. I can make you happy. Who else knows you so well?” Brock took her hand gently. “We could make a good unit.”
Aerie felt her body stiffen. “I don’t want a unit,” she said slowly. “I want a family.”
“It’s the same thing,” Brock said, after he swallowed his surprise.
“No, it’s not.” Aerie shook her head. “If it was the same, we could call it ‘family,’ without fear.”
“Well, the term is limited.”
“I would argue the term ‘unit,’ is far more limited.” She glanced down at Brock. He was afraid, she realized. He didn’t want the URS to change. He was well on his way to a good position within the system, and he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that.
On some level, she felt sorry for him. On the upside, she knew how to handle this discussion now.
“Something is wrong here, Brock,” she said. “As my comrade, as my friend, I am telling you something is wrong.” She pulled her hand out of his and pressed it to her forehead.
“You’re just a little confused,” Brock said. “Getting a concussion and going into a coma for a few weeks can have that effect.”
“It’s more than that, Brock.” She was just about to tell some of what she’d found earlier when he continued.
“I know you’re not feeling at your best, but we have always been close. You can move in with me and maybe that will help you move on from what happened.”
Aerie was suddenly very tired of their conversation.
“Move on?” She shook her head. “I don’t want to move on. I want to go back, if anything!”
“Go back to where?” Brock asked, his exasperation creeping into his tone. “The hospital?”
“Don’t you think living here is just weird, Brock? Like something is missing? That there’s something greater out there and we just can’t see it or say it or ask about it for some reason?”
“No.” His answer was as quick as it was blunt.
“Well, you’re lucky then,” Aerie said, disappointed. “I look around and see how there are so few people who seem present. They have a job to do.”
“We need to have a job to do, to survive. And it’s our orders.”
“Anyone can follow orders,” Aerie argued. “Don’t you see? Jobs are supposed to be secondary. Caring for others is supposed to be primary. Or at least, don’t you think so?”
“Well, I would care for you if you let me,” Brock said. “I did care for you. I visited you in the hospital, remember?”
“Do you love me?” Aerie asked, as she was suddenly caught off guard.
He blushed. “Love is a barbaric response to emotion stimuli,” he said, which only made her head ache more. “But I will take care of you. I’ll help you do your best for the state, so we can ensure survival.”
“Survival. Ha.” Aerie stood up and stepped away. “What’s the point of living if you’re just going to survive?”
“Once you’re dead, you don’t matter.”
“Only if my life doesn’t matter,” Aerie argued back, surprised at herself. Do I really think these things?
“I know you’re still not completely well,” Brock said, his voice hardened, “but you’re starting to sound like a defector.”
“Well, maybe I am one,” she whispered. There was a small thrill about openly saying it.
“What would the General say about that?”
Aerie thought about it. Now that she knew she had been lied to about her injuries, the General’s concern was reframed in her mind. Rather than seeing it as a concerned father looking in on his daughter, Aerie now saw it more like a warden checking in on his prisoner. “He’d probably agree. I’m treated like a defector, and by my own father, too.”
“General St. Cloud is concerned for your health. Which
he should be, if these are the thoughts you’re thinking.”
“What happens to defectors?” Aerie asked, suddenly intrigued at the thought. “You’re in the military now. Tell me.”
“Reeducation and reassignment,” Brock said, clearly frustrated by the change in subject as well as the turn of the conversation. “There are not a lot of people who fail reeducation.”
“What happens to them?” Aerie asked, thinking of the Reeducation Center. It was located near the med center, and for all the time she had been living in New Hope, she had only ever seen a few people go in and out.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Brock said. “It’s classified, and it can vary depending on the subject in question.”
“I wonder if I can find out,” Aerie said, more to herself than to Brock.
“I don’t know why you care so much.”
“Come on, Brock,” Aerie said. “Don’t you want to do something greater than just survive?”
“Well, I just spent the evening trying to, but you don’t want to accept my offer,” he shot back, making her flinch.
He got up and brushed past her, heading for the door. “I have to go now. If you really believe something is wrong here, Aerie, I can’t help you. If anything, I believe that if something is wrong, it’s only because you’re making it that way.”
He turned and gave her a salute, properly, and then momentarily faltered. “Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “I brought a gift for you. I thought it might help you remember some.”
He pushed the small item into Aerie’s hand and then walked away.
Aerie looked down the crisp envelope in her hand. While she was still upset about Brock, she couldn’t blame him for leaving.
I guess I wasn’t being very nice, Aerie thought, suddenly regretting how much strain she was putting on Brock. After all, she didn’t know for sure if he had lied to her. It didn’t seem like he knew the truth about her injuries.
And if he really did care about her, it couldn’t have been easy for him to hear her disparage the URS. He had always been good about following the rules and living up to the expectations placed on him. That was part of the reason she had been comfortable liking him in the beginning.
She glanced down at the envelope in her hand. Curious, she peeled it open and pulled out the small item inside.
It was a photo slide of her, with Brock and some of their peers from graduation. Aerie glanced at her face in the photo and sighed. She didn’t have to recall the pain of all the pins in her hair to know she’d been uncomfortable at the ceremony.
Her eyes moved over to Brock, and she was surprised to see a gentle look on his face as he looked at her. Another stab of guilt went through her. She resolved to apologize to Brock in the morning as she tucked the slide into her jacket pocket.
“Aeris.”
Aerie jolted as the General appeared in the door. “Yes, sir?”
“It’s late. You’d better go inside. I heard from Director Anand today. You have an early start at work tomorrow.”
Aerie nodded, trying to hide her anger. She didn’t know enough to confront her father over the issue of his lies, and with the long day at work, the disappointing dinner, and her string of headaches, all she wanted to do was go to bed. “I’ll be down soon,” she promised, keeping her voice level.
“Good.” He paused for a moment. “Did Brock ask you anything important?”
Aerie dug her hands into her pockets and looked away.
“You did respond, did you?” The vexation in his voice was unmistakable. “When he asked you to cohabitate?”
“No,” Aerie said. “I ... I need time to think about it.”
“It would be good for you to say yes.”
“Why?” Aerie snapped. “So I can leave you and this unit forever? So you’ll never have to worry about me again?”
“I’ll always worry about you,” the General said, surprising her. “But Brock is a good man, and a good solider. He can protect you. He’s well-liked by the board of generals, and even Dictator Osgood has spoken well of him.”
“Good to know.” Aerie scowled.
He crossed his arms. “I know that’s not what you want, but he would be good for you.”
She was tempted to ask if he’d handpicked Brock himself, considering how Brock mentioned the General had requirements. “And it would be good for you, as well, if I said yes?” Aerie asked. “I’d hate to make you look bad before the Dictator.”
“You’ve already made yourself look bad,” the General told her, his voice impatient and brusque. “You’ve been injured in a very routine way. You’ve been unable to focus on your work. From the reports I’ve read, I know you’re not taking all the doctor’s advice. Believe me, you’ve done plenty to disappoint your leaders. Entering into a cohabitation agreement with Brock Rearden would be a step in the right direction.”
Aerie felt her shoulders slump just slightly at her father’s words. But she also felt resolve harden inside of her.
“You just don’t understand, Aerie,” he said with a sigh, before he turned and headed back down the stairs. The General paused for a moment, before he glanced back at her. “I would worry less for you and more for the man you marry, should you accept an offer.”
For a moment, Aerie almost believed he was kidding with her. Before she could say anything else, he turned and left her alone. Again.
Aerie felt another twinge of pain as she pulled her jacket around herself more tightly. The comfort it had given her earlier betrayed her, making her long for something she couldn’t name and a place she couldn’t remember.