Taka cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“Guilty.”
Addison’s head whipped up. A murmur went through the levellers. On the stand, Taka was gazing down not in defiance, but with something closer to serenity.
“Mr. Everett,” Judge One said. “Care to repeat that?”
“Guilty,” Taka said, more firmly this time.
“To be clear, you plead guilty to…?”
“To the charges. Complicity, overconsumption, overtravel, inaction: all of it. Yes, I killed the planet.”
Addison was on his feet. Nobody had pleaded guilty in all his time in the institute. He’d become so numb the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. And yet here was Taka, upending weeks of convention. Addison was seized by the sudden notion that if the plea were different, maybe the punishment would be too. Perhaps this was the trick, the secret way out hidden in plain sight all along. Maybe pleading guilty was how you avoided execution. Maybe Taka was going to live...
Addison’s optimism lasted all of four seconds.
“Then you are found guilty,” Judge One said, bringing down his gavel. “We thank you for your honesty and your efficiency. The sentence for your crimes is death.”
Taka didn’t even flinch.
“I just have one thing to say,” he said, voice wavering only slightly. “If I may?”
The judge paused, then gestured at the court. “Please…”
Taka cleared his throat again.
“I’ve been reading about the past,” he began, as Addison looked on helplessly. “On that tablet of yours. Everything that happened, all that death.”
With every word Taka seemed to find new strength, his voice growing louder and more confident.
“We all knew what was going on,” he continued. “Back in my time, we all knew. The things I’m accused of weren’t crimes then, but that’s the excuse people always use after the fact to justify war, destruction, oppression. Times were different, it’s just the way things were, people didn’t know better. Except we did know better. I knew better. And I did nothing.”
Taka waved a hand at the courtroom and the assembled levellers. “So if this place is where I atone, then so be it.”
You can’t, Addison mouthed.
“The way I look at it,” Taka said, smiling calmly. “Yesterday I was dead and tomorrow I’ll be dead again. This time was stolen to begin with, so what’s the difference? It boils down to this: I didn’t do enough when I could have done more.”
His eyes locked on Addison’s.
“We could have done more.”
The defendant fell silent, but there was a roaring in Addison’s ears so loud it seemed the entire court was shaking.
“Let’s get on with it,” Taka said, returning to parade rest.
The Judge stood, the first time he’d done so for any returnee.
“Taka Everett,” he called. “I am impressed by your candour, but your sentence remains the same. Your death will be swift, but it will not be painless. And the method of that death will be in line with the manner of your crimes.”
“Wait…!” Addison shouted, leaping to his feet.
But it was too late, the mantis drone was already streaking through the air, a black-red blur of death. Please let it be different, Addison thought, knuckles gripping his stand, please let it mean something, some small mercy…
But it was the same as ever. Taka died screaming. And when it was over, Addison still had to fetch his mop.
* * *
After Taka, Addison stopped feeling things entirely. He stopped flinching during executions, stopped worrying about lying to the returnees, stopped seeing them as even remotely human. During his sessions he was on autopilot, the lies coming easier each time: a hug here, a joke there, shepherding his unsuspecting lambs to the ritual slaughter.
But as time went on, Taka’s words ate at him.
We could have done more.
Addison turned the phrase over and over in his mind. More. The word was a judgement, a damning verdict worse than anything the levellers handed down. Taka had looked into his soul, measured the contents and found him wanting. Because it was true: Addison had done nothing. In fact, he’d done worse, he’d actively helped the levellers. He was complicit, a collaborator.
In a final twist, Addison’s mental acrobatics stopped working. No longer could he justify his actions by insisting the defendants were just clones – using their dubious humanity to excuse the lack of his – because he just didn’t believe it. Taka hadn’t been ‘just a clone,’ so neither were they. They were people and he was helping kill them. And that made him a monster.
And yet...
More.
The word expanded in Addison’s mind, unfurling like a flower greeting the sun. As the petals peeled away, he saw the different levels, all its hidden meanings. First and foremost it was an accusation, the same accusation made by the levellers: that Addison could have done more in his old life, where he’d stood for nothing and stood up for no-one. But it was also a lamentation: we could have done more. Taka was speaking to him directly, mourning the loss of time they would never share. And finally, most importantly, it was an invitation: to do more, to be more.
It was truly elegant, Taka’s three-fold message, but Addison knew the last part mattered most. From beyond his second grave, Taka was pleading with him to make his actions mean something, to do something important.
And then, with a blinding clarity Addison saw what had to be done. There would be pain, unimaginable suffering, but he had to try. He had to do something.
He had to do more.
* * *
Addison stole out of his cellsuite in the dead of the night. The pyramid was the darkest he’d ever seen it, the grey-white light all but extinguished. Even his artificially-generated overlay was muted, the sleeping jungle still and silent, but he knew the way.
He snaked down ramp after ramp, descending the criss-crossing balconies until he was in the lower levels. The light was different down here, ebbing and receding eerily. In the vision chair Addison had seen oceans rise, drowning entire cities, and he wondered if that had once happened to the institute. Perhaps it had once been like an iceberg,
