Exactly what Addison wanted to hear.
“This interpreter,” he said, fidgeting with the metal device on his neck. “Is there any way to show the other returnees what it shows me? The jungle I mean, not the translation stuff, just all the greenery.”
“I see,” Five replied. “For what purpose?”
“There was a woman, a returnee, Mansi. She talked a lot about the natural world. It helped people, so I thought if they could physically see things it’d help even more.”
The leveller regarded him a moment.
“So you are saying this is for reasons of efficiency?”
“Well, more for––”
“To make returnees more compliant during trials?”
Five was looking at him intently, eyebrows raised, and Addison finally picked up the message.
“For efficiency,” he said, nodding quickly. “Absolutely.”
“Then leave it with me,” Five smiled.
That night, Addison struggled to keep his secret to himself. He really wanted to tell Taka, to impress his new friend with his clever idea, but he also wanted it to be a surprise. Taka had done so much, brought in so many wonderful ways of doing things, that it was high time for Addison to give something back. So when Five summoned him to the lower levels the following evening, he was almost vibrating with excitement.
And sure enough, the leveller had a gift.
“Use them only at night when we are in our chambers,” the leveller whispered, handing over a small box. “If she sees, Four will confiscate them on the spot. And likely set the paladin on me for giving them to you in the first place...”
Inside were a dozen pairs of glasses. At first they looked like run-of-the-mill Perspex safety goggles, but as Addison held them up he saw they were made of the same strange glass he’d seen in the levelling machinery. The material blurred out the edges, extending beyond the visual spectrum somehow. Trying to focus made his head hurt.
Five explained they were VR lenses, allowing wearers to see the same vista as Addison. It wouldn’t be the full experience, just sight and sound, but it would mean people without an interpreter could see the jungle. Of course, with his own device installed Addison couldn’t tell if they actually worked, so he needed a guinea pig.
“Oh my god, Addison!” Taka breathed, staring off his balcony. “This is incredible!”
“Mansi gave me the idea,” Addison replied, delighted with the result. “All her talk about the natural world.”
Taka’s eyes were shining.
“And you’ve just been seeing this the whole time?”
“And now you can too! And not just you, the returnees, everyone. There’s enough in the box for us all. I thought it could help, show people what Mansi talked about...”
“Help them?” Taka laughed. “Hell, this might cure them.”
This was going even better than Addison had hoped.
“You really like it?” he beamed.
“I love it,” Taka replied, grasping his hands. “I absolutely love it. And so will everyone else. Thank you, Addison. This is really something.”
From then on, they held every session “outside.” They were careful to make sure the levellers had locked themselves away for the evening, but for the most part they had the run of the place. Some nights they convened by steaming jungle pools, others up by the rainbow-streaked waterfall, and after the horrors of the vision chair the returnees seemed to delight in the softly-rustling calm of nature.
There was also something about the setting that made people more forthcoming, and the stories flowed more freely than ever. Addison even found himself playing the role of Mansi, retelling her story to new returnees as if it were his own. It was a liberty, but Addison didn’t think the old tree lady would mind. They were just keeping her story alive.
And then the most miraculous thing of all happened.
It wasn’t like Addison hadn’t thought about it – he’d been thinking about it from the moment he’d met Taka in the vision room – he’d just refused to give the idea oxygen. It was too delicate a thing, too frail, and he knew that merely considering the possibility would blow any chance of it happening away, his attention scorching any tiny saplings of hope into dust.
Taka however had other plans.
One night after a particularly draining group session he turned up at Addison’s cellsuite and never left. Just like that. No overthinking, no equivocating; he just presented himself as if it were the most natural thing in the world, like the two of them were inevitable. And in the face of such spirit, Addison was powerless. Taka was a force, blasting all his hesitance and uncertainty away. Any guilt he once felt – first about his complicity, then the gnawing idea that what he’d done forever excluded him from feeling happy – was blown to smithereens. Taka just laughed it all away.
They stole whatever moments they could. Before trials, after sessions, at dusk and before dawn; either in their cellsuites or out amongst the trees. And the more time they spent together, Addison felt himself changing. The vestigial remnants of shame and self-loathing from his old life melted away, the deep-buried scars he’d carried since adolescence healing over. Taka simply didn’t care, refused to accept it even mattered. To him, it was all ancient history. They were just two people at the end of the world making the best of a bad situation.
And to Addison, that was more than enough.
* * *
One morning, the levellers caught them in bed.
They had been dozing arm in arm, exhausted from the day’s work and kept up by pounding walls, when the cellsuite door hissed open without warning. Addison was awake instantly, leaping to his feet, steeling himself for punishment, but the levellers in the doorway – Two, Four and the drone – only stared through in bewilderment.
On the bed, Taka stirred gently.
“What?” Addison demanded, heart hammering as he covered himself. “What have we done?
“Explain yourself,” Four replied, her face a mask of confusion. “Explain this hostile response.”
Her hand moved toward her pistol
