But therein lay the cruel, inescapable logic of circumstances. If it wasn’t to be Thibault, nor Hannah, then they would have to take on the drone themselves.
And there was only one candidate.
Addison had begged, pleaded with Taka for it to be him instead, but his arguments were swatted away. Taka was faster, fitter, stronger; and could move about the court while Addison was stuck in the interpreter’s stand. He might be able to get close, surprise the thing. He was the only option. They’d fought for hours, shouting until they exhausted first the argument then themselves, falling into a fitful sleep just before dawn.
Taka was right of course, Addison just didn’t want to face it. He couldn’t lose him, not again, but that just took him back to scenario one, where all his hopes rested on an old man being tried first. Did that make him a monster? Hoping for someone he didn’t know to die so someone he did could live? And after so many deaths would one more really matter?
“It won’t be Tak,” Addison whispered, speaking to the ceiling. “It won’t.”
Taka returned when Addison was in the shower. He was resting his head against the mistwall, trying to remember the name of the old poem about the world ending in whimpers, but had only got as far as the movie it was quoted in when there was a muffled thud in the cellsuite.
He hurried out to find Taka rushing around, upending drawers, tearing at the food dispenser and rifling through their clothes.
“What’s going on?” Addison frowned, still towelling off. “What’s happened?”
“They’re coming,” Taka hissed, rummaging frantically through a cabinet.
“They’re not due for an hour!”
“Well Two and Four are coming up the fucking ramp right now, drone too. Now where is... a-ha!”
Taka shouted triumphantly, plucking Five’s augmentation glasses from a drawer and stuffing them into his tunic pocket.
“Have they discovered us?” Addison asked, panic rising. “I knew we should have talked somewhere else, these rooms must be bugged. We should have––’
Taka darted over and took him by the arm.
“Ads, They can barely keep the lights on, let alone set up surveillance. If they knew, that drone would have turned up to fry us in the middle of the night.”
“You’re sure?” he said, chest heaving.
“Absolutely,” Taka replied, flashing a smile. “But you need to pull it together. We have one chance, we can’t screw it up. So are you good? Are you ready?”
Addison wanted to say something trite, something to deflect from his embarrassment at overreacting, but when he studied his feelings he found that, actually, he was ready. His panic wasn’t fear of discovery, but fear of failure, fear he’d been about to fail Hannah.
It was strange, Addison had only known the girl a day, but even in that short time she’d come to represent something. To him, she wasn’t just Hannah, she was every returnee he’d ever met. She was Mansi, Caroline, Jorge, even Ross: everyone who had passed through this dark place. Hannah was a symbol, a line in the sand, the point where things went from grey to simple black and white. Executing her was wrong and all that mattered was what he was going to do about it. Would he do nothing? Or would he do more?
“I’m ready,” Addison whispered. “Really, I am.”
Taka’s palm brushed his cheek.
“Ads,” he began, eyes glinting. “If it’s not him, if it’s––”
“No,” Addison said, firmly. “Just no.”
Taka winced and nodded.
“I just wish we’d had more time.”
Addison smiled, despite himself.
“A clever man once told me our time was stolen to begin with.”
Taka’s reply was interrupted by the door hissing open. Two and Four looked exhausted, grey faces pinched to the point of emaciation, and it was clear they had missed their dialysis cycle, but their expressions were grimly urgent. Behind them hovered the ever-present mantis drone, but something was wrong. It looked drunk, bobbing and weaving like a bumblebee. There were also scuff marks on its armour and parts missing from its outer shell. Taka had noticed too.
“Been in the wars?” he asked.
Addison saw the hidden message.
The drone was damaged, drained.
A window of opportunity.
“The paladin was instrumental in some critical repairs,” Four said, eyes narrowing. “It does not concern you. Now, are you prepared?”
“The returnees are resting,” Addison said, heart pounding. “We have an hour, so it’d be better if they–”
“No time,” she snapped. “We start now.”
Addison blinked.
“Now?”
“I will not repeat myself.”
“In which case,” he stammered, everything hinging on the answer to his next question. “May I ask which returnee is to be tried first?”
There was a pause, a gulf, an eternity.
“Both,” Two replied.
Addison froze.
“What?”
“Both,” Four repeated. “Dual trial. For efficiency.”
“That’s insane,” he said. “You can’t have a dual trial! There’s no such thing!”
“It is common leveller practice.”
“Is it fuck common practice!” he shouted. “If that were true, you’d have been doing it the whole––
Addison hadn’t even realised he had moved towards the woman, but the next thing he knew she had lunged forwards and seized him by the wrist. She twisted painfully and hauled him out onto the balcony.
“No time!” she screamed, throwing him to the floor.
“A dual trial is not a thing!” he shouted back.
The drone whipped forwards, weapons bristling.
“Have the returnees prepared!” Four yelled. “Or I shall execute you here and now. Comply!”
Addison saw Taka frozen in the doorway, helpless. But he also knew they couldn’t make their stand here. They needed all the levellers together.
“Okay, okay!” Addison cried, injecting as much cowardice into his voice as he could. “We’ll comply! Just don’t hurt me!”
The performance worked. Four stood over him a moment longer, hammering her point home, then she backed off. On cue, the drone’s weapons folded away.
“Five minutes,” the leveller spat. “Do not be late.”
And with that they
