A Self Satisfied Smile

The year was 2140 and if you were a normal citizen of the planet or willing to do everything the government told you to do, then the world was perfect. If you weren’t, or wouldn’t, well, it didn’t matter, since you were going to die soon anyway.

My world had problems –a lot of problems actually, but I did everything in my power to continue living.

I guess that’s a good way to start this story, the tale of how of how everything in my power and then some, just wasn’t enough.

“Lysandra,” I raised my head to face the person that had dared to speak to me while I was uploading information our system.

“What?” I hissed at the middle aged man that stood in front of me with a scowl on his wrinkled face.

“They’re back,” he informed me and started walking away, knowing I would follow close behind.

“Did everyone make it?” I asked as I caught up the man. When he continued walking without sparing me a second glance, my heart wanted so badly to stop beating.

“Adam, did they all make it back?” I had friends on that mission, family that went without my consent. He had to tell me what was going on.

“Carson,” he said simply. There was no explanation, just the name.

“What? He didn’t make it?” I was ashamed to admit it but, I was slightly relieved to hear that. Out of the fifty people we sent to the control center, there was only one fidelity? That was a job well done in my book.

“No, he’s the only one that did.” Adam told me without turning around.

My heart stopped, my lungs refused to take in oxygen, and my eyes were unable to stay dry. They were gone, my brothers, my friends, they weren’t coming back. It was all my fault. The mission was my idea, I fought against the elders to send them, I killed those people. Even if it was indirectly.

“A ceremony for the fallen should be held within the next week,” I said with a forced ease to my voice. After years of training, I knew better than to break down in front of a commanding officer, I’d do that later in the privacy of my chamber.

“Of course,” answered Adam as he opened the door to one of the meeting rooms and gestured for me to enter first.

In the room was one table and three chairs. Carson Vega sat on one side of the metal table, both arms behind his head, and leaning back with only two legs of his chair remaining on the ground.

“Hello commander,” he said nodding to Adam as he sat down in the chair across from Carson. “Lieutenant.” I didn’t get a nod, simply a glare that I didn’t think I rightfully deserved.

“Vega, you had information you wished to divulge?” asked the commander from beside me. He may have been in charge but we both knew whatever came out of Carson’s mouth would affect me more than anyone else.

“Of course,” said the young blonde seriously as he righted his chair and laid his hands upon the table. “Do you have the map of the center?”

Adam immediately pulled out a rolled up piece of paper and flattened it in front of Carson and I, an almost excited gleam in his normally dead grey eyes.

Carson looked over the map analytically, almost as if he expected there to be something wrong with it, before pointing to an area. “There are fourteen guards on the first floor…”

***

I sat comfortably in the hovering chair placed in the office belonging to the one known only as “The Authority.” No one knew his name, where he came from, and most people were oblivious to what the man even looked like.

Carson stood behind me and I could feel him twirling my light pink hair around his index finger over and over again.

We gad been sitting here for almost an hour and I was mildly impressed that the boy managed to stay perfectly still except that one movement I wasn’t even sure he was aware of.

The information Carson had managed to deliver to us had proved to be invaluable. The two of us had managed to make it to the top of a thirty story building without being spotted, not an easy task when every floor is crawling with guards given strict orders to kill anyone without an access pass.

“When do you think he’ll get here?” asked the man from behind me. His voice cracked slightly due to the lack of speech but that was to be expected after all this time.

“Soon,” I told him simply, “but you have to be patient. If you start to become bored, you’re senses will start to diminish.” The teacher-like edge to my voice came naturally after the year and a half I had spent teaching snot-nosed brats how to hold a laser blade correctly.

We didn’t say anything more until the doors in front of us opened, revealing a dark haired man who immediately froze, fear showing clearly in his blue eyes.

I know what he saw, two rebels, two people he couldn’t control with a well worded command, two people that wanted him dead more than anything else in this world, in any world really.

“Speak and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” hissed Carson. He had his weapon pressed against the man’s neck before he could so much as think of screaming. Someone had been training.

“The Authority” nodded several times and allowed Carson to lead him over to a chair across from mine. Once he was sitting Carson didn’t move, he remained beside the man; just in case he tried something. Not that anyone would be that stupid, but you never know.

“You knew this day would come,” I started calmly, not allowing a hint of the anger I felt for this man show itself in my voice.

“For years you’ve controlled this planet, telling people what to do, what to eat, think, feel, or even dream. You’ve killed people simply because they thought for themselves and made their own decisions. Well, now it’s your turn. What does it feel like to be so close to death, you can nearly taste it?” The man wanted to lie; I could see it in his eyes. But his own society was coming back to bite him. He had made it impossible to tell anything but the truth years ago. I guess he should have thought things through more.

“Terrifying,” he whispered and I smirked at the illegal emotion that was currently swarming every cell in the man’s body.

“Do you know what you do to people that feel terrified, lonely, even sad?” He stiffened in his chair as understanding dawned on him.

I stood up silently and walked over to the man that had made my life hell for the last nineteen years. With a small smile on my face, I leaned forward and whispered into his ear.

“You kill them,” a small gasp escaped the man’s lips before a thin line of blood ran down his chin due to the laser blade that had made itself home in his abdomen.

With that one small thrust of my left arm, we were free “The Authority” had to pick his replacement. Now he couldn’t, the government would be forced to change; sure it wouldn’t make things the way they used to be centuries ago, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

I turned toward Carson with a smile on my face for the first time in years, just in time to see a small dart, most likely filled with some kind of poison, lodge itself into his neck. I didn’t even see where it had come from before a sharp stinging sensation came from right below my left ear.

Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”

That sentence ran through my mind as I hit the ground next to Carson, I didn’t know where I had heard it, or who wrote it, but I couldn’t agree with one statement more at that moment.

Right then, I didn’t care that I was about to die, I didn’t care that I’d never say goodbye to the ones I held dear, I didn’t care that my life was ending before I truly got to live it because I had saved so many others.

What was one life to billions?

I died with a self satisfied smile plastered on my face.