Page 64 of Guiding Desire
The atmosphere in the big, crammed room had changed, and Orrey realized it only now. He couldn’t say whether it was something he had said or done, or whether Col had been planning for this all along, but Orrey felt the souring taste of unease rise in his throat.
“Why would I get hurt? I didn’t break any rules. Iaskedyou to make sure. If you’re worrying about me telling anyone, I won’t.”
Col shook his head and reached for Orrey’s hand again. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t want that to come off as scary. I mean, maybe I did, but not in the way you think.”
“I don’t understand,” Orrey said, voice near pleading.
Col sighed. “I can tell. Follow my words. When I was little—when they brought me behind the walls, it wasn’t here. I don’t even remember which city it was. You have no idea how frustrating that is. I was enrolled in school here when I was almost six. That was after I’d been moved to Argentea, basically as an orphan.
“As best as I can tell, the Op-AI is worried that whatever made you want to be a protector so badly you let teaching go in favor of it will make you take offense at the med drops or whatever. But it wants you to see. It wants to test you. Conduits and Guardians are taught about what’s behind the walls early on, but you’ll have to fit it into your preconceived ways.”
Orrey swallowed. “If I don’t?”
“Well, there are…certain helpful things.” He looked at Orrey, repeated the wordhelpful, but in a way that made it sound foul. “Medications. Other treatments. I’ve looked into this sort of thing, for obvious reasons, seeing as how the Op-AIs of two cities have always paid so very close attention to me.
“Can we just agree that you wouldn’t like it any more than I would? And think whatever your opinion may be of Senlas, he would do anything to protect you, any fucking stupid thing that could get him hurt. Again, I want exactly nothing of this to happen, so I decided to tell you about this before you and the rest of the team head out to do that med drop in about a week.”
Orrey saw colors, almost like someone had cut off his air supply for too long, like he was only now getting back to breathing normally. “You’re saying there are people. Outside. Outside the wall. Where the Wild Hunts roam and kill. You are saying when they are sick, there are no treatment options, and we only treat them when they are Conduits or Guardians?”
Col squeezed Orrey’s hand. “No, what I am saying is, you can’t think of it like that. You knew the world yesterday, and today, it looks a little different. I want you to get used to how it’s different. And to realize you aren’t going to change anything about anything. Most importantly, I want you to promise me not to do anything stupid.”
“What could be more stupid than to leave peopleout there?”
“To tell everyone and demand they be let inside. Which you will not be doing. Because you are a Conduit, and it’s your job to protect your Guardian.” He let go of Orrey’s hand, squeezed his shoulder. “You’re lucky. You only have one of them. I have all of them to worry about.”
“But if there’re children—“
“Also, the people you are so worried about? They don’t want to be here. Live like we do, AIs all around us.”
“Huh?”
“My mother was on a council, I think it was called. They made decisions for everyone. I don’t remember an AI doing any of that where I grew up when I was outside.”
“But that—that’s nonsensical! It’s worse! You can’t be expected to have a healthy society without AI. It makes no sense. It’s dangerous.”
“You would say that. Which is why you are in here, and why they are out there.”
“But if they can’t even get inside to see things are better and safer in here, how can they be expected to know?”
Col sighed and turned back to close the book of maps, slide it back into its slot on the shelf. “You and I, we aren’t going to solve that. What we can do is make sure they get medicine. Vaccines mostly, but also phages and pain medication. Humanitarian action.”
“I don’t understand. They, I mean, don’t they understand that it’s because of the Op-AI they get all of that? Has anyone tried talking to them?”
Col moved the curtain back over the books, picked up his parasol. “Yes, conversation has happened. It’s rarely friendly. Your ancestors have taken all the resources from my ancestors, and because of the aggression perpetrated by your ancestors, relationships between my ancestors and the Hounds are strained to this day. That’s the long and short of it. Sometimes they attack convoys because they suspect the medication we drop is meant to euthanize them.”
Orrey’s jaw dropped. “That can’t happen. Production of single-dosage pain and vaccine injections are AI run, and they cannot do that. Insurrectionists tried disseminating lies like that a few years back. And what aggression was perpetrated by my ancestors?”
“Orrey. Stop.”
“I can’t—what do you mean? I’m a protector, and this is wrong.”
Col ran a hand through his deep brown hair. “Oh, little brother, I had a feeling you’d react that way. I did too. I wandered outside—snuck outside. I wanted to go back to my mother, and so they moved me to a different city. Do you doubt that the AIs around us protect our way of life and the people we love?”
“Of course not. It’s the reason they exist.”
Col nodded. “That’s exactly why you can’t be like that. You have to stop. You can’t make the Op-AI think you would threaten our way of life or the people you love.”
Orrey gestured back to the shelf. “What about those people outside? Who protects them?”
