Page 65 of Guiding Desire

“Orrey, they don’t want you to do it, trust me. They would chase you off with weapons if you tried.” He looked up to the ceiling, breathed in and out in measured seconds. “Weapons that are so noisy, your ears hurt after they go off. You can hear the bang kilometers away.” He focused on Orrey. “If the Op-AI hadn’t scheduled for you to go out there so soon, I wouldn’t have taken you down here. Not this soon, anyway. Senlas is going to be so mad, but at the same time, I made him swear he’d protect you. Senny’s good about his promises, too good sometimes.”

“I didn’t do anything to make him mad. If you’d told me why we were really down here—“

“He’ll be mad at me. Because I caused you upset. That’s a lesson for you, by the way. Never upset a Conduit a Guardian has imprinted on. They’ll hate that. And they’ll blame you for it.”

“I…I’m sorry. But this is…every Conduit, every Guardian knows, and nothing has been done?”

“We send them medicine. When crops fail—agricultural AIs usually track that via satellite—we send them grain. Every now and then, a young Guardian walks to a city gate, asking to live our life, and the municipal AI opens the door for them.”

Orrey dropped his loaned parasol, which clattered to the ground in an ugly display of noise. “Shit. Shit.”

“Little brother. Who do you protect?”

“Everyone. The peace within our walls.”

“No, Orrey. You’re a Conduit. Who do you protect?”

“Shit. Guardians. Only the one. Senlas.”

“Better. We’ll practice that a few more times until you can actually convince me. Now, pick up that parasol and try to calm down. Can you concentrate, or do your meds make you foggy?”

Orrey bent down and grabbed the parasol off the floor, fingers closing around the material with more force than was necessary.

“I can concentrate. Why?”

“Because I want to teach you the combination of the lock on that door. Just in case. It took me about a year to first find this place, then figure out the combination.”

Col hooked his arm under Orrey’s again, steadying him, something Orrey actually needed right about then.

“I thought you said this wasn’t against the rules. Being here.”

“It’s not. There are no firm regulations about who can browse all these shelves. It’s just not actually encouraged. And the digital versions of most of this don’t really pop up when you ask the library AI for resources, not unless you have the exact title. It’s forgetting without destroying what we’re not supposed to remember.”

“So we shouldn’t be here. You’re telling me on my very first day as a Conduit, I’m doing a thing that I shouldn’t be doing, and on top of all of that, you’re telling me I’ve been studying my geography off faulty maps.”

“Yes. If I were sorry about any of that, I’d apologize.”

When they got to the double doors, Col sent Orrey out first, then hit the light switch, an actual switch he pointed out to Orrey.

On the other side, they both pressed the heavy door back into its frame. It closed with a thud that sounded like indifference.

“I can’t get over the fact that children are born outside of the walls, and that they don’t get essential medical care,” Orrey said, absently picking at the stem cell graft on his eyebrow.

“If it makes you feel any better, I remember being happy. Very happy. Now, the numbers. We’re starting with fifty-three to the left.”

Colledthembacka different way than they’d come, the tunnels stretching and changing in apparent age.

“We’ve been walking for a while,” Orrey said.

“Just around the cistern. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Do you need to rest?”

Orrey shook his head. “No. Just wanted to make sure you’re leading me back up and not leaving me down here until I forget what you just told me.”

Col bumped into him in an oddly companionable way. “I don’t want you to forget any of it. I want you to remember.”

The tunnel turned brighter, the ceiling fully illuminating. Ahead, a door with bio-scanners came into view.

“When is that mission scheduled? The one you mentioned?”