Elevatia

13. Sad times

I barely left my bed the next few days. Partly from physical exhaustion – without our helpful High Class disguises we'd had to walk the entire way back to Medium and scale multiple barbed fences. But mostly from the crushing sense of failure.

I think Jayla broke me food, Chip might have given me a foot massage, Munk performed some one-woman comedy skits she'd be working on. But none of it registered.

I'd failed in my first mission. I'd trusted my friends too much and put my other friends in danger. Galbrathian had had to rescue us and he'd died helping us escape. And I wasn't sure he really forgave me for the pink robes.

I started flunking my actuarial training with all the classes I was missing, but insurance calculations didn't give me the heady thrill it used to any more.

I took to spending hours in the Medium library, not reading, just hiding from the world in its hushed stillness. Alone with my guilt and a lot of copies of The Da Vinci Code.

"I just can't believe he's gone." I whispered to Chip. "You barely knew him, but he was my step-uncle twice removed. I don't any of you can understand how hard that is."

"When I lost my mother I -" Chip began.

"And it's all my fault," I continued, a single tear rolling down my cheek. "If I hadn't been so reckless, he'd still be alive. This whole thing was a mistake."

"You did what you thought was right."

"At what cost? I can't bear to lose anyone else."

Chip took my hand. "I'll never leave you."

"Okay but could you actually leave, I want to be alone."

Chip headed off sadly. I stayed behind even more sadly.

I gazed up at the library dome, painted with the story of the Uprising – the lies that Vyle told us all. I felt a swell of bitterness at all the suffering he had caused. Then I felt my neck get really cricked so I wandered over to photo Galbrathian had shown me on the wall.

There he was in the picture, oblivious of how I would cause his undoing. My father. My mother. They'd trusted that I would continue what they had started and I had let them down.

"They would have been proud." A melodious voice said behind me.

I turned and, to my surprise saw Lady Hanson, leader of the Medium District.

"My lady." I gave the high five salute, flustered.

She returned the salute, serene as ever.

"What did you mean 'they would have been proud'?" I asked confused.

Lady Hanson inspected a display of books on arthritis treatments, barely seeming to address me at all. "Of course, I have no specific knowledge of who you are or anything special about you. It would, quite rightly, be High Treason for any subject of Elevatia to have such knowledge and not inform the Upright. And yet I suspect you can be quite sure that subjects of that photo you were admiring would have been mightily impressed with your determination and the progress you have made in such a short space of time."

"Progress?" I asked unsure. "You mean with my... actuarial training?"

Lady Hanson smiled inscrutably. "Quite so."

She began to leaf through an anthology of short stories about doughnuts and continued, still not looking directly at me. "I expect your parents, whoever they might have been, passed on a tremendous gift to you. And they would have been delighted to see the... actuary you are becoming."

I frowned. "Did you know the people in this photo, Lady Hanson?"

She moved on to inspect a biography of Elevatia's most beloved hairdresser. "I simply couldn't say," she said airily. "The lady at the end of the third row has quite the delightful smile, don't you think?"

I looked at the photo. The lady at the end of the third row was standing next to Galbrathian. She had a short bob haircut and dangly earrings. I looked closer and noticed that despite the other superficial differences, her sparkling eyes and enigmatic smile seemed a lot like Lady Hanson's. I looked even closer and saw that she and Galbrathian seemed to have her arms around each other. I looked even closer than that and I went a bit cross-eyed and bumped my nose against the glass frame.

"You knew Galb-" I began.

Lady Hanson coughed uncharacteristically loudly over me. "So sorry my dear," she continued. "I didn't quite catch that. Please do speak up so that I, and any Upright listening, can hear."

"Umm that lady in photo. I think I knew someone she was close with."

"That is a terribly old photo. I doubt they were still close. Old flames perhaps."

"Who went along very different paths?"

She nodded silently.

"But perhaps some warmth left?" I hazarded. "If ever they were called upon to help?"

Lady Hanson didn't reply. She began to look through a collection of magazines for stonework enthusiasts.

"Umm. So, I was wondering, there's clearly no people living outside any of the Districts?"

"As you say."

"So if, hypothetically, I ever met anyone who was outside the District system... it seems like they would need help from the Districts in order get by – to get food and things?"

"It seems like that would have to be the case." She said, apparently engrossed in an article about the robustness of different walls.

"In fact, they would need someone senior to have some fondness for them, in order to, I don't know, find their way into this library in order to train a young protegees."

"Precisely why such a thing would be impossible."

"And for such a person to find out details about who had been captured by the Upright in the Low Lands..."

"Well, it seems they would have to have a tip-off from someone very senior indeed." Lady Hanson looked directly at me for the first time and smiled broadly. "All quite quite unthinkable."

I swallowed, tears welling in my eyes.

"He died." I confessed. "Trying to rescue... someone."

"And did he succeed?"

"Yes."

"Then I expect that was what he wanted," she said softly. "In fact, what he wanted most of all was for this certain someone to persevere as he had taught them. For them to realise their potential, whatever that may be. Let's say to become the actuary that Elevatia needs."

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Changing topic completely," I said. "I'm facing a real conundrum Lady Hanson. I want to uphold the legacy of those who came before me and do what's right. There's so much at stake. But I am so scared and so alone. This path will be so hard. I want to just give up... I wish there was some guidance I could read about how to work out what is the morally right thing to do."

I strode into the library aisles agitatedly. "Maybe there's something in these books that could help," I said pulling a couple off the shelf at random. "How do I work out what I should do?"

Lady Hanson gently pulled Utilitarianism and A Critique of Pure Reason out of my hands and put them back on the shelves.

For the first time she turned herself to look at the photo.

"I chose my path a long time ago young Kit." She said wistfully. "I lost many along the way and also perpetrated a number of violations of the Geneva convention. Sometimes I think I should have paid greater heed to the wise words of His Highness Vyle."

She traced her finger on my upper arm, the place where, under my sleeve, I had my mother's birthmark.

"When the world is counting on you, how will you measure up?"