The Truth that wasn't there

Eleven

I didn't die. I could have. But I didn't die.

Her quivering hands were back again, shaking so much that she had to clasp them together to keep from vibrating out of her skin.

Have them delivered to Director Bonkam. The words ran through her mind as the Prime Minister's voice invaded her thoughts. She shook her head, slightly, trying to stay sane as the car scurried back to Jera's base. As if she was nothing, they'd tossed her aside. But more than that, Owondiki couldn't believe that she'd used the pain markers. She'd shut down an LBD agent. She'd gone against everything she'd ever known to save Jera.

To save herself.

"We're here," Steven said as the car slowed to a halt outside the square hut.

Owondiki eyed the pouch carrying her hard drives in Steven's hand. They were useless to him. She'd known her apartment would be flagged the moment she was arrested, which was why she'd sent him to it.

When opened the door to head to the elevator that led down to her room, Jera held her back.

"No," Steven said, shaking his head.

"Let her come with us."

"This is a sensitive meeting, Kajera. We can't just let her walk in–"

"We're pressed for time. She knows more about the isolation units than we do. Let's just hear from the horse's mouth and be done with it."

"You need me," Owondiki said. "The hard drives were merely a ploy to get Jera captured. I'd never store sensitive information, such as the location of isolation units on an offsite system."

Steven backed down angrily before he restarted the car and reversed.

"What meeting?" Owondiki asked.

"My colleagues are waiting on a call. Will you be able to speak to them? You seem a little shaken up."

"I am," she replied honestly.

"No need to worry. Just calm down and answer their questions."

Owondiki owed Jera everything, at this point. There was no way she'd ever say no to the woman.

___

Jera's room was quite different from Owondiki's.

Besides the fact that it was above ground, the basics were the same. Same size, same shape, same bed, same bathroom door. But she had a curved shelf of books on one side that housed many files that looked a lot like the one she'd shown Owondiki. Which made Owondiki wonder if all those files had newspaper clippings. Clippings about the future. Clippings that she'd lied to the clans about. The clans were happy to have five files, but from the looks of it, Jera had twenty more... maybe even more than thirty.

There was a desk beside the shelf, where a desktop sat with the screensaver of a dog bouncing around the screen. Behind the PC, a large, flatscreen TV showed three separate screens with three people in three different places, looking at Owondiki in shock.

"What is this, Jera?" the woman on the TV asked, as the screen went blank. "I thought we understood each other."

As soon as her screen went dark, the other two men on the TV switched off their video feed, as well. They were trying to hide their identity, but Owondiki had already seen them. She recognized the woman as Governor Katherine Ono of Powu, in Osekoni. One of the men was Somos Ralzaq, an activist from Elhiji. The last one was Anthony Emung, a smuggler and thug from Usobo.

The clans had suspected that Jera was working with anti-clans groups from other sectors but they'd never have guessed how diverse her caucus was. A governor, an activist, a smuggler, and an ex-convict. What did they have in common, except their hatred of the clans?