Page 98 of Guiding Desire
Vin tucked a strand of his long black hair behind his ear. “Maybe three generations ago, Guardians had ‘an easier time’ finding Conduits who would channel them. That’s because forced channeling was widely accepted, and Conduits weren’t supposed to withhold channeling for any reason. Power drain through medication was a relatively new concept at the time, and a lot of Guardians simply didn’t see the point in taking a pill when they could just take a Conduit.” He pointed at a set of metal objects mounted on one of the straight walls, all about the size of styluses but with noticeable sharp tips. “Those’re my great-great-grandmother’s. My family always produced Conduits, and growing up, each and every one of them learned how to quickly dissuade Guardians from forcing them to channel.”
“The preferred way to do that back then was through sex,” Col clarified.
“Sex isn’t the word you want, Col,” Vin said.
Orrey’s jaw dropped.
“Poor thing. I think if we throw more information at him, he’ll get all wrinkly,” Taros said.
Senlas, meanwhile, kissed the top of Orrey’s head, which was clearly going to become a habit at this rate.
“But the mandatory punishments for any assault with a sexual component are either hard labor outside the walls with no possibility of return or capital punishment if a Guardian or Conduit is attacked,” Orrey said. “And it’s been that way for ages. How—why?”
“On the positive—if you can call it that—if a Conduit managed to take someone down during an assault, not much of a punishment followed. Because as it turns out, Guardians need Conduits, and if you treat them like that, you get your eyes poked out and your dick cut off.” He looked at Orrey once more. “There’s an artery there, people’d bleed out. It was a thing that happened with some frequency.”
“See, kitten? Here is why your father making a promise to me raises no eyebrows in our team.”
“Also, I heard there was liquor?” Taros said.
“Dare, and I might just use one of Vinnie’s fancy poky sticky things on you,” Col said. “Anyway. The point here is, those were the rules on the Grounds while they’d long been different outside, for regulars. The AIs suggested changes, but the way these things work is that changes can be pushed back against if the influence in the community wants that. And it took people with influence to change the rules around here.”
“Yeah, and the converse is true as well,” Senlas said. “He wants things to go back to how they were then, or something new and equally disgusting. Fine. He wants to get rid of me because I now have more of a voice than he does, especially when it comes to how to treat Conduits. Also fine. But they were talking about the city as a whole.”
Col nodded. “So you said. But that’s all I could deduce from what we know and the data we can look at. We’ll have to see what we can find out from members of the Agri Team and just wait.”
“Or we end him. Find him when he’s alone. I make him walk into heavy machinery. Simple.” Vin shrugged.
“That doesn’t help with the issue of his collaborators,” Orrey said.
“Exactly,” Col said. “And I’m very interested in them. In what they want.”
“How is there nothing the AI can do at this stage? It would be the Op-AI we bring this to, right?” Orrey asked.
“Sure,” Karmine said. “But, how do I put this in terms a protector understands? It’s infighting. Quarrels between Guardians that it’ll not want to get involved in, because the most it could do would be to keep him and us apart. And trust me, we’re already going out of our way not to cross paths with that Hound-fucker.”
“What about reeducation? That has to be an option?” He looked at Col. “You said I might end up medicated if I kick off a fuss about people outside the walls. What about this?”
Col looked sad all of a sudden, and Vin angry. “The thing is,” Col said, “if you need to be medicated and supervised, you can still channel. If you medicate a Guardian, they can’t do all that much. And for some—not Taros, but some—anything mind-altering wears off extremely quickly. You have to remember that Alesa is successful and productive, and there are few things any AI would rate as more productive than bringing in consistently good harvests. A famine or even shortages could be disastrous for the entire city.”
If Orrey took a step back, he had to agree that all of it made sense, in a sickening, logical way. He could even see how forced channeling would be fine, from an AIs point of view, at least to some degree. It was baffling, something so dark in the living memory of a city so bright.
Col leaned back in his chair and went on. “For now, we’ll be moving in pairs of twos or threes. Taros, you’re with Orrey and Senny, and the rest of us are going to stay here for now. Senny, the only pressing thing you two have is Orrey’s final checkup, correct?”
“Yes, tomorrow.”
“Stop by here on your way back. If we find out anything new until then, we’ll share it. And keep teaching my little brother channeling.”
“This is really everything we can do here?” Orrey said.
Vin hummed. “One thing.” He pointed at Orrey. “This one has marksman skills. Opted out of joining the special tactics unit though. I want to take him shooting tomorrow.”
“Cool,” Karmine said. “We really needed another person with gun skills.”
“I’ve never really shot anyone,” Orrey said.
“You will,” Vin said. Most disturbingly, he smiled while he said it.
22
