When the bell finally rang, she asked Blake to escort her to the computer lab and then take Aelyx to the cafeteria. She needed to update her blog and, quite frankly, she couldn’t take any more of the silent treatment.
“We’ll stay with you,” Aelyx insisted. “I’m not hungry anyway.”
“Then maybe you should hang out in the library,” she retorted. “And read.”
In true rejectionist fashion, he ignored her, following along with Blake until she reached the lab and settled at the end of a vacant row. “Pull up a chair.” If you can stand to get that close. “I need a random fact for Trivial Wednesday.” He sat at the same workstation but kept twelve inches between them and leaned away like she smelled bad. “How do L’eihrs say good-bye?”
“We touch the side of the throat with our first two fingers.”
Wow, they sure had a fixation with throats. “To take each other’s pulse, like—” You did to me yesterday? She cut herself off just in time.
“Oh.” He punctuated the awkward silence with a fake cough. “No, just a simple touch and release.”
The central blog site came up, and she entered her login and password. “That’s all I need,” she said in a cool voice. “You can go.”
“I’ll wait.”
What was his deal? He’d snubbed her, so why was he acting like a stage-five dinger? “There’s no reas—”
An error message appeared on the computer screen. At first, she thought she’d entered the wrong password, but upon closer inspection, she found karma had decided to gut-punch her when she was already down. What had she done to deserve this?
This account has been deactivated due to violations of our terms of service.
“Damn it.” She hadn’t violated anything!
“What’s wrong?” Aelyx leaned one precious inch in her direction to read the screen.
“They killed my blog!” Nearly a million followers—poof, gone, just like that.
“Yow.” Blake joined the pity party, peering over her shoulder. “What’d you do?”
“Nothing.”
She hadn’t posted about the L’eihrs’ weaponry, population size, or anything they might not want to divulge publicly, so the government wouldn’t have shut her down. All she’d discussed was L’eihr customs, mutations, and breeding-related advances. That wasn’t a big deal, was it?
Apparently someone thought so, and she had no way of finding out who.
Chapter Nineteen
“Culturally speaking, what’s the biggest difference between life on Earth and yours back home?” Mr. Manuel absently dealt study packets to the class, busywork to keep them occupied while he focused on his only love these days: Aelyx.
“I could list our similarities faster than our differences, since we have almost nothing in common.” Aelyx leaned forward in his seat and rested his forearms on his knees.
Cara wanted to smack him. She was tired of being ignored.
“Basically,” Aelyx continued, “our only goal from the moment we’re born until the moment we die is to serve L’eihr. We’re raised, educated, and trained together for no other purpose. Here on Earth, your only purpose is to please yourselves.”
“Nice.” She lightly kicked his boot, and it felt surprisingly good. She should’ve done it harder. “I’ll remember that the next time I’m tempted to blow off my plans because you need a ride to the nature preserve.”
Aelyx flinched and got that guilty look on his face—the same one she’d seen every day since he’d given her the cold shoulder.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I shouldn’t generalize.”
Aelyx admitting he was wrong? She wished she knew what was going on inside that supposedly evolved head of his.
“You mentioned harsh punishments and executions,” Mr. Manuel said. “But if your generation’s so flawless—”
Cara muttered, “Aelyx likes to think he’s flawless.”
“—why’s it necessary?”
Aelyx tightened his jaw and shot her a look that said his patience was waning. Good. It was about time.
“There hasn’t been an execution on L’eihr in nearly two hundred years,” he told Mr. Manuel. “But offenses punishable by death include unauthorized breeding, assault, theft, insubordination—basically any crime that goes against The Way.”
“So,” Mr. Manuel said, “if The Way makes up your central government, who carries out the laws in each district?”
“A military force similar to yours.”
“What about corruption?” Mr. Manuel asked. “Who keeps them honest and accountable?”
“Remember,” Aelyx said, “it’s impossible to lie during Silent Speech.”
He made it sound so perfect, like allowing the government inside your head was a good thing. Cara couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “What about the right to privacy?”
“What about it?”
“Urn, you don’t have any.”
“If you’re looking for Utopia, Cah-ra,” he said, matching her snarky tone, “you won’t find it. Not here, and not on L’eihr. Sacrifices are made for the greater good.”
“Well,” she argued, “how can you justify killing your own people, especially since you’re so evolved? Most advanced nations on Earth abandoned capital punishment years ago.”
Aelyx shrugged one shoulder. “Execution’s a logical solution as well as a punishment. If an individual can’t live within the parameters of society, it’s best to remove him or her from it. I’d prefer a quick death to imprisonment or exile. I find your system of incarceration cruel.”
She had a hard time buying that, especially considering he didn’t believe in the afterlife. “What about The Way?” she asked. “Who chooses them?”
“After our assessments,” he said, “the most gifted children are selected for The Way, but they don’t serve until after their Sh’ovah Day. There are always ten members, and each one continues to serve until a more talented citizen’s found to replace him.” He nodded at Cara and added, “Or her.”
She shook her head. What a horrible way to live. “Isn’t there anything democratic about life on L’eihr?”
“No.” He said it unapologetically, as if equally unimpressed with her government as she was with his.
“And you’re really okay with that?”
“Of course.”
He had to be lying. “I can’t believe it doesn’t bother you.”
“What doesn’t bother me? The corruption within your system of government?” He tapped his textbook as if the proof lay within its pages. “The inefficiency? The uninformed masses choosing whichever candidate made the most outlandish promises?”
“The lack of freedom, wiseass.”
“Ah, freedom.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, so cocky and sure of himself. “It’s overrated.”
“How would you know?” she asked. “You’ve never tasted it.”
“I’ve sampled enough. The simple truth is most people can’t manage total freedom. They make poor use of it.”
“There’s no such thing as poor use—that’s the whole point. Any use is good use.”
A dry, humorless laugh escaped his lips. “Oh? To bleach insults into your lawn and leave threats in your locker?”
“We’re not free to break the law.”
“Not technically, but your lax consequences aren’t much of a deterrent.”