I gave Olivier the same spiel I gave Rem a few minutes before. The doctor's reaction was one of quiet interest and rapt attention. I could tell that it was rare for something to catch Olivier's attention, and I watched as the unflinching gaze of his focus turned upon my project.
"I'm on board, so the team's on board," Olivier said succinctly once I was done explaining. "How long do we have?"
"My meeting with Supreme Commander Gihren is on the 18th, so you have about a day and a half to get the draft done," I said.
"That would be impossible for a normal team," Olivier said before turning back to his computer with renewed vigor. He must have been typing at double his previous speed.
"You can't do it?" I asked, confused.
"Is that what I said?" Oliver muttered. "We'll have a draft done by the morning of the 18th. Come back then to pick it up."
"Thanks," I said with a forced smile. "You're the best."
I really had to stop saying that to Zaku engineers.
"I know," Oliver said as Helen and I left his office.
As we left Building C, the staff located within the structure slowly transitioned from a state of inaction to one of excited and energetic productivity. A few researchers who had been playing a card game a few minutes before were frantically erasing a white board while talking about the tasks they would have to perform over the next 36 hours.
"What would a standard Zaku cockpit even look like?" one of the researchers asked rhetorically.
"That's our job to figure out," the other researcher answered.
From a nearby office, I heard a senior researcher shout, "Today, we are delivered from the plague of mass-produced hyper-granularity! Praise God!"
"Maybe later," a junior researcher said at a much lower volume.
Outside of the research building, I sighed heavily and lit up a cigarette. The flood of guilt was already starting to subside somewhat, transforming into a background state of lingering and consistent misery. I wasn't exactly happy, but at least I wasn't going to curl up in a ball and cry again.
"I don't think I've ever seen someone wield so much power in person," Helen said once we were a dozen meters away from the entrance to the building.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You just walked in here and basically started a new project," Helen said with admiration in her eyes. "It took me months of work just to get an internship on one of these projects. The people working here are some of the greatest scientists in the Earth Sphere, and you have them jumping at your command."
"No, I don't have any real power. If I want anything to actually get done, I still need to convince one of the Zabis," I said dourly.
"But the Zabis might listen to you, right?" Helen asked.
"Maybe," I said with a shrug.
"That sounds like real power to me," Helen said.
"You got me," I said, throwing my hands up and conceding the point. "I'm going back to the motel."
"Do you want me to show you around some more?" Helen asked.
"I've already achieved my objective," I said. "There's no reason for me to hang around here any longer."
"Maybe we could go somewhere together," Helen said.
"Listen," I said a bit more harshly than I intended. "Today's really not a good day for me. I'm pretty sure somebody's gonna pick me up on my drive back."
"Pick you up?"
"Like, you know," I said, gesturing to my head. "Bag over my head. Black van pulling away at a high speed."
"Really!?" Helen asked with wide eyes.
"It's not that big a deal. That's just how the Zabis communicate," I said with a shrug. "The important thing is that I should be available tomorrow. How about this? I'll pick you up tomorrow at six, and we'll go somewhere nice."
"That sounds great," Helen said with a smile, and I was glad to be able to at least momentarily dispel the fear of rejection that was clearly starting to fester within her.
Helen gave me the address of where she was staying at the moment. Evidently, she was staying with one of her friends.
A few minutes later, I was sitting in the driver's seat of my car. My forehead pressed itself against the steering wheel, and another deep sigh escaped from my lungs. The innocent souls of a million dead civilians weighed down on me, and the importance of my own life seemed a lot less significant. If I were to die, wouldn't the world just become a better place? At that particular moment, I was little more than a tool to be used by Gihren and Kycilia Zabi. It was almost certain that I would have to kill more civilians in the future.
Helen's earlier statement played in my mind. What did she mean when she said I was a "kind" person? In her words, I was a kind person underneath it all. I suspected that she was just cursed with perspective. From her perspective, I probably seemed like a nice person, but that was just her perspective. Neither I nor the original Dogwood would ever have a reason to hurt her. I valued loyalty highly, both in my subordinates and significant others, so it was only natural that I would be kind to those who were already loyal to me.
From the perspective of my enemies, however, I was certainly far from kind. There was nothing wrong with killing those who wanted to kill you. At least, that was my opinion.
I turned my car on and just began driving in a random direction. Considering the absurd amount of surveillance in Zum City (there were two or three obvious cameras on every street corner), I knew that it was only a matter of time before Kycilia's goons found me.
As I drove, I eventually saw a large Catholic church in one of the more sparsely populated parts of the colony. There were no buildings anywhere nearby the church because it was surrounded by a massive graveyard.
A strange thought occurred to me. If I had died out there, would they have held a funeral for me at that church? If they had been able to recover my body, would I get a grave here?
Some unknown instinct pushed me to park my car next to the church. I didn't know what I was expecting when I stepped through the front doors, but I didn't expect it to be empty. I found myself in a well-decorated antechamber looking at various paintings of passages from the Bible.
Footsteps on the flagstone floor echoed through the empty antechamber. I turned and saw an older man in the robes of a priest approach me. He wore the green vestment of Ordinary Time, and his head was bowed as if in prayer. The priest looked over to me, and I could tell that he recognized me. His expression turned to one of concealed pity, and I almost fell down at his feet.
"Father, are you available to take Confession?" I asked.