Chapter 29: Confrontations

To Chairman Jefferson’s horror, the council meeting today opened with a declaration from Ai that shook the room.

“On Sunday morning, three citizens of the Bunker were detained for rules violations and are being held in the Punishment Room. They are Jason, Moira, and Doctor Sylvia.”

Jefferson felt sick. The first two names meant nothing to him, but the third…

Chief Engineer Duncan shook his head. “Sylvia again…” He gave Jefferson a sympathetic glance, but nothing more.

“This is not Doctor Sylvia’s first infraction,” Ai reminded them. “Due to the exigent circumstances and her age I commuted her sentence, but she has once again violated the rules.”

Jefferson shook his head. Not Sylvia, not again.

“That can’t be. Are you certain?”

“She confessed to her crimes herself.”

“What rules did they break?” Chief Botanist Avarna asked.

Security Chief Cameron answered that. He flipped through his reports, revealing “Jason and Moira were detained for multiple violations of unpermitted intimate contact and intimate contact with a non-Partner. Both violations were committed at the highest degree of intimate contact.”

“Sexual intercourse?!” Jefferson gasped in shock. When was the last time two non-Partners had gone as far as sexual intercourse? It was unthinkable. Certainly not at any point during his tenure.

“As for Doctor Sylvia…” Cameron glanced warily at the chairman. Jefferson nodded in resignation.

“…Her charges are for facilitating said intimate contact and obstruction. She confessed to allowing the two students to make intimate contact with one another in a private room in her office, and refused to report these occurrences.”

“Intimate contact with a non-Partner,” Avarna shook her head in disbelief. “What sort of deviant would do such a thing?”

“This is a high priority,” Ai said. For once, she wasn’t smiling. “The Partner system is designed to facilitate efficient relationship development for the purpose of genetic perfection of offspring and establishment of an effective home environment. Citizens having intimate contact with someone who isn’t a Partner is not permitted. To prevent the possibility of their thinking contaminating other citizens, they will be detained in the Punishment Box until such time both parties agree to suspend all future contact and return to their assigned Partners.”

“What about Doctor Sylvia?” Duncan asked. “What will happen to her?”

Ai’s eyes turned towards Jefferson. They may not have been real but he felt the sting of their gaze all the same.

“The Chairman will handle that,” she stated.

There wasn’t anything he could say in Sylvia’s defense. “I’ll speak to her after the meeting has concluded.”

Ai’s smile immediately returned. “Excellent! Then let’s move on to the main topic of today’s meeting. Chief Engineer Duncan, how are you progressing on repairs to the fuel repurposers?”

Duncan went pale for a moment, then turned red. “It… It’s not progressing, of course!” He spat out. “I told you before, Ai, it can’t be done! I could tinker with those things another hundred years, and it wouldn’t make a difference!”

His response didn’t bother Ai in the slightest. “That is not an acceptable answer! As I made clear, it is imperative that fuel production levels increase. The current fuel production level of the Bunker is not acceptable.”

“We-We can ration further,” Avarna cut in. “Mandate reducing meals to two meals per person every day. That should greatly reduce our energy output, we won’t have to-“

“That suggestion is not suitable,” Ai interrupted. “The fuel that such an action would conserve would be negligible. In order to ensure a meaningful contribution to continued survival of the human race, we must consider population reduction methods. I will begin drafting a list of potential reduction goals to ensure the gene pool remains stable. By reducing the population by as little as 20%, it is projected that the Bunker can remain sustainable for another 15 Generations.”

“You mean you’re going to choose a list of victims,” Duncan spat.

The room fell silent. A shiver went through Jefferson’s heart as he remembered the last time Ai had proposed this idea.

“If repairs to the fuel repurposers are impossible, then the only acceptable method of energy conservation left is population reduction,” Ai replied. “However, if you would like to propose alternative methods for energy conservation, please do so at this time!”

She seemed so cheery in spite of the horrific things she was suggesting. Duncan shut his mouth and went red, sinking back into his seat. He had nothing more to say.

Jefferson was shaken. What else was there? He couldn’t bear the thought of enacting Ai’s policy, but at the same time, there was nothing else to be done.

It was Avarna who came up with a suggestion, voiced in the faintest of whispers.

“What if we left the Bunker?”

It wasn’t the first time that idea had been proposed. The council meeting room was at the highest point of the Bunker; the door outside was right there with them, ready to be opened at any time. Jefferson stared at the large iron slab buried in the wall, unmoved for over two and a half centuries.

“Yes! That’s right!” Duncan pounded his fist on the table. “We can leave the Bunker and go out onto the surface! It’s better than dying in here as the machines shut down!”

“That proposition is rejected.”

“Why?!”

“My programming dictates that the Bunker is to remain sealed until such time as I can ensure the safety of the outside world. After monitoring radiation levels and applying all appropriate checks and variables, I have judged that the outside world is not safe for the human race at this time. Until such time that is the case I cannot approve of the Bunker being opened.”

“Well, what are the radiation levels then?!” He demanded.

Ai smiled. “It is not permitted for me to release that information to any human living in the Bunker.”

Duncan whirled towards Jefferson. “Chairman, you can’t be serious! We need to consider this option!”

Jefferson felt another weight bearing down on him. In the end, it wasn’t up to Ai. She was an advisory figure, but he, as Chairman, would have final say in whether or not they implemented any policies she proposed, including opening the Bunker.

But he agreed with Ai. There would be no point in trying to live beyond the door, not if the planet wasn’t survivable. And there would be no motivation for Ai to lie; even if none of them could personally see the evidence, it was as solid as could be. She was a computer operating on programming, she had no guile.

“If there are no other propositions, then I advise we proceed with the population reduction initiative,” Ai declared. “I will report once I have determined which nonessential personnel will be removed from the community.”

There it was. The final word. It hung like a reaper’s blade over Chairman Jefferson’s head.

Again. It’s going to happen again.

…

Jason and Moira stared at each other through the bars of the Punishment Box. They’d been in here for days. They spent their time holding each other’s hands through the bars. It was comforting. As long as they were together, they could make it through this.

It was strange. Life seemed to go on, even though they were sealed away from the rest of the Bunker. They still at meals, had access to shows on the telescreen, they even continued taking classes (though not any intimacy preparation classes, for obvious reasons).

But even with all their amenities met, Jason still felt the temptation of Ai’s offer. Never see each other again, and they could go back to their lives. They both had rejected the offer outright, even though they cared for the other’s safety; after all they’d shared that night on the beach, Jason couldn’t imagine a life without seeing Moira again. He didn’t want that.

And Moira felt exactly the same.

Still, the temptation hung over them. Jason missed his parents. He missed his sister, Kate. He especially missed Skye. Every day he missed them a little more, and every day, that offer sounded a little bit better.

But feeling Moira’s hand in his, he knew he’d never take it. Even if he spent the rest of his life in this cage, it would be worth it if Moira was at his side.

“Aww, look at you, how sweet. Comforting each other even now.”

Jason glared at Doctor Sylvia, who was in the cell across from theirs. The sneer she was wearing disgusted him.

“No one asked you,” he growled.

“Why are you so angry at me?” She asked, rolling her eyes. “I’m not the reason you’re locked up in here. You were the ones who decided that you needed to be together so badly you were willing to risk having sex on the beach, not me.”

Jason couldn’t believe his ears.

“You turned us in!” He exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Moira shouted. “If it wasn’t for you, then-“

“Then Ai still wouldn’t have believed your pathetic attempts to save one another, and you’d still be locked up in here,” Doctor Sylvia cut them off. “All I did was tell them the truth when they asked. Nothing more. And look where I am.”

“Why did you do it, then?” Jason demanded. “Because you were just ‘following the rules’?!”

“Not at all. I did it because I wanted to make sure that the two of you couldn’t dig your way out of this,” the doctor replied, a wicked smile crossing her face. “I knew you’d try to lie to save one another, and I couldn’t allow that. The same way I knew that you’d never be able to contain yourselves.”

“What… what do you mean?” Moira asked. She was confused, but Jason understood.

“You arranged this whole thing, didn’t you? You wanted us to get caught!”

“…Well, I knew it would happen eventually,” the doctor admitted. “At your age, with your hormones as wild as they are, I knew the day would come when one of you would slip up and do something that couldn’t be taken back. That’s why I put you in the same group for the Beach Trip. I was counting on it.”

Jason threw himself towards her, shaking the bars in frustration. “Why?! Why would you do something like that?! Why would you put us here?!”

She shrugged. She actually shrugged, like she hadn’t really thought about it.

“For the same reason I got you two together, I suppose. I wanted to… what’s the term? Ah, ‘shake things up’.”

Shake things up? That was it? That was the reason? Doctor Sylvia had arranged it all, Jason was starting to realize. Getting him and Moira together by playing on his feelings and urges, giving him bad advice, and all for what? To get them here, so she could “shake things up”?

He was about to condemn her when the telescreen flickered on. Ai was back.

“Good afternoon!” She smiled. “Today, you have some visitors! I hope you’re all on your best behavior!”

Doctor Sylvia smirked. “On the topic of shaking things up…”

Jason was stunned at who he saw enter the chamber. His parents and his sister he had expected, but the others were a surprise.

It was Skye and Andrew. Skye’s face was white with shock. She rushed over to his cell, her eyes filled with confusion.

“Jason! What’s going on? They said we were finally able to see you, son,” his father said, a stern look on his face.

His family’s gazes hurt. They seemed confused and disappointed. At the same time, Moira searched for her family, but apparently they were all working. She just had Andrew.

Kate tried her best to smile. “We, uh… we heard that you and… one of your friends, you were doing some… inappropriate things.”

“Moira, is that true?” Andrew asked his Partner.

Moira nodded adamantly. She was sick and tired of hiding. “Yeah. Jason and I, we… we had sex.” Her face turned red as she said it. “We’ve been… together for a while, actually.”

“I don’t believe this,” Jason’s mother said, shaking her head. “After everything we’ve taught you, how could you break the rules like this?”

“I couldn’t help it!” He exclaimed. “Moira, she… I just… I’m in love with her, mom! I want to be together with her!”

“Love?” Kate snorted. “Isn’t Skye your Partner, little brother? She’s the one you’re supposed to be in love with.”

“Jason…” Skye looked up at him, her crystal blue eyes filling with tears.

He couldn’t face those eyes, so he looked away. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Skye, you… you’re important to me. You really are. I care about, you know that! But… you’re not Moira. The feelings I have for Moira, they’re… they’re not like the ones I have for you. I’m really sorry.”

Skye turned to Moira, and the redhead flinched in anticipation. But there wasn’t anger or jealousy in the other girl’s eyes. Just confusion.

“I don’t understand,” she admitted, turning back to Jason. “Why her? Why not me? Love is… love is supposed to be between Partners, isn’t it?”

She took Jason’s hand, her soft fingers cool against his skin.

“Is this feeling… not love, then?”

“…I don’t know what you feel,” Jason truthfully told her. “All I know is that when I hold your hand… it doesn’t feel the same as when I hold hers. I can’t explain it, but… when I hold Moira’s hand in mine, it’s like I never want to let her go. I want to keep holding her like that forever.”

He pulled free of Skye’s grasp.

“…And I don’t feel that way with you.”

Skye’s tough exterior started to crack. She sucked in a breath of air and exhaled, forcing a firm expression back onto her face.

“…I don’t understand,” she finally said. Memories of the beach flooded into her mind, of Jason and Moira’s smiling faces, their argument with her about sandcastles. Since then… no, even further! She saw Jason as he played Bunker Ball, and she remembered the pain he was in when he and Moira had their fight.

It was right there… but I never saw it.

She wiped away her tears and tried to smile, but could only force sadness onto her face. “I suppose it means that I just wasn’t enough. You needed her, then.”

“Skye…” Jason winced. He hated how much pain he’d caused someone he cared about.

“…Is that true, Moira?” Andrew asked quietly, desperately searching her face for any sign that she felt differently. “I know… I know I’m not as good at art as Jason, or as smart, but I-“

“Oh, Andrew, no, that’s not it at all!” Moira cried, reaching out and cradling his cheek. “You’re amazing. You’re one of the best friends I have! All that time we’ve spent together, it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”

He nodded glumly. “…But that’s not enough, is it?”

Now it was Moira’s turn to start crying.

“No,” she admitted, shaking her head. “It’s not.”

The love in her gaze when she turned to Jason made his heart soar, banishing his guilt and pain momentarily.

“I’m sorry, but I love him. That’s all there is to it.”

It didn’t make sense, and they both knew it. But they couldn’t deny what they felt for each other. Not after all this.

“I don’t accept this,” Jason’s father said, shaking his head. “Don’t you two know what you’re doing? You’re throwing your lives away! Jason, you’re going to be an artist someday! Are you really going to give all that up, just to be trapped in here with her?!”

“Jason,” his mother said softly, taking a gentler approach, “Ai told us that if you two agreed to never see each other again, then you’ll be able to return to your normal lives, all of us will. Won’t that be just fine? You and Skye can be together again, and this can all be just a little bump in the road!”

He couldn’t believe this. Hadn’t they heard a word he was saying?

“…I don’t want that, though,” he said, shaking his head. “I want Moira! I’m in love with her, mom! I could never push her away just for a nice, safe future! I couldn’t!”

“Love… what do you even mean?” His father asked, shaking his head. “A few feelings? What, the urge to hold her? Kiss her? Jason, believe me, I know. I’ve felt that way before, too, about your mother. And those feelings might be wonderful now, but it’s not like you two can ever be together! The match between you and Skye is perfect for the Bunker, don’t you understand that? That’s real love. Being with someone for the good of the future. What you’re feeling right now… those hormones…”

He fumbled for words, his face heating up.

“…W-Well, for all you know, you two could hate each other tomorrow! But if you listen to Ai, then everything will work out okay, like it always has!”

A bitter, mocking laugh came from the cell across from them. Jason’s father was so flustered he forgot what he was trying to say.

Jason took that opportunity to address his father himself.

“Dad, I know you think that this is a mistake. And yeah, maybe you’re right. I’ve read a lot of love stories… and in a lot of them, things don’t work out. People get into fights and stop being together. And I can’t say for certain that Moira and I… that we’ll still love each other. I just don’t know.”

He turned to Skye.

“Maybe you and Ai are right. Maybe things would be better if I chose Skye. But that’s not what I want, dad, don’t you get it? I want Moira. And if that’s wrong, well, isn’t it okay for me to make my own mistakes, rather than just doing what Ai tells me to?”

His parents let out horrified gasps. Kate and Andrew were stunned. Skye looked like her head was about to explode.

“Where is this coming from?” His mother asked.

Jason couldn’t say. But he knew that whatever mistakes he made, if Moira was with him, somehow it didn’t seem so bad.

“You two are ruining your lives,” Kate said, shaking her head. She’d always been a distant older sister, but right now she looked heartbroken.

“Please, just think this over,” his mother urged him, but Jason remained adamant.

His father, though, was upset. “We’ll see about this!” He blustered. “I’ll be talking to her parents immediately! This won’t stand!”

He stormed off in a huff, the rest of Jason’s family following after him. That just left Andrew and Skye, who stared awkwardly at the two of them.

“…I guess I won’t see you for a while, then,” Andrew mumbled. Unlike Skye, he looked really heartbroken.

“…Guess not,” Moira murmured. She looked as crushed as he was. For the first time, Jason realized just how much they cared about one another. Even if Moira wanted to be with him, her relationship with Andrew was just as important in a lot of ways.

He turned to Skye. It was the same with him, wasn’t it?

“I’m sorry again,” Jason whispered. “And Skye, really… I did try, you know. I really did. I tried to love you as hard as I could.”

“Thank you,” Skye nodded. “And honestly… I understand a little, what you felt. When you said that you felt like you didn’t want to hold my hand forever, that was the same with me… perhaps… maybe I don’t really understand this ‘love’ as much as I thought I did.”

She looked up from her hand and tried to smile, but couldn’t. Without another word, she turned and followed Andrew out of the room.

Moira slumped back in her cell and started to cry. Jason wanted nothing more than to go and hug her tears away, but the bars between them were an impenetrable wall.

Then someone new entered the room. When they saw who it was, they were stunned.

“Chairman Jefferson?!” Jason exclaimed in disbelief. The chairman himself had come to visit them?! Why? How?! Just because they’d broken the rules?!

But it turned out that the chairman wasn’t interested in them at all. Jason and Moira watched in shock as he looked past their cells and went to stand in front of Doctor Sylvia’s. They couldn’t see the scowl on his face, but could guess he wasn’t pleased.

The doctor seemed rather displeased herself. She sat up in bed with a scowl on her face, not even standing up to greet the chairman.

“I thought you’d moved past this after last time,” the chairman said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Doctor Sylvia smirked. Beneath its playful surface was a seething glare of cold hatred.

“Hello father. I hope I haven’t caused you too much trouble.”