Chapter 9 - The Last InterviewAva asked to see Kael one more time.
They met in a small conference room at division headquarters.
He entered without the swagger she remembered.
No aggressive posture.
No audience.
He sat.
“You look different without the fake specialist rank.”
“You look different when you’re not ordering people around.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Ava placed a photocopy of the old ethics-study card between them.
Kael froze.
“Where did you get that?”
“You kept yours.”
His eyes moved toward her.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
Kael looked at the card.
“My father used to keep everything. Receipts. Notes. Business cards. Guess I inherited it.”
“Still not true.”
He smiled faintly.
“You really enjoy interviews.”
“No.”
Kael’s smile disappeared.
He touched the edge of the paper.
“The woman running that course said something.”
“What?”
“She said the hardest time to report a bad system is after you’ve benefited from it.”
Ava swallowed.
Kael continued.
“At twenty-eight, I thought it sounded dramatic.”
“That was my mother.”
“I know now.”
“You didn’t know then?”
“No.”
“When did you find out?”
“After your investigation.”
Ava studied him.
“Why did you use the code?”
Kael stared down.
“Because normal channels failed.”
“That’s the procedural answer.”
He looked up.
Ava waited.
Finally, he said, “Because Bell was right.”
The transferred soldier.
The man who refused to shake Kael’s hand.
“I had become part of it.”
Kael’s fingers tightened around the copied card.
“I kept telling myself I was different from Tolland because I didn’t manipulate files.”
“You were different.”
“That doesn’t mean better.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“One night I found the card in an old box. I remembered what your mother said.”
“What exactly?”
Kael closed his eyes.
Then recited it.
“If you ever become the person your younger self would have reported, report anyway.”
Ava’s throat tightened.
Her mother had said things like that.
Sharp.
Uncomfortable.
Impossible to forget once they mattered.
“You used the code.”
“Yes.”
“And then waited.”
“Eleven months.”
“Why did you start provoking people when the observers arrived?”
Kael looked ashamed.
“I heard rumors.”
“You suspected me.”
“Not immediately.”
“When?”
“The motor pool.”
“What happened?”
“You corrected me.”
Ava frowned.
“I never corrected you.”
“You did.”
“When?”
“I gave a private an order that contradicted the maintenance chief. You asked me which written procedure I was following.”
Ava remembered.
“You got angry.”
“Because you didn’t back down.”
“That made you think I was an investigator?”
“No.”
Kael looked at her.
“It made me hope.”
Ava said nothing.
“I’d spent months waiting for someone who wasn’t scared of the same things everybody else was scared of.”
“So you knocked down my tray.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“That was incredibly stupid.”
“Yes.”
“You publicly humiliated me to test whether I had authority.”
“Yes.”
“You understand that even if the rest of this story ends well, that remains wrong.”
“Yes.”
Ava leaned forward.
“Good.”
Kael looked at the table.
“Your mother would probably hate what I became.”
Ava’s expression hardened.
“Don’t use her that way.”
Kael looked up.
“You don’t get to borrow dead people to punish yourself.”
Silence.
“Then what do I do?”
“Live people are harder.”
He frowned.
Ava stood.
“Apologize to them.”
“All of them?”
“As many as will listen.”
“What if they don’t?”
“That’s their right.”
“What if they never forgive me?”
“That’s also their right.”
Kael absorbed it.
At the door, Ava stopped.
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“My mother’s code worked because you used it.”
Kael stared at her.
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
She faced him.
“You don’t get credit for becoming part of the problem. But you do get responsibility for what you do afterward.”
Kael nodded slowly.
Ava opened the door.
“What happens to the observation program?”
“It’s gone.”
“Because of Harlan?”
“Because a program created to expose misuse of power started believing its own power didn’t require limits.”
Kael gave a tired laugh.
“So everybody failed.”
Ava considered that.
“No.”
“Who didn’t?”
May you like
“The people who finally spoke.”
She left.
