vance

EVEN THE COUNCIL room is cold, though the heating is supposed to be up at maximum.

The frost creeps inside, slipping through the large windows, hitting every single person in the room, engulfing the circular chamber in low temperatures. I feel it sink into my clothing, seeping through the fabric of my suit and my dress shirt, leaving me with cold skin and purplish fingernails. My eyes feel raw and uncomfortably dry; my age-old, bad sleeping habits have left the skin around them stinging: a dark pink, bleeding colour.

I listen with rapt attention to the conversation of the Inner Circle, my fingers poised on the plasma screen projected from my data chip, ready to move, to type, to note down what is important, what could be important, whatever becomes relevant.

As per usual, I speak little, preferring to use my other senses to formulate possibilities, to slowly get to conclusions. Most of the time, when I come to a suitable answer to an issue, the conversation has already moved on, and so I keep it to myself. I shouldn't keep things to myself, not if they'll benefit the State, but I don't want to interrupt.

Gradually, the conversation draws out onto a tangent of matters of little importance and my focus begins to slip in and out, my gaze often straying to the large glass window that makes up more than half of the council room in favour of a concrete wall. This is the only building, along with sections of the medical bureau, where concrete infrastructure has been used for some form of privacy, for keeping things hidden.

A dull white light from the sun traces our physical contours, lining us in a soft glow. Somehow it makes everything feel so much colder.

I can't recall the last time I've ever felt so miserable, so guilty. The greater part of me wishes I'd never accepted the post in here. The government trusts me. They trust me.

I follow a code, I follow the rules:

I am their soldier.

Expectations are theirs to set, and mine to live up to.

This is all I have left. This is what I am, this is who I am.

I have become a part of them.

Nevertheless, the ice haunts me.

The ghosts haunt me, too, and spit wisps of frosty air at me in a reawakening of their ever fading last breaths, as an endless, recurring reminder. And they wail, oh, they wail. You could have saved us, they cry. Their voices fade in and out of my mind. You could have...

Now, they interrupt my careful, calculating thought pattern with white hands that stretch out from the flesh of my brain, batting away at my silver stream of consciousness, causing it to break. I shake my head. The probing fingers, though reluctant, disintegrate into mist, occasionally reforming, and I gradually regain my focus. I keep my mouth shut, unwilling to say anything until my opinion is required and so I listen, still, waiting.

It does not take much longer before I begin to tire of their endless, petty conversation that seems to be going nowhere. I have no opinion on it; now is the right time to briefly excuse myself from the room.

I stand. "Excuse me, Council," I say politely. The chatter cedes and all faces turn to me. "I shall be back right away."

I am granted permission to leave. I feel a pair of blue eyes on my back, and am only relieved of that feeling as the door shuts behind me.

I make for the bathroom, where I spend the five minutes I need alone to wash my hands with unnecessary care. I just wring them underneath the lukewarm water for some time, watching as the soap bubbles slide down the lengths of my fingers and hang there like miniature, flimsy stalactites before the running water shakes them apart like wind would do to snowflakes across a white plain. I gently shake my hands in the sink before patting them dry on a paper towel.

I can't help but check my appearance in the shining, metal faucet: there are no mirrors here, of course. My bangs have come loose from where I gelled them to my head this morning, and I have lost my strict look. I decide to leave them there, parted to one side, curving loosely and lightly upon my forehead. Much better.

My stride holds more confidence as I return to the council room. I type in my five-digit passcode, allow for a retina scan, and enter. The metal door slides shut behind me, and wordlessly I take my seat. My attention is more focused, now. The ghosts have decided to grant me some peace.

"We do not have the time for this," Diana Malcolm, our President, starts. Her voice holds a tone of agitation. "We must find a way to secure the city whilst building it. Our priority is the wall, not the housing."

"But the people must have shelters," Adamík Beneš argues gently.

"Spare us your people-loving and focus," Jonathan snaps. He has little patience, this man. I dislike him tremendously. "The wall must be our priority. There's no bloody point in trying to control a population if they're all dead. It's common sense." He shoots me a glance that would have made me recoil in my earlier years, knowing that I will most likely side with Beneš.

"Personally, I have to agree with you," Ethan Sengdala says. I stay silent, running their voices over in my head, thinking about what they have just said. I have a different opinion.

"Thank you," Jonathan replies. His tone is beyond unsettling.

If Sengdala has taken note of his tone, he ignores it. Feng Zhuan, our Taiwanese diplomat, remains silent. Jonathan looks at him, expecting him to just say something, but he looks down into his lap to avoid eye contact, and thus pays him no attention. I feel something like amusement stir up in me at Jonathan's obvious annoyance.

"Common sense," he growls. "If Ramesh was here, he'd agree with me. The Wall is more important than the housing. Otherwise, they'll die." Malcolm is humming her approval of sorts as he speaks. "For the sake of- a  roof over their heads will not protect them from what's out there!" He flings his hand to the side, gesturing viciously towards the large window, to wards the great stretch of fake, chemical snow outside.

My gaze drifts off to where he points. Snow falls from a sky streaked with grey, clouds casting great dark shadows over the plains. They are ugly things, illogical, ever-changing.

"That, out there, is what endangers the city. Our city." None of us know exactly what lies out there, beyond the horizon that is barely visible behind the cascade of falling snow.

I intervene; now is my chance to say something, or else I shall never be addressed. "The Wall is already being built," I answer. "If the people are unhappy, they will ask for changes. They will ask for a lowering in taxes, they'll ask, essentially, for a people's government. We weren't elected by the public, may I remind you; they hold onto our structure because they believe we're the only ones fit for the job. We cannot fail them."

Adamík's eyes are on me; I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. It's nice, knowing someone is on your side. Zhen appears to be undecided. I cannot blame him for that. I ignore Jonathan's stare and focus on Diana, who is listening to the point where she is clearly considering changing her mind- or, at least, considering what I've said. I must say it feels nice to have my opinion pegged down with some sort of value. My gaze strays over to Jonathan, and one hand slides down to my thigh to begin some nervous drumming with my fingers.

I know that look. I know it far too well.

I settle my gaze on Adamík. To my relief, nobody interrupts me as I continue. "We have soldiers to protect our people, we have weapons. The wall will not take much longer to finish being built; but people will need homes and shelter and food and warmth. We need to try and eradicate poverty." Something like fury rises into my voice as I turn around to meet Jonathan's eyes, this time with an unflinching stare.

My fingers stop their pitter-patter on my thigh. "You want a perfect world?" I snap. "That's how you do it."

His eyes rein me in again, silence me. I am their soldier, and nothing more.