Page 24 of Retrograde

“I’m not here to answer your questions,” he retorts sharply, the look on his face the most hostile I’ve seen yet.

That does the opposite of discouraging me. Men like him are at their most vulnerable when they get worked up. That’s when you need to strike, but only ever in a way they never see coming.

“You pride yourself on what you do. You think it’s right. So you should have no problem explaining the reasoning.” I shrug. “Humour me. So many people did what I did, even though they were openly opposed to the Continuum before. And you know as well as I do that it was mostly due to blackmail. But many have supported it from the start. So many war criminals. So many traitors. What makes me so special?”

He shakes his head, the corners of his mouth stretching down in a sneer. “Don’t play dumb with me, Hotshot. You know exactly how much of a symbol you once were.” To my shock, he reaches out and grabs my chin, tilting my face, inspecting it from every angle. “Your freckled, angelic fucking face was fucking everywhere. The young girl who ventured between the soldiers and the tanks, who pranced through occupied streets and danced around combat zones like it was nothing, and took the most stunning pictures.” He traces his thumb over my bottom lip, slowly and almost sadly. “A prodigy war photographer with a face like yours. It was like you were born to do something that no kid should ever have to do. People went crazy. So many demonstrations all over the world. For a minute there, many of us believed that you were going to manage what all the negotiations failed to do.”

His words are like a dagger through my heart, twisting and twisting. Reopening the pit of anxiety I will forever associate with that time. That time, when I was just a clueless teenager with a hobby and inadvertently set in motion something enormous that I was then powerless to stop.

“I’m sorry that I failed,” I say quietly.

“I don’t blame you for that. No one in their right mind can blame you for that,” he assures me, and I suppress the urge to question the rightness of his mind out loud. “You were such an icon, Riley. Our icon. You gave so many people so much hope.” The earnestness of his tone threatens to bring tears to my eyes. “And so, naturally, many young girls wanted to be like you and do what you did. And no matter what their parents said, dozens of those little girls snuck into the streets, sought out ongoing riots and shootouts, and got themselves killed.”

I groan, my stomach churning unpleasantly, threatening to expel my earlier meal. “I know,” I whisper, shuddering. “I’m more sorry for that than you’ll ever know.” I’m surprised to catch him observing me with something like compassion. “I didn’t know any of that would happen. I never knew they would turn me into a media sensation. I just ... wanted to take some pictures. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than that.” He opens his mouth like he wants to interrupt me but then lets me carry on. “Like many others who signed the anti-Continuum petition, my parents lost their jobs. Prices of everything skyrocketed. We still had the online connection to the rest of the world. I was good at social media. And I entered a few photography competitions to see if I could win some money. I didn’t think I would.”

“But you did.”

“I won every single one. And my prize wasn’t just money, but also commissions for more of my pictures. Newspapers and magazines from around the world reached out to have me cover the conflict all over. They even provided me with an armoured car and a driver. They paid me well ... I had four younger siblings who would have starved otherwise. I never knew all those little girls would die because of me.”

“Of course not,” he tells me with deceiving tenderness. “How could you have? You were just a girl, too. I know you were too young to foresee the consequences of your actions then. And do you know why I know that?”

His tone turns nasty very abruptly, and all air evaporates from my lungs. I shake my head slowly.

“I know because I had a baby sister. And she worshipped you.”

“Oh no,” I gasp.

“Oh yes. And so, when mustards finally made it to my old city, and when armed protests broke out in our streets, she started sneaking out with our family camera ...”

“Oh no.”

“She took pictures. Some were pretty good for a twelve-year-old. But she didn’t win any awards. Instead, a stray piece of shrapnel caught her in the eye, and it went right into her brain. It was me who found her hours later when we went searching for her.”

“Aron ... I am so sorry for that. I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, don’t apologise for that.” He waves his arm dismissively. “I may have blamed you for it then, for a while, but that wasn’t your fault either.” He takes a deep breath. “But I was still just a teenage Aron Krasnik back then. I found my baby sister dead, but I was still just me. As eager to fight for my country as any young idiot. I enlisted with eight of my friends. A month later, I was the only one of us still alive.

“But I was still just Aron. Just Aron with a broken heart. Our army capitulated. My friends’ sacrifice was completely pointless. I went back home to find out that after the loss of her only daughter and her youngest child, my mother had started drinking. Heavily. She died of liver cirrhosis soon after because our medical care system had collapsed, and there was no one to treat her.

“And I was still me, only angrier. And from a distance, I watched that hopeless war unfold through your photos. And I admired you, because you, still just a young girl back then, managed to do a hell of a lot more than I ever did fighting. You made the world not only see what went on but also feel it. You made the world care. I think you were a part of the reason why I joined the resistance. You inspired me. You inspired many of us, all of us.” He pauses, taking a deep, tired breath.

“While I was away, a malfunctioning military plane crashed into our building. Levelled it to the ground. My father and my brothers were all dead.

“Cue in devastated Aron. But still Aron. Then Synechord dropped the bombs. Boom.” He pantomimes an explosion with his hands. “A belt of nukes, running from the north to the south. Our continent, forever torn apart into two halves. Millions dead. Whole territories poisoned. Well, what do you think? Did that finally do it?”

“Do what? What do you mean?”

“You’ll get it in a minute,” he promises coldly. “You went quiet for some time after the bombs. Everything went quiet after the bombs.” All light disappears from his eyes, leaving them black pits. “But then you resurfaced after the lockdown, more active than ever. Abandoned cities, protests, empty food aisles in shops, hospitals, mass graves, patients with radiation poisoning and mustards wherever you looked. Our motherland’s mortal throes. You were our window into a disappearing world. I don’t think I’ve ever admired you more than back then.”

The quiet admission is like a chest punch, knocking the air right out of me.

“But then, one day, out of fucking nowhere, you showed up wearing Continuum colours. Feeding them information, documenting their progress, parading for their media, like an obedient, trained fucking monkey. Strutting around Everrise and posing for photos with Volker’s daughter like you two were sisters.”

“Aron, you don’t understand!” I interrupt him with desperation in my voice. “They made⁠—”

“They made you an offer you couldn’t refuse,” he finishes the sentence for me. “Let me guess? Something to do with your family. Did they threaten to harm them unless you went along with it?”

“No,” I say quietly. “They offered them safe passage to the Oceanics in exchange for my cooperation.”