Chapter Sixteen: The Pariah’s Arrogance

“I did nothing,” I said, my eyes dancing with mirth. “I came here to view the activation. I have no idea what messed it up.”

Somehow I’d embraced my villainy. Scarlatte glared at me but I didn’t care. I hated this woman. I’d borne the blame and rage of hundreds of people to be here for this, and it had been worth every moment. Watching Scarlatte’s little stopgap fail.

I was going to fix it. For real. I was going to the Array, and with that knowledge, even the scorn of all these people couldn’t destroy my newfound confidence. I played a different role in front of the crowds now. A darker roll, but no less powerful.

Before the Folly, I was an inspiration. I appeared on television as a youthful dreamer with proof of how I could improve the lives of everyone. I appealed to people's hopes and dreams, and I was a genius at that, too. Possibly even greater than my scientific acumen was my ability to sway a crowd, and I knew it.

For the kids, I offered space. I offered hopes of exploring new worlds beyond the stars. I made myself Gandalf, with the wisdom to show others how to learn, if they had the talent, and then proved it.

For the adults, the common man, I offered practicality. Sunsoul could provide free power. Universal and effective unlike the solar panel movements of the past. The idea of eliminating the electric bill sat well with parents wishing they had an extra two hundred fifty dollars each month. Power companies initially wanted nothing to do with that, so the simple solution was to let them invest, before it was too late. Eliminating power as a burden on everyone was something Sunsoul absolutely could do. Soon enough it would, so if power companies wanted to stay viable, they’d best have a strong investment in the future!

They donated in droves.

Scarlatte had apparently discovered even more about Sunsoul than I had in my long years as an exile, but at its core, electricity was probably the most valuable thing about Sunsoul. That was power in my hands. That gave me the money I’d needed to start with the government.

For the politicians, I offered jobs. I offered a goal. I offered stability and I offered prestige. A politician supporting Violette Fontaine was supporting progress. Tax dollars sent to me were directly improving lives, making jobs, creating free power, and most of all, giving the people magic. What voter wouldn’t support that? Hold up a big enough carrot and not only did I get foreign countries interested in the project, but I actually got Republicans and Democrats to agree on something.

I had realized at a young age that people all wanted to feel special. Few actually were, but everyone wanted to feel that they were the center of the universe. There were a few obvious exceptions… the devout priests who actually bought into their religions, the nuns, the die-hards peace-makers, who usually made barely a lick of difference on any grand scale. I admired those people, but I could never be like them.

The vast majority of people, however, were selfish. My niche was anyone who wanted to believe themselves to be a star, and it turned out that there were a lot who did. With my Helios Array, I offered the opportunity for that to be realized. I was like the lottery, but with my Array in the sky, anyone would be able to see if they were magic. If they were touched. If they were special. Everyone wanted their chance and my mission to the sun held all those dreams on its monumental wings.

No longer.

I was the villain now. I was The Traitor. The Betrayer. The Destroyer of the World. Normally my presence might have been enough to cause a full on riot. Normally, I wasn’t channeling massive amounts of Sunsoul.

I’d saved the lives of three idiots when I’d realized the activation had failed. I was strong enough to maintain my shield and build custom ones to keep the morons from burning. The fools had left the safety of the human powered shields after the Activation began. Had the tower worked they would have been fine, but even I would think twice before trusting it immediately. No one was supposed to step out of the man-made shield for at least an hour, but there were always some people. I almost thought they deserved the Darwin award they’d earned, but since I’d been able to save them, I did. I wasn’t a monster.

It didn’t matter though. I’d suspected Sirahn would try something to ruin the activation but I hadn’t known what. Still, no one blamed Scarlatte. No. The reason it failed had to be me. They still wanted to spit on me. I could see it. I could feel it. Yet now… I felt untouchable. The shame I’d felt, all the self doubt, the loathing I held for myself. The fear, both of being hunted by a mob, or worse killing my attackers by accident. That was all gone. I was going to the sun. I was going to the array. I had the chance to fix my mistake. I could finally find out what was wrong. If I couldn’t… well. I didn’t even want to think about that.

It was icing on the cake to me, watching Scarlatte and all her little employees scrambling. The barrier had risen for a few seconds, bright and wonderful. Scarlatte was giving the people everything I’d hoped to provide, once upon a time. Then it had failed, and I could not stop the smug grin. I didn’t know what Sirahn had done to sabotage the damn tower but it was no wonder the people protected by my shield glared at me. I was sure my face had a positively goblin-esque expression as I watched my one-time protege fail.

Still, the crowds didn’t dare do anything. Not after seeing just how powerful I truly was. Not after I’d saved people’s lives when Scarlatte could not. The ability to use Sunsoul was not equal. To this day, I had never met anyone who could channel even close to as much as I could. It was like an internal capacity of some sort. I’d always equated batteries. Most of the people who could merely see Sunsoul were like dead Triple As. If you plugged them into an old flashlight they might still be able to provide some light but that was about it. Those who could manipulate it were like double A’s, or maybe C’s. Those were all the people helping with the barrier. Scarlatte herself was perhaps a car battery.

I was a fucking power plant.

I enjoyed reminding all of these normal people that I did have the ability to kill them. I was always armed. As special as they wanted to think themselves to be, it was me who had brought Sunsoul to life. It was honestly a wonder I hadn’t slaughtered anyone already. More than enough mobs had come at me just asking for it, but I’d always refrained. Always assured of my guilt despite never fully knowing what had happened up there. Alone, afraid, guilty for what I had caused, I could never stand up for myself. But now?

With the chance to fix my mistake ahead, all of that doubt was gone. I felt like a new woman, and once upon a time, I had lived for my audience as much as I had for science. A villain? I could be a villain. It was just another role to give the people. If everything broke, and I truly did destroy the world, at least I could be the one everyone blamed after I finally died.

“What do you know about the attack, Violette?” Scarlatte repeated, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You haven’t shown your face in years and our activation fails right as you decide to attend? I don’t believe it.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. It sounds to me like something burst up there,” I said with a grin. “That little bump? Was that a big deal?”

“This was not a mistake or a failure. This was direct sabotage. A murder attempt. Gunshots were fired up there, Violette, and that bump was a bomb. People died. Do you understand?” Scarlatte said, her oh-so-wise condescending attitude making me want to stab her.

I sneered. Of course, I understood. Always nagging me, always pretending like she knew anything, forgetting that she was my protege. My student. Not the other way around.

“Well it sounds to me like you should have made your towers more secure. No one sabotaged my Array,” I said with a shrug, leaning into the sneers and jeers I could feel around me.

“If only someone had,” Scarlatte quipped.

I ignored the barb, confident in my superiority this time. The people didn’t care though. I wasn’t even wrong but they knew who their enemy was, no matter what I said. Their anger rolled off of me like rain off a windshield. They hated me now, but when I reached the array and fixed the Sun, everything would change. They would adore me once more.

Perhaps then, I might deign to keep Scarlatte’s little towers running. They certainly were pretty things.

Scarlatte sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you care at all? Is greed for glory and fame all there ever was to you?”

“Greed? I’ve never been greedy in my entire life! I wanted to propel this world into a new age of comfort. I wanted to help people. I didn’t even get the chance to make a mistake, but I’m the scapegoat, even now when I had nothing to do with this latest failure of yours, and don’t you dare deny it! You rode my downfall straight to the top, so don’t spend even one minute pretending to be high and mighty. No one’s ever cared about me these past twenty years. I’ve been demonized, ridiculed, and outright attacked more than once. I don’t know what went wrong up in your tower any better than anyone else down here, but here I am, being blamed for it as always. I just wanted to watch the show, and maybe provide a little extra security. Without which your towers would’ve gotten three more people killed, I might add! So do I care about some random employees of yours getting killed? No. I don’t give a rat’s ass. Knowing you, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this were just an accident that you were trying to make look like a sabotage! Three out of five towers work. Sixty percent reliability. On billions of tax dollars. That’s a failure in any high school in the country, Scarlatte. And just so I am absolutely crystal clear, it had nothing to do with me.”

Scarlatte seethed and I preened. Even better, I got to watch as some of the opinions of the crowd around us began to turn against the aging doctor.

Truthfully, I did care. I didn’t want anyone to be hurt, but what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me. Yes, I’d attended the activation unexpectedly, but I’d always been invited. I hadn’t done anything, nor had I even really colluded. I was just asked to show up.

Did people really die up there?

Inwardly, it gnawed at me, a little. A small lump in my throat. I wasn’t a monster. If I was, there would be a damn site more people dead at my hand, and I would’ve been fully justified by self-defense. Being an outcast, a living cause of the apocalypse, the real wonder was that someone hadn’t shot me.

“Just… go, Violette. Before you start a riot,” Scarlatte said with a sigh, giving up the fight. “I know you, of all people, can walk out of here whenever you wish.”

The old woman had spent nearly two hours up there in her tower somewhere, doing who knew what. Getting her story straight sounded like a perfectly good excuse to me. Sirahn might not have done anything and it might have been a legitimate accident, for all I knew. I smelled blood in the water and grinned as she relented.

“If you insist. Does this mean I’m not invited to the next activation ceremony any longer? I’ve had such a good time today!”

Scarlatte, to my disappointment, did not rise to the bait. Instead she just looked… lost.

“There… probably won’t be a next time, Violette. Unless you are far smarter than I think you are and find a way to stop that second mission to the Sun… I suspect we’ll all be dead soon.” Her words were quiet, meant only for me.

I blanched, somehow shocked that she knew about the mission to the Array. It took only a moment for me to realize I was being absurd. Of course, she knew. I was sure anyone with a lick of sense did. The ship was remaining stable much more often, and the chances of finding it within a reasonable timeframe must have been getting good enough to try. I’d done my own research after all.

Something about her words felt ominous. Like she knew something was going to go horribly wrong and could do nothing to stop it. It didn’t matter though. I could fix what my stupid ‘colleagues’ broke. Where they failed, I would succeed. Smart as all of them were…

I teared up for a moment as I thought of them. As good friends, and as good people as anyone I could ever have hoped to meet, the lot of them. Even little Hanna, the only one who couldn’t see it at all. And Angelo… god, a blind man could’ve seen the crush he’d had on me, never mind that he would never be my type. They were all… wonderful. A day hadn’t gone by that I hadn’t thought about them, wondering what had happened. Even so, I’d always known I was superior. Whatever they had broken, wouldn’t have happened had I just been there.

I turned and walked away before anyone could see the wetness in my eyes, and stopped dead as I came face to face with Matt.

“M-Matt?” I asked, shocked. I somehow hadn’t expected to find him here. My relationship with the old bartender had felt separate from all of this. Distant. “I didn’t… isn’t the bar open right now?”

Matt cocked an eyebrow. He’d never been a very expressive man, and that didn’t change now..

“Closed. Wanted to see all this. I thought you said you weren’t coming?” he replied, arms folded across his chest.

I stepped beside him and we began to walk off towards one of the exits. No one would be able to leave for at least another hour or two, though Scarlatte was right about me. I could make a barrier of Sunsoul and go wherever I wanted, sunlight or no.

“I changed my mind,” I said.

He grunted. I hadn’t been with him long enough to be sure, but it seemed like dissatisfaction to me. He was often quiet like that.

“You sounded pretty smug about this whole thing,” he said. “Thought everybody really had you pegged wrong, y’know? You were shunned and mistreated for something that wasn’t even really your fault. Seein’ you up there, laughing at all the folks that have staked their lives on this…?”

He sighed and pulled out a cigarette before lighting it up.

“I wasn’t laughing at that. I was mocking Scarlatte. There’s a difference.”

“Don’t feel that way. Don’t feel that way at all. Seeing you up there, all snide… It was like watching a different person from the woman I’ve been speaking with these last few weeks. Like you just… turned off the real you for a show. Why? What do you gain by watching this fail?” he asked.

I flinched. Dammit.

“I… they hate me anyway. I just… so I’m not fucking perfect. It was nice, watching someone else fail. Especially her after the way she dragged my name through the mud!”

He leaned against a wall and I joined him there. I held out a hand and he handed me a cigarette, and lit it for me.

“Guess I can’t blame you for that. But… do you want to be better than her? Or do you want to feel good?” he asked.

“I—What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just like I said. I feel like you’re better than that. You can be better than that. Than all of this. You weren’t here to protect anyone, and you didn’t save those people because you cared. You did it out of spite.”

“So… what? Are we done? You no longer want anything to do with me, now that you know I can’t live up to the… the fucking fantasy I put on the tv when I was younger?”

He grinned. “Nah. It’s not like I’ve been dating you for your boundless altruism. You’ve still got a great rack after all.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

His grin widened as he leaned back against the wall and put his hands behind his head, staring up through the barrier of Sunsoul into the sinking sun. “Still. Would it be so bad, trying to live up to what you were?”

I didn’t really know what to say to that. I watched the barrier of Sunsoul with him as they finally began closing the hangar doors. The doctors and workers maintaining the shield all looked exhausted. They hadn’t anticipated needing to keep the barrier up for so long.

“I’m trying, Matt,” I said. “I…. I’m gonna be gone. Maybe for a long time. I’m not really sure. But… I’m going to fix this. Fix all of this. Then these stupid towers won’t be needed anymore. Things will grow green again, the animals will stop turning into huge monsters, and we’ll be able to fly again. And no one will get burned playing Hotrush. I’m going to fix it all. This was just the first step.”

“All that, huh? Wish I had a beer. I’d toast to that,” he said. Instead of toasting, he plucked the cigarette out of my mouth and kissed me.

I flushed from head to toe. His business!? He’d lose customers! I was already a fucking leper but he wasn’t! He’d… he…

After a few moments, I stopped worrying and just melted into the kiss. He was an adult. He knew the consequences.

When we finally parted, he winked at me, before handing back the cigarette. Then, he headed off into the crowd, wading through an ocean of disapproving glares, and amused laughter, leaving me flushed and… horny. The damn bastard.

Somehow, though, he’d convinced me that I’d played this wrong. I wished I’d behaved differently. The despair in Scarlatte’s voice nagged at me, and I wondered if I’d caused that somehow. I feared what she might know that I did not, with my years separated from academia. That doomed look…

I had to go on this mission. I had to fix my mistake. That was the way forward. The best chance for me to be a hero again.

…Isn’t it?