The Soul Continuum Read Free Page B

algorithms before we arrived.
    I sit cross-legged in the grass with one of them scuttling across the back of my hand. It tickles, and I laugh. I could probably sit for hours just watching it move back and forth, but it also makes me wonder: why did Mother make them? Why did she go to so much trouble to make Saliel like home? I thought she wanted to cure me of my perpetual happiness because it is killing me, but instead, she is trying to make everything perfect for me. Perhaps she feels the same duality that I do.
    â€œSalomi!”
    I recognize Candice’s voice—she’s a girl I met a week ago—and allow the ladybug to make its way back onto the leaf, even though I know that neither of them is real. With my hand shielding my eyes from the sun, I look at the path fifty paces away and see my new friend waving to me, and I wave back. She has two others with her, both of them wearing knee-length dresses of pink and blue. They look a lot younger than me, twins perhaps, and they are certainly younger than Candice, who will be seventeen next year.
    â€œCome on, lazy,” she shouts, “we’ve been waiting for you all afternoon. The tide is almost out.”
    â€œComing,” I shout back and chase after them, just losing sight of them as they run back along the path into the cover of overhanging oaks. I can hear them laughing as they run, and as usual, I feel the same surge of euphoria flood my body as I race to catch up. “Wait!”
    It takes about a minute for me to reach the exit of the tree-lined avenue to see the three girls wading into the waves. They laugh hysterically as the water soaks them, and with my own excitement peaking, I cannot wait to join them. I’m breathless already, but I quicken my pace all the same, feeling the warm itch of sand creep between my toes as I close the gap and splash into the shallows.
    To my right, a little over half a mile away on the rocky shore, like an enormous lighthouse (though far taller), the Absorption Tower reaches for wisps of cloud, and its conical shape blurs with each jarring footfall. I would not usually give it a second thought, but as I reach Candice, it looms as a backdrop to my friend for one alarming moment, and its form is perfectly revealed. It is not the tower I have come to recognize since my arrival. It is something terrible. Something abominable. I am not looking directly at it, though. My attention is firmly fixed on Candice as she introduces me to her two new friends.
    â€œMelista, Praynia, this is Salomi, the girl I told you about.”
    I smile at them radiantly, filling up with excited energy at the prospect of getting to know even more new friends, but at the same time, there is a creeping fear running cold through my mind, growing every second. I am not looking at the tower. Why? Why am I not looking at it? Why am I acting like there is nothing wrong?
    â€œHello,” I say to the girls. “When did you get here?”
    â€œTwo days ago,” says Melista, the taller of the twins. “Our parents hid us in cargo boxes. Did you have to hide too to get here?”
    â€œYes,” is all I say as the withdrawing tide runs cold around our ankles. There is a long pause while the girls wait for me to elaborate. It is not my increasing anxiety about the tower stalling words from me, but my fascination with the girls’ hair. Deepest black, with a glowing sheen, almost like the feathers of a raven, and I am truly taken by their beauty. The twins are not identical, but they each have features that make them adorable: Melista has a button nose and a twinkle in her eyes; Praynia has the smallest mouth with the lips puckering to one side in a cute smirk. But though I am won over by their sweetness, what I desperately want to do is look at the tower and confirm what it is I thought I saw. There is a part of me willing my eyes to move, almost frantic, wanting me to scream with frustration, but I am still looking at