Price of a Bounty - By S. L. Wallace Page 0,15
a business trip to the Realm of Mediterra. We’d needed a special pass to be allowed inside their borders. My father had explained that most Mediterrans didn’t like to do business with Terenians. We were fortunate that one of their corporations was willing to negotiate with our company. I saw possibilities in Mediterra that I’d never before imagined. If they could do all that, why couldn’t we?
In just a few months, my views about life had changed completely. I’d decided that I wanted to devote my life to improving our realm. I began by using my family’s influence and wealth to serve the less fortunate in any way I could. My father would have forbidden most of my actions. That only forced me to find creative ways to finance my projects. That was the start of it all, of everything that was important.
-Keira-
Crossroads
I thought about Richard’s words. “You can live, truly live, and stop simply surviving.” It was an invitation.
I’d had opportunities to join the Resistance before, but no one had ever given me a good reason to even consider it. Help people I didn’t know? Why? No one had ever helped me or anyone I knew unless there was something in it for them. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Richard had just reminded me that Scott had helped me and was always willing to help me. But that wasn’t the same as helping strangers. I wondered, had Scott helped others, besides me and April? I sensed that my life had come to a crossroads, again.
The first time I’d been at a crossroads had been about a month before my sixteenth birthday. Scott and I had had a conversation in which he tried to convince me to join the military. He said I could easily pass the same tests he had.
I knew what he meant. He meant blood tests, genetic tests. I’d heard the rumors about Ramsey Corps and the military. It was common knowledge that a number of corporations dabbled in genetics, but some lines should never be crossed. I believed the rumors that said Ramsey Corps had crossed the line, and I didn’t want any part of that! Every part of me belonged to me, and I wanted to keep it that way.
***
Late one night, we sat on the window seat in my bedroom. I stared at my reflection in the glass.
“I’ve heard the rumors. Can you tell me they aren’t true?”
Scott was silent. I shifted my gaze to look at his reflection.
“Are you really all right with them taking parts of you, owning you in that way, after what they did to Mom and Dad?”
“Ramsey Corps is independent of the Gov,” he insisted. “They didn’t do anything to Mom and Dad.”
During the last few wars, leaders of corporations that designed weaponry and scientists who dabbled in either germ warfare or genetic screening had become wealthy and powerful, the crème of the Elite. Toying with genetics had allowed germ warfare to reach new levels. It had been reported that our military could now target specific populations. And, genetic screening was the best way to determine which people could be trained and medicated to be the fastest, the strongest, the best. Because of genetic studies, Terene had won the last world war.
“Don’t kid yourself, Scott. Ramsey Corps and others like it are the Gov. They created the Divide. You know as well as I that without the Divide, Mom and Dad would still be here.”
“Keira, you need a job, a livelihood, and right now, you have no training. You haven’t even finished school.”
“I’ll finish. I just need to find a place to stay.”
I’d been trying to figure out how I could survive yet keep my autonomy. Joining the military certainly would have been a means of survival, but it would have meant forfeiting my independence. I wasn’t willing to do that.
***
Scott wasn’t happy about it, but I’d made my decision. It had been a path of difficult times, cold times, hungry times and painful times, but I’d kept my independence. I’d also made a name for myself, and many throughout Tkaron respected and feared me.
What Richard was offering was different. He wasn’t asking me to give up my independence. He was asking me to use my independence to help others.
He’d been waiting patiently, had given me plenty of time to think about his offer, but I still had some questions. “Why would I want to help people? Why do you?”
“Life shouldn’t be like this, this Divide that we have