Love Bug by H.E. Goodhue Page B

asked.
    “And that’s when they banished me from the Stele, from all cities actually,” Samuel answered. “I escaped before the ERC could silence me permanently. Of course, they couldn’t allow the citizens to know that, so they made it look like Reds attacked my car. Some poor soul was torn apart and buried in my coffin, but it wasn’t me. They made my death a spectacle and used it to further their agendas. The ERC assumed because I was outside of the city walls that I was as good as dead. They never counted on me surviving. Once I was outside the walls, I quickly realized that my Em-Pak was going to make my survival much harder because it took away my fear. It prevented my natural instincts, those feelings and senses that have allowed us to climb as far as we have on the evolutionary ladder. Fear is what kept me alive at first, kept me away from the Reds. So I worked out the method to remove my Em-Pak and then began leaking word into the cities about how it could be done.”
    “Did my father know?” Cora asked. “ I mean about your death? About the ERC and the Em-Paks? He must know now, right?”
    “I’m not sure if he does and that he’d care if he did,” Samuel said honestly. “I’ve kept tabs on him, on all of you, gleaning what small bits of information I could from newly arrived Emos and hacked ERC computer terminals. What I have pieced together about my son chills my soul. But I’m not sure how much I can really blame him. The ERC has groomed him, fostered the monster that he has become. He was young and just starting a family. I thought about taking him with me, but I didn’t want to put any of you in danger. If your father vanished, the ERC would have known something was wrong. Then the rest of you would be in danger.”
    “Yes,” Cora said coldly , “I can see how the ERC groomed Father. He was doing the same thing with me and Xander.”
    “I know,” Samuel nodded , “but from what I hear, you weren’t really cut out for the political spotlight.”
    Cora felt herself blush, those familiar waves of prickly heat now having a name and explanation. “I guess not. I just never really felt like doing what my father wanted me to do. Xander is a different story. Are you sure I can’t tell him about you?”
    “I wish we could,” Samuel said, a note of true remorse tingeing his words. “But it’s too risky. Xander is still harnessed to his Em-Pak, so there’s no telling what his response might be. It could cause his Em-Pak to malfunction and then infection wouldn’t be too far behind. It’s just too risky I’m afraid.”
    “Don’t you think you c ould convince him to have his removed?” Cora almost pleaded. She was thankful to have more than her grandfather’s image influencing her life, and even more so now that she knew he was the opposite of everything that she had been taught, but this also made her feel an emptiness, a hole where the rest of her family should be. “Couldn’t Xander be made to see the truth as well?”
    “I wish I could say,” Samuel answered. “But there really is no way to tell. From what you’ve told me , it seems that Xander is well indoctrinated by your father and the ERC. If we take his Em-Pak off, he may still react poorly and this sudden rush of emotions could kill him. Cora, it almost killed you.”
    Cora remembered the day of the crash. Walking through the woods with Remmy as he carried Xander and suddenly feeling a turbulent rush of what she now knew to be emotions flooding her body. She had believed that she was injured from the accident or maybe sick. Samuel had told her that having her Em-Pak damaged during the crash caused it to work erratically and nearly overwhelmed her body. People needed to be weaned from their Em-Paks. Cora’s had just suddenly stopped working. Had Remmy not brought her to help as soon as he had, and Samuel not removed Cora’s Em-Pak, she would have suffered a massive heart attack from the strain and died. Even if she had