CHAPTER 13 - WITH HER HAND ON HIS

“You know, you’re not what I was expecting a class 13 to be like,” Captain Wayfinder sat down across from Laico on her dining table, passing him a glass of water.

“Thank you,” Laico took the glass with both hands, gently covering her fingers with his for a brief moment.

For some reason, she didn’t hate his touch. The way he looked into her eyes as he did so, the way he had been seemingly honest from the moment he told her that Torra was freeing the class 12s, something about the way he conducted himself felt attractive to her. She was curious, what was his…

“End game?” Laico said with a slight smile.

“Excuse me?” Captain Wayfinder replied.

“You’re wondering what my end game is.” Laico said, matter of factly.

“Is it wrong for me to be curious about that? You delivered yourself to the doorstep of the person whose sole purpose in life is to put people like you behind bars. You didn’t really come just because you thought I was attractive did you?

I mean, I know that I am certainly not exceptionally beautiful or anything. So how did we end up here Laico?” She leaned forward while making eye contact.

Laico sighed looking down for a moment before he looked deeply into her eyes.

“My dream, for my life, is to fall in love with someone who I can be completely honest with. Someone that can know who I am, what I am, and like me for it. I want to be in a romantic relationship with someone who knows and can love the real me. The class 13 me,” Laico spoke softly. If his tone was anything to go by, he was sincere.

If he weren’t a class 13, perhaps she would have believed him. She really wanted to believe him. However from class 10 to Torra, she knew that every one of them had a compulsion towards a “project”. For her father, that had been white genocide. For Torra, it was turning everyone into birds.

Laico had one, but he wasn’t telling her about it. He wanted her to believe that he didn’t have one but if she were to believe him, she would need evidence. Wait a minute. Why would she need evidence? It would just be forged? Could she trust that evidence? What on earth was she just thinking? Captain Wayfinder chided herself.

“Don’t chide yourself, you’re right to be distrustful of my motives based on your past experiences.” Laico interrupted her thoughts. It was slightly uncanny how he managed to guess them so accurately.

“Co…”

Before she could continue she found his finger on her lips.

“Let me speak this time,” Laico began. Seeing as she closed her lips he moved his hand down, to cover her outstretched one.

“The reason you can’t catch Torra, is because you don’t really understand how class 13s are different from those you’ve put in classes 10-12. You are aware that those in classes 10-12 all have some world changing idea that they feel compelled to create, right?”

Captain Wayfinder nodded.

“And it is because of their compulsion that you were able to catch the majority of them. Correct?”

Captain Wayfinder nodded again.

“Well, for class 13s, it is not a compulsion. Yes, we have a ‘project’ but it does not supersede our judgment. It can never compel us to act…” Laico leaned forward.

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Captain Wayfinder’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

“That’s why we have never been able to catch even a glimpse of Torra. He’s perfectly, 100% sane. With a class 13 level of intelligence, his every move is calculated thoroughly and without any kind of compulsion he doesn’t make any mistakes for us to exploit… It’s not that we couldn’t find them, but they aren’t there at all! That’s why the Toblerone trap failed too!”

Captain Wayfinder was shocked as these words slipped out from her lips. If this was true, then nothing could stop Torra. Nothing at all. He was already smarter than the smartest minds ever known and if he had complete control over his body and every one of his desires without any quirks then…

No… There was someone he wasn’t smarter than… And he was sitting right across from her. Based on the note Torra had left, this person’s mere existence had taken Torra by surprise!

“Don’t put your hopes on me like that. It’s a lot of pressure, haha,” Laico laughed lightly, “but you’re right about one thing. Torra is in perfect control of every move he makes and his brain is able to compute more scenarios than the world's most powerful supercomputers. He actually beat one in chess, it was kind of ridiculous because even I thought that was impossible…” Laico pursed his lips.

“However, you’re wrong about one thing as well. He isn’t perfect. He doesn’t move without detection. Most importantly, his ability to evade others isn’t even what makes him Torra,” Laico paused and looked at Captain Wayfinder meaningfully.

“What makes him Torra is that he truly, genuinely, believes that what he is doing will save the world. He is working on it because he wants to. And unfortunately, I can’t see how his solution could backfire. I’m unable to predict that.”

“Wh… What do you mean?” Captain Wayfinder was momentarily shocked.

“I can’t see his solution creating more problems than it will solve. In fact, I don’t see it creating any new problems at all.” Laico smiled, somewhat dejectedly.

“I abandoned my project because his solves all the problems mine was going to… but better than mine would have.”

“What was your project?” Captain Wayfinder asked softly. When he mentioned his project, he seemed somewhat lost? But she wasn’t sure. However, it made her want to believe that perhaps, he really was being fully honest. Maybe, his desire really was as he stated. He was lonely, and he wanted to be with someone he could be himself around. And logically speaking, she was probably the best candidate in their age group.

“His name, Torra P., when spelt backwards it’s Parrot. My name is Laico S., backwards that’s Social. My project was a world where every person’s social life, all the people they would meet and when they would meet them would be carefully premediated. It would eradicate mental health issues, completely overturn our selfish social systems and could be engineered to build a united future for the human race.

We wouldn’t discriminate, because our carefully crafted social circles would ensure that all of us grew to be open minded and sympathetic to the plight of every person in the world. No one would disagree, such is the power of a carefully crafted social experience.

Imagine, humanity united. Poverty, power inequality, racism, sexism, everything eradicated. Because we could truly, genuinely relate to and understand each other. There would be no more other.” Laico got increasingly excited as he spoke. But then his vision slowly lost its focus again.

“But you could get rid of it all another way. And you could ensure that it would never happen again. Rather than changing the views of humanity to stop all of these systemic issues, if you just changed humanity into a form where the basis for these systemic issues are gone, the issues will naturally disappear as well…” Laico trailed off and for the first time, he broke eye contact with her.

Putting her second hand on top of his and squeezing it gently, Captain Wayfinder spoke softly, “No Laico. Changing everyone into birds won’t save anyone. Losing their bodies, dignities, and freedom of choice is the same as death. Maybe at the class 13 level you two can be so pragmatic, you can look at the human race and treat all of humanity as a single entity, but you have to understand that for a solution to work individually, the people have to want the solution. And people don’t want Torra’s project.

Always remember that. It’s a project. It’s not a solution.”

With her hand on his, she looked into his brown eyes. There was wonder there, and she felt like she could see his soul through them. She could see his honesty. His kindness. His worries. There were also traces of loneliness in them. Those eyes looked at her gently, and she could feel his gaze. It felt… different from any man she had met before. There was so much respect in them, and some admiration mixed with attraction.

It felt strange for her. A man she had been so suspicious towards was so open with her. Someone she thought was dangerous and could hurt her any moment held her hand so warmly and gently.

At that moment, she knew without a doubt, that he really was being honest this whole time. Probably about everything. Maybe… just maybe… she too would feel less alone in the future. If it had him in it.