21

Uzine risked looking at his tattoo. Since he had started on his task of meeting Merlin, he had put all of his focus on achieving that end. It did little good to worry himself with how much or how little time he had left, as meeting Merlin would take whatever time it took. He still wasn't completely sure how he was supposed to meet Merlin, though. Hiro hadn't been entirely clear on that point. 

Why Hiro had been so vague was now becoming excessively annoying to Uzine. He replayed the conversation in his head.

"All right then, how am I to meet this Merlin, Hiro?"

"Merlin is not someone you meet because you search for him, Uzine. He is the sort of man who finds you when the time is right."

"If I don't know where to meet this man, or when, how am I supposed to take action to make sure that I do find him?"

"Have you ever lost anything, Uzine? Something like a shoe, or a pair of pants? Did you notice that when you looked for it, despite your best efforts, you could not find it? Then, one day, when you had stopped looking for it, what happened? You suddenly found it, someplace other than where it should have been. When you are doing something like looking, you often look in the places that you think something should be as opposed to where it is. The mind is narrowed. When you stop looking, you are open to whatever it is being wherever it ought to be. The mind is opened."

"Hiro, why must everything be a riddle with you? Can't you just tell me where this man is?"

"Sure, Uzine. Get on the Palcan. Ride it in a circle."

"Are you playing me false, Hiro?"

"You have asked, I have answered. You have made your choice, you know what must be done. I see nothing more to be gained by further conversation."

With that Hiro opened the door and left. Uzine felt silly taking a Palcan and riding it in a circle, but he had to admit that Hiro appeared to be way more "in the know" than himself, and so despite his many reservations about this plan, he boarded the Palcan and sat in a seat as he rode in circles.

Eventually, he became tired of being seated in a sitting posture. He was not sure how long he had been seated like that, but he knew he needed to get up. Since Palcans had restroom facilities, that's where Uzine found himself examining his tattoo in the mirror. It had become red inches from his toe.

Uzine found himself somewhat relieved that the other passengers on the Palcan viewed chimeras as so expendable. Nobody seemed to really notice the crimson his tattoo was turning, or really care. It had become ingrained in the psyche of society that chimeras were so disposable that if their tattoos turned red that was no more cause for concern than noticing that the sun had risen for another day.

What concerned Uzine more than anything else, though, was not death, but that his death would come before he could find this Merlin had told him to find. What bothered him was not being able to complete his new destiny.

Uzine looked himself in the eyes in the mirror one final time, sighed, then left to return to his seat. This was probably the first time in his life that he had been idle for such an extended period. It felt unnatural and made him restless. In his brain, the working clock he had internalized was still ticking along, dividing up his day. He had not realized how much he automatically had organized his day around that infernal clock. Now he found himself curiously missing it. It wasn't really so much the clock he missed as much as it was his innocence. 

As soon as Uzine had these thoughts, his mind wandered to Brezine. He found himself missing her, and at the same time hating himself for it. How could you miss someone who wasn't real? What made it absolutely unbearable for Uzine was that it had been real to him--or mostly real to him. He had always been aware of something not being quite right, but he could not pinpoint what it was. As long as he didn't know, he could at least have the illusion of having a companion in life--a feeling that give and take was being met. Now that was gone, and what was left was a hole filled by the knowledge that what he thought he had was a lie. He missed the lie, not because of the fact it was a lie. It was because in his his innocence it had been real to HIM. When the truth had found him, it had given him a reality with slim comfort. His only consolation was in laying the falsity of that reality bare so that it could be razed to the ground. Other chimeras might have an initial shock like his, but they would have the option of living their life in freedom if what Uzine had in mind was something he could engender.

As Uzine reflected on this reasoning, he realized that Hiro had been right. His life was no longer his in a fundamental way. It was true he was making choices. Yet, if someone had asked him starting out in life whether he would like to liberate all chimeras, he would probably have said no. It would not be because of a lack of idealism, exactly. It was more that he would rather find some comfortable slice of life and enjoy it as opposed to embarking on some arduous trek.

At the moment, it was not so much that his trek was arduous so much as it was annoying. Here he was riding this Palcan apparently nowhere, with time offering him no reprieve. He felt death pressing its fingers around his throat and found himself not alarmed on the account of death but on the account of time.

As the clock ticked, Uzine's focus became as sharp as a plasmoid cutter. So caught up was he in his focus that he did not even notice when his tattoo had turned completely red. So devoted had he become to his purpose that when his consciousness faded, his thoughts admitted nothing of death. There was only the work that needed to be done.