Dying Star Arc
9th May
Convinced by Kyle that he needs to atone for his sin of killing Seine , Sayyad agrees to trail the Governor, with the intention of assassinating him.
It isn't particularly difficult to watch the moonchild from a distance. He stands out after all, with his three-metre tall body, and the bright shade of pink he dyes his hair. I'm sitting near the elevators back down to the settlement, so that it doesn't seem suspicious that I'm looking over towards the crowd. I'm wearing my magnetic boots, the type we wear onboard the scavenger ships, to make my being here a little more believable. I considered mixing in with the crowd, but it isn't large enough for me to be able to do that without coming into direct contact with the moonchild. He's walking in with the crowd, talking and touching, those in with him. Perhaps I would've been able to kill him if I'd been in with the crowd, but it isn't like he isn't completely vulnerable. There's a single soldier shadowing his every movement, within a metre of him at all times. Just like Mr Matthews said there would be. If I want to kill him, it would be best to do it in the settlement.
Watching him, it's hard to believe that he's planning to kill all the Palestinians here on Ceres. I mean, he's talking so naturally with the Imam right now, that it doesn't seem quite possible that he's planning to do something like that. Maybe it's because those he's talking with right now are traitors, leaving Ceres to return to the moon whilst they can. That would explain why the Imam's leaving. He was part of the council until recently, so he must know what the Governor has planned. That sneaky… I never liked or trusted the Imam much, but betraying his own people like this, and leaving us to our fate is something I wouldn't have expected, even of him.
I keep watch, doing my best to pretend that I'm disinterested, and not watching the goings on. The whole time, however, I keep my eye on the Governor. Watching him. Watching, trying to see what's behind that emotionless face of his.
After the last of those boarding the Proserpina for its' return journey to the moon leave on one of the rovers headed across the surface to the ship, the Governor finally turns away to leave. Him, and the soldier following two paces behind, pass within three metres of me. I don't look up at them, but I'm sure that they look at me. I can feel it. That their eyes gazed in my direction, but that makes sense. After all, I've been sitting here for at least half an hour without moving, even after everyone else has gone. But neither of them say a word to me. The two of them walk past me without any hesitation or pause in their movement, as they head for the elevator. The Governor and the soldier enter the elevator on the left, and make their way down into the settlement. I watch the numbers at the top, marking the floors that the elevator goes down. It stops first on the third floor down, where the soldiers are garrisoned, but the elevator keeps moving down afterward. That soldier following him must have left, I realised. Just like Mr Matthews told me, within the settlement he takes no soldiers with him. He's completely unprotected. I just need to see what floor he gets off at. I walk over and call the other elevator up to me, so that I'll be ready when I work out what floor the moonchild gets off at. Of course, it's entirely possible someone else gets on the elevator, and then I would have no way of being able to tell whether I'm heading to the correct floor, but this is the chance I have to take. I need to stop him no matter what. I need to save my people, to make up for what I did in the past.
I went down to the floor that I thought the moonchild had got off at, only to find no sign of him. I walked around the floor about three times, but found no sign of him. The fact that he takes no soldiers does mean that he's unprotected, but it also makes it harder to find him. It is also entirely possible that he's not on this floor. Someone else might've gotten on the elevator, and then it would've continued downward, and the Governor might've gotten off on a lower floor. But there's no way for me to work out what floor he got off on. I've lost him already. This isn't good. Of course, it isn't as if I won't get another opportunity, but if this keeps happening, he'll notice that I'm following him. He might think its coincidence at first, but that will only last so long before the Governor realises that he's being followed. I need to end this quickly. And yet, I've lost him, and I have no way to find him quickly.
I decided to take the stairs the rest of the way back down to the bottom of the settlement. I'm not entirely sure if I really believed that I would find the Governor this way, or if I just wanted more time to contemplate my failure. But, as luck would have it, I found the moonchild. In fact, I almost walked straight into him. I walked around a corner, quite a number of floors further down than the one I'd originally started on, and saw him standing outside the door to an apartment barely twenty metres away. I jumped back and hid behind the wall out of instinct. Once I'd recovered from the shock, I took another look down the hallway. I could see that the moonchild was talking to someone. So, this wasn't his apartment, he was visiting someone else. I couldn't see who it was from this angle, but after a short conversation, whoever it was led the moonchild into the apartment.
I ended up watching the door to the apartment for a long time. A very long time. So long that the working day must've ended, as there is not a single person walking the hallways anymore. None, other than me. I kept watching the door for such a long time because I had assumed the moonchild was going to leave at some point, but perhaps that isn't the case. Staying the night at a lover's apartment? If I had to guess it was that kind of scenario. I had been planning to kill him while he was sleeping in his own bed, or jumping him in the halls here after he left the apartment, but that won't be possible now. I need to finish this now. He'll notice if he sees me again tomorrow that I'm following him. For that reason, I'll have to break into the apartment here.
Whilst I was waiting for him to leave, I had plenty of time to think to myself. I thought a lot about whether this is really what I should be doing, though I came back to the same thoughts every time. Even if this doesn't absolve me of what I did in the past, I need to do something to save my people. Whether it will relieve me of my guilt over what happened to Seine or not, I need to stop my people from been killed. That is the one thing that I'm certain about. I can worry about whether I've been saved or not, afterwards. After I've saved everyone else.
Breaking into the apartment isn't difficult. All of the apartments in the settlement are protected by a simple keylock. There aren't many good ways to generate electricity out here. Solar energy is the only real option, and not enough of it is produced to provide power to absolutely everything. Most of it is distributed to the scavenger ships, the control rooms, and the hydro farms. As such a simple picklock is enough to open the door. It doesn't even take that long for me to work out the particulars of it, and get the lock open.
As silently and deftly as I can manage, I slip my way inside the apartment, and close the door behind me. All the apartments here in Ceres are designed exactly the same, and since I used to live in one just like it, it doesn't take long for me to remember the apartment's layout. The main room that I'm standing in, contains both a lounge area and a kitchen. The bedroom and bathroom are both separate rooms coming off the left. My eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. There isn't any light coming from the door to the bedroom either. Which means the two here are probably asleep. That's a relief. I pull the knife out from my pocket, and begin cautiously heading in the direction of the bedroom. Silently, on my tiptoes, I stalk toward the door. Just then, I think I hear something. It stops me in my tracks. Is someone awake on the other side of that door? Do they know I'm here? Are they waiting for me to walk in, with some trap at the ready? There's more movement. I can't really tell what it is at first, but then I clearly hear the footsteps of someone walking. Walking closer and closer to the door that I'm standing on just the other side of. I could just knife whoever it is that walks through the door but… I don't really want to do that. If it isn't the Governor, then I don't want to do that. I would rather not kill someone else. Only the Governor has to die. I need to hide. Hide… and quickly. But where? There's nothing really to hide behind, nowhere that I can remain hidden for a long time in this room. I don't have time to flee into the bathroom either. Where can I hide in this room?