by C. A. Gray
“How?” she demanded.
See the truth, Kate, I willed myself. Come on.
Instead of answering Maryanne, I stared at the leather chair I sat in and tried to remember what I’d done in prison that had worked.
You’re a folding chair, I told it, willing it to appear in its original state before my eyes. A folding chair! The folding chair came in flashes, but no more. Did I need to stop and meditate? Even when I was in prison, I didn’t have to work this hard. But I’d been in some kind of altered mental state then—there had been a sense of freedom there, ironically, because I had no power at all. It wasn’t like I could escape, or talk my way out of my predicament… so relaxing was somehow easier. There was nothing I could have done to help myself anyway.
Not like now, when I felt the fate of The Republic resting on my shoulders.
It’s the pressure that’s getting to me, I told myself. That has to be it.
“You never answered me,” said Maryanne apprehensively as she put primer on my face.
“Because I’m having a hard time, myself,” I admitted.
Behind us, the studio looked the way I remembered it, and not the way it had appeared when we’d first walked in: stage lights, state-of-the-art cameras from all angles, a soundboard that was smaller but otherwise just like the one in my own studio. The threadbare carpet where the crew walked became soft and thick, with hardwood floors behind a mahogany desk where I’d be presenting before a green screen. In post, if we recorded and edited later, they’d project some kind of background image there. Grant set up the cameras and Michael directed Charlie and the skeleton crew he had left.
“You okay?”
Jackson appeared at my side, and I jumped, causing Maryanne to smear some of the cream foundation she was applying.
“Sorry,” I told her, and then said to Jackson, one hand on my chest to calm my pounding heart, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… fine.”
“What’s wrong?” he frowned. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”
I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to admit it to him. Maybe it’s my fault for not paying attention in the meditation before we came in. If I told him my problem, he’d make me do it again, and I really didn’t want to do that. But as Maryanne applied makeup to my forehead so I could use my mouth, I finally confessed to him, “I’m weaker than I thought, apparently.”
He tilted his head to the side and indicated the room with his finger. “Things look different?”
“Uh huh,” I said, since I couldn’t nod. “As soon as my parents left.”
“Ditto,” said Maryanne, pausing in her work to glance at Jackson. “I kind of feel like I’m going crazy, I’m not gonna lie.”
“You’re not going crazy,” Jackson told her. “Without the signal disruptor, the government signals can penetrate us again. But you can fight them.”
“That’s what she said, but she can’t tell me how,” muttered Maryanne.
Jackson glanced at me, worried. “Kate, do we need to—”
“No,” I cut him off. “No, I’ll be fine. I think I must just be jittery. I can bring back reality in flashes, but it takes all my concentration…”
Jackson squeezed my hand, and I looked up to meet his gaze.
Don’t trust him.
I froze. The thought came out of nowhere.
“What?” Jackson asked, his brow furrowing.
“N-nothing,” I murmured.
“She looks lovely,” called Michael to Maryanne and me. “Kate my dear, you ready?”
I stood up, trying to escape from Jackson. But he wouldn’t let go of my hand.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Reluctantly, I did.
He’s evil.
I caught my breath, and my eyes widened. Where are these thoughts coming from?
“Kate,” said Jackson slowly and deliberately, “I need you to look me in the eye and tell me you are okay.”
What is the definition of ‘okay?’
“Sure I am,” I said, not meeting his eyes. But he wouldn’t release me. One hand now clutched my shoulder, and with the other, he tilted my chin up so I had to look at him. It was the same gesture he’d used last night before he’d kissed me. My heart skipped for a split second at the memory, and at the tenderness in his eyes as he looked at me now.
“Tell me what’s going on in your head right now,” he begged.
You’re the enemy.
“Kate!” called Michael. “Let’s do this, kiddo!”
I wrenched myself away from Jackson and didn’t look back. My heart pounded in earnest as I stood up and walked behind the mahogany desk, which I knew wasn’t really mahogany, but looked like it was for all the world.
“All right,” said Michael, “you’re speaking off the cuff. No teleprompters, we’re just gonna do this live. That okay?”
I nodded, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. “No teleprompters,” I confirmed. The lights were much too bright.
“All right then. Everyone ready?” He looked around, and the remaining crew members and Charlie gave him the thumbs up. “Three. Two. One. Rolling,” called Michael, and pointed at me.
I started to hyperventilate.
Focus, Kate. Come on. I forced a deep breath in, and began the way I’d rehearsed this in my head. I can do this. I can do this.
“Hi, friends.” I smiled at the camera. My own face appeared on the smaller screen in the back of the room, so the crew could see what the cameras saw. As usual, I tried to ignore it and speak directly to the cameras. “I know you’ve been told a lot of things about me since I’ve been gone, most recently that I’m a terrorist and that I am your enemy. I imagine that for a lot of you, that’s been very confusing. You know in your hearts that I am devoted to you. I’m your Voice of Truth, the face you’ve come to trust. I want to honor that trust today, by telling you what I know is true. Some of you will believe it and some of you won’t—I understand that. But I have to at least do my duty, as I’ve always done, to report the facts as I see them. What you do with those facts is up to you.”
Michael’s camera had a light on top of the lens, and I stared directly into that. It washed out everything else in the room, and that’s what I needed. I started to gain momentum, and my pounding heart slowed a bit. There were no teleprompters, but I read from the script I’d rehearsed in my head.
“I believed everything I’ve previously told you about our Republic, our Potentate, and our Tribunal: that we were a blessed and prosperous nation, and that Potentate is our savior. I believed this with all my heart—until I found out that someone I’d known years ago had been executed as an Enemy of State. Her name was Maggie Jensen.
“I’d actually forgotten Maggie’s existence entirely, and the period in my life she represented, until I saw her name on the list of EOS’s on which I was to report. After that it came to me in flashes that I’d spent a few years of my childhood at a reform school called McCormick’s.
“At first my memories of it were elegant and lovely, like everything else in the Republic. But over time, I began to remember the threats, the injections to make us more docile, and the horrible appearance of the place the first time I arrived. Once I remembered that, I also remembered that I’d been sent there in the first place for recognizing that there were voices in my head that did not belong to me. You all have them too, if you’re honest. The voices say things like, ‘We are prosperous. The Potentate has your best interests at heart. You are healthy and well cared for.’
“Once I realized those voices were not coming from my own mind, I started to see that those thoughts are meant to directly contradict an unpleasant reality. The truth is, most of us are malnourished, some severely so. Many of you have friends and relatives who supposedly died of rare and incurable diseases—but the truth is, many of them starved to death. Others died from diseases of poverty, the result of homes infested with rats and mice and mold and chemicals. The Potentate, the Tribunal, and most of the government officials are w
ell fed and live in decent homes—the Potentate’s palace, for instance, is every bit as fabulous as the pictures show. I know this, because I was there two days ago, on trial for my life. But the rest of us live in squalor.”
Where did this script come from? I suddenly wondered as I spoke. I know I rehearsed it and memorized it, but… but these aren’t my words. These are Jackson’s words.
He made me think they were my words.
He’s brainwashed me.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I started to see little flashes of light in my field of vision, like I was on the brink of passing out. In the shadows, I saw Jackson whispering to Charlie. Both of them looked worried.
You’re live, Kate. Focus! I forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply. These are my words. These are my words. They’re mine. I looked back at the bright light above the camera, and felt beads of sweat pop out on my forehead, settling on top of my pasty stage makeup.
Talk, I willed myself. Talk, dammit.
“Maggie tried to tell me all of this when we were in school together, and I listened to her at first. She told me the stories, that kids who failed their end-of-year exams (which were all about whether or not they’d been successfully brainwashed) got sent to something called ‘special projects,’ and were never seen or heard from again. She told me about the control centers that are set up throughout our Republic, which broadcast the very thoughts I’d recognized did not belong to me. The injections infected us with a virus that made us anemic, and therefore easier to control. Maggie and the other rebels in the school found out that the Potentate had released that same virus on the entire population right after the United States crashed, while he was getting the control centers up and running.”
Lies. Lies. All lies. I looked at Jackson. He was watching me intently.
Like he would kill me if I screwed up.
He’s going to kill me eventually, just like he killed all those Tribunal members.
I talked louder, to drown out the voices in my head.
“But in time, I was successfully ‘rehabilitated’ and sent home again. Maggie was not. She fled for her life, and ultimately she was killed—not because she posed a threat to anyone, but because the government considered it dangerous to let anyone live who knew the truth.
“When I began to realize all of this, my fiancé at the time, Will Anderson, started to help me with my investigations. He was a computer hacker, and he began to uncover information that confirmed and fleshed out my own memories and realizations.
“When I first disappeared,” I told the camera, “it was because I’d gotten word that Will had been killed in an accident. I knew it wasn’t an accident though, and I knew that if the government thought I had anything to do with the things that he was investigating, I’d be next.
“So I fled for my life. I found a community of refugees who all knew the truth—the very same refugees whom you’ve heard described as terrorists.” I caught my breath, and couldn’t even look at Jackson’s face. “It turned out, my fiancé Will managed to escape after all as well, and when we found each other again, he told me that the Potentate is even now building control centers in other nations so that he can expand his influence internationally. He plans to release the same virus there as well, to make it easier for him to take over. This is truly an international crisis.” I reminded myself of the stage notes I’d made for myself: look directly at camera. Speak urgently. “New Estonia, if you are listening, we need your help. You are next. As we speak, Ben Voltolini is building control centers on your own soil, disguising them as textile factories of which you would take little notice.”
There was never a virus. There are no control centers. Jackson made it all up.
“But I believe that all people have the right to freedom!” I declared, shouting now over the thoughts I couldn’t seem to control. “And freedom starts in your mind!”
I’m not free. Someone is controlling me.
But who?
“The old United States had a Declaration of Independence that said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Liberty is one of our unalienable rights. You and I have the right to be free—”
Suddenly the screen that had shown my face in the back of the room went blank, with white interference. The cameras had stopped working.
Then the Potentate’s face appeared instead. He was sitting in his office, and his expression was sympathetic.
Everyone’s jaws dropped. Michael signaled for us to stop recording, and cranked up the volume on the screen.
“Miss Brandeis,” the Potentate said. “Like the rest of the Republic, I’ve been listening to your broadcast with great interest. While it is obviously well rehearsed and quite articulate, at this point I really must interrupt. You have indeed been brainwashed, my dear, but not by us.” He shook his head. “Look around you, Kate. What do you see? Is it the dystopian world you have described to the people of the Republic just now? Or is it the world of freedom and affluence you’ve grown up in?”
I felt my fingers tingle and begin to go numb. I started to bounce them on the arm rests of the chair I sat in, trying to get them to wake up.
He’s right. He’s right. He’s right.
The Potentate went on, “People of the Republic, Miss Brandeis came to you today in good faith, speaking what she believes to be the truth. But it is not. I am sorry to tell you that, as she has told you herself, Kate has a history of mental instability. As a child she was indeed sent to a special school, but not because she ‘failed to conform,’ as she puts it. I’ve looked up her records, and quite simply, she was sent to an insane asylum, because she had lost touch with reality. The injections she described were medications for her illness, to help her get well. She indeed recovered, and was reintegrated into society at that time.
“Unfortunately her mind has always been weak and suggestible, and our enemies—particularly her captor, Jackson MacNamera—have convinced her that we are the enemy. MacNamera is now attempting to use her influence over you as a psychological weapon of terror.
“Let me remind you all that just yesterday, MacNamera brutally slaughtered seven members of your Tribunal, and on several other occasions, his reentry onto Republic soil has resulted in the untimely deaths of several loyal government agents, attempting to protect you all from him.
“MacNamera is not even a citizen of the Republic; he belongs to Iceland, a nation we have never previously considered to be our enemies. As we speak, your government is diligently researching whether or not MacNamera represents a larger terrorist organization from the nation of Iceland, or whether he simply took advantage of the weak minds of citizens of our own Republic. Regardless, I can promise you that we will not rest until MacNamera has been brought to justice for his heinous crimes. We, the remaining members of the Tribunal, shall continue to fight for your security, your health, your happiness, and your continued prosperity.”
Voltolini shifted in his chair, and while he was looking at the camera lens before, now he seemed to look directly into my eyes. His voice lowered, and he said as if soothing a small child, “Kate. The way you think you feel about your captor has a name. It’s called Stockholm Syndrome.”
I caught my breath, and didn’t dare to look at anyone in the room.
His words felt true.
“MacNamera has held you captive for so long now, and brainwashed you so thoroughly, that you believe you’ve actually come to care for him. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomena, and you're not to be blamed for it. But he’s using your feelings for him against you. I urge you to examine your memories with him. See if what I say isn’t true.”
All eyes in the room focused on me: I could feel them burning into my flesh. I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut, desperately trying to focus.
Was I ever Jackson’s ca
ptive?
I couldn’t think of a time when I had been—but, did that mean anything? After all, I once felt the same way about the Republic. They’d always been good to me… until suddenly they weren’t. And I realized they never had been.
What is truth?
Flashes flooded my mind of Jackson on the roof of the Potentate’s palace with my family, hypnotizing them into submission.
No, he didn’t hypnotize them, I told myself severely. In the Jaguar yesterday, Charlie had said to Jackson, “Why don’t you just hypnotize them or something?” What was it Jackson said? “Mind control is your government’s specialty, not mine.”
But he would say that, wouldn’t he? If he were controlling our minds right then?
“Kate,” said the Potentate, and I opened my eyes. I was trembling all over. He was still there, staring directly at me through the screen. It felt like he could see me. “We care about you, and you need our help. I personally offer you full pardon for your participation in terrorist activities—in exchange for the life of Jackson MacNamera.”
The seal of the Republic appeared on the screen, and it went blank.
Chapter 38: Jackson
As soon as the Republic seal appeared and the broadcast ended, I tried to make myself turn and look at Kate. But for a few seconds, my body wouldn’t respond. I was too afraid of what I would see.
I already knew what I would see. I couldn’t face it.
“Kate, what the hell?” demanded Charlie. I turned around then, and watched as Charlie ran up to his sister. She was shaking, but she was staring at me—eyes wide, cringing away from me like a frightened animal. It reminded me of the first time I’d met her in the caves, when she was trying to make sense of the fact that the world wasn’t what she’d thought it had been all her life. It was happening again now, but I couldn’t understand why.
Charlie shook Kate’s shoulders. “Look at me!” he demanded.
With apparent effort, Kate snapped her eyes away from me and focused on him.
“You look like you actually just bought that sack of crap,” Charlie snapped. “Tell me that isn’t true. You know that guy’s evil, right?”