by Richard Fox
“Are not the Lady’s laws. Do not push this issue. Your crew is safe. That must be enough for you,” she said.
“It’s not enough!”
“Quiet. The perimeter isn’t set. There could be campers,” she said, clearly distracted by a bone-mic communicator in her ear.
“What are you talking about? Campers? Are they dangerous?”
She ignored his question. “I’m sorry, Admiral. That probably sounded disrespectful. We really started off on the wrong foot. It’s a great honor to meet you, by the way. I had a picture of you next to my bed when I was growing up.”
“Outstanding. Glad you’re a fan. Why don’t you take me back to the Breitenfeld and help me get it home? At least allow me to check on my crew.”
Whoever was talking in her ear gave her good news, causing her to relax. “Finally. We’re in the clear. Looks like the locals zipped up their tents and went to sleep.” She smiled brightly. “As for your people, you’ll be joining them very soon.”
“Now we’re making progress.” Valdar shielded his eyes as the helicopter rotors gained velocity. “What’s with the antique?”
“Let’s get onboard. We will have an easier time with headsets,” she yelled.
The side door opened and a crew chief waved for them to board. The man pulled Valdar in, gave him a helmet with a headset boom mic, and strapped him into a seat. “Don’t try anything funny. I’m not armed, but Reggie over there has a new 1911 A1 he’s been dying to try out on a live target.”
“If I was going to fight, I would have done so before you fired up this noisy beast,” Valdar said.
Masha waved the crew chief back and tapped her headset to indicate she wanted privacy. The look she gave him seemed to suggest she’d cut his throat if he tried to listen in. “Now we can talk,” she said to Valdar.
“I’m sure the explanation for all this is fascinating, but my only concern is for my people and getting them back to Earth.”
“They’ll be safe enough here. Liberty is home to several cultural microcosms—cosms, for short,” Masha said. “You’re going to the XXI Western cosm, same as they are.”
“Wait. What?”
“Don’t thank me yet. We’re not going to drop you into a condo and slap you with a mortgage,” she said.
“I’ve had just about enough of your Ibarran games. I’m a prisoner of war—”
“And how does the Terran Union treat Ibarran prisoners of war, Admiral? Summary execution. Be glad the Nation is more enlightened. We know your history with procedural humans.”
“That…was a long time ago.” Valdar looked out the window. “I’ve changed.”
“Of course. You’re Valdar. The people’s hero. But don’t talk about it on this planet. There could be…consequences to loose talk.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “What is ‘cosm XXI’?”
Masha smiled, which seemed about as genuine as a late-night holo-vid commercial. “Liberty has several different cosms—Chinese, Eastern European, Brazilian, Korea…I think the Southeast Asia one is almost ready.”
“Fascinating. Get to the point.”
“No contact is allowed between them. They’re all on different continents and the procedurals we put in the cities are predisposed to never want to leave their area. Every colonist you encounter believes it’s pre–Ember War. The year 2002, to be exact.”
“Why the quarantines? Sounds like you’re growing more brainwashed slaves.”
“Don’t ever talk like that around the Lady, unless you’ve decided dying slowly in an isolation cell is the way you want to go.”
“I wouldn’t want to offend her delicate sensibilities.”
“Don’t be like that, Admiral. Mockery is undignified and below you. As for the quarantines, they’re for the good of humanity.”
Valdar listened carefully and watched her for nonverbal clues.
"I don't know about you, Admiral, but these rickety old hunks of junk give me butterflies every time we take off."
He looked out a side window without commenting, watching her with his peripheral vision. "Do people here know anything about the galaxy? The Xaros? Ibarr—"
She slashed one hand through the air to cut him off. "They know nothing. And if you try to explain anything, you'll come across as a lunatic."
Valdar laughed, pointing at his headset. "I sure hope no one is listening in on this channel."
"I'm not an amateur," she said. “The crew knows better than to break operational security.”
"You want me to keep your secrets? Not sure what's in it for me,” Valdar said.
She relaxed slightly. "It doesn't matter. Your cell is in an insane asylum. If you taint any of the colonists to the point that they start to stitch things together, we have ways of taking care of that. But don't. It's a hassle for the minders."
A chill went up Valdar’s spine. "You've got this all figured out."
"I've got you figured out, Admiral. Liberty is Liberty. I could've just dropped you down here without an explanation and watched them treat you like you were irreparably mentally ill."
"Relax, Masha. I won't be here long anyway."
She faced him, and for a moment, he wondered if he had pushed too hard. The woman was a notorious spy and assassin, and the woods looked uninhabited. She could push him out and leave his corpse for scavengers. “You think someone is coming to rescue you? You say you won’t be here long with such confidence. Are you trying to provoke me?”
“I have a duty to my crew and to the Terran Union,” he said.
Silence. She unnerved him with the intensity of her gaze.
“You are required to resist interrogation, attempt to escape, and give nothing to your enemies. I know this is true because our people are trained the same way. That is why I don’t trust you,” Masha said. “So don’t tell me to relax, Admiral Valdar.”
“Have it your way. Just don’t go crying to your Lady when I’m gone,” Valdar said.
“You'll be here until Lady Ibarra wants you to leave."
Valdar crossed his arms and said nothing.
"You'll be comfortable, but don't abuse your privileges. We can make your life miserable in short order. These microcosms are modeled after early twenty-first-century Earth. They had some brutal pharmacological solutions to behavioral disorders. Just be glad this isn't the mid-twentieth-century cosm. Do you know what a lobotomy is?” she asked, shivering theatrically.
"Should I say ‘thank you’ for not having a spike driven into my skull?” he asked.
"Such a cultured man," she said.
He stared out the window as they flew over a city. A highway extended into the forest but ended at a broken bridge over a canyon. He spotted powerlines, fast-food joints, and gas stations. It all reminded him of when he was a kid. The mountains on one border of the sprawling metropolis reminded him of the front range of Colorado, a place he’d visited only a few times back before the Xaros wiped all human presence away from most of the Earth.
"Impressed?"
He ignored her.
"We are going to land soon,” she warned. “Don't ask me any awkward questions that will get you put in a padded room."
Below them were highways packed with cars. In one direction, red taillights streamed around the curves like a river of light. Coming the other direction, the white headlights blazed brightly. Radio towers sported blinking lights to warn away airplanes and helicopters, a problem that post–Ember War air-traffic control didn’t have.
The helicopter landed within a fence decked out with razor wire surrounding a humorless building with narrow windows that struck Valdar as a prison without the bars.
Masha pushed Valdar out of the helicopter as a pair of white uniformed orderlies hauled the door open. A white panel van idled a few dozen yards away.
The technology of this era set the foundation for what Marc Ibarra had developed, but it was crude—noisy, loud, and reeking of engine exhaust.
Valdar didn’t mind the sight
s, sounds, or smells. As imperfect as they were, it was Earth—after a fashion. Millions of lives had been spent to preserve and rebuild the original. He longed for a normal life without the legacy the Xaros invasion had left behind.
One of the burly men in white grabbed Valdar by the elbow and held him firm. The man was one of those thick-necked knuckle draggers they needed to put people into straitjackets. He didn't talk much and stared at Valdar like he was trying to see into his soul.
Valdar was guided into the van, then driven to a side door of the facility and hustled through a security checkpoint lit up with fluorescent lights. The guard desk had phones with actual cords in them and thick-screen TVs tuned to grainy camera footage. More guards in white barely gave him a glance as the bruiser kept a grip on Valdar.
A door opened to an office with a single chair, a metal ring in the floor. The guard pressed onto Valdar’s shoulder to get him to sit, then cuffed a chain to the shackles on Valdar’s wrist, short enough that he couldn’t stand up straight if he tried.
It was strange, sitting in the doctor's office. Everything was so…civilian…and old, like something from a museum set piece. The desk was huge, made of actual wood, covered with books and stacks of papers. Behind it, shelves held more books and several bobble head dolls.
Odd. What kind of grown man put dolls on his shelf, right where everyone could see them?
Also on the bookshelf was a tobacco pipe. The place smelled of smoke, which Valdar thought was against the facilities’ regulations. Tobacco use had been banned in government buildings long before he ever put on the uniform.
The psychiatrist entered the room and nodded at the orderly. "I was told you're staying in case this patient is dangerous?”
"Yes, that is what I was told to do," the huge man said in a thick Basque accent.
"Well, that is unusual. It violates doctor-patient confidentiality," the psychiatrist said, glancing nervously at the bookshelf.
"Pardon. I speak English not so well."
The psychiatrist casually plucked the pipe from the shelf, shielding his actions from the orderly, and dropped it into his jacket pocket before turning. "Hmm. Just stand back over there and ignore us,” he said, slipping into his chair behind the desk. He looked at Valdar, then made notes on a yellow pad of paper with lots of lines. "I'm Doctor Peterson. I reviewed your file."
Valdar didn't say anything. He really didn't care. Knowing what he knew, this was almost an insult added to injury.
“So what are we here for today?” Doctor Peterson asked, leaning back in his leather chair, but with one hand stretched onto his desk where there was a legal pad and a pen.
“You are about to sign my release paperwork,” Valdar said. “I’m feeling much better now, thanks.”
The psychiatrist smiled and made a note. “Positive mental attitude, good. Much improved from what I expected.”
Valdar stood and tugged against the chains.
“Have a seat, Mr. Valdar. I wouldn’t want our big friend over there to have to restrain you,” Peterson said.
Valdar assessed the orderly, liking him even less than when they’d first met. The psychiatrist was an annoyance. The orderly seemed eager to hurt him.
“Have a seat, Mr. Valdar,” Doctor Peterson repeated, adding emphasis to his words. He looked a lot less caring with that expression on his face. Maybe he wasn’t even a real psychiatrist, who knew?
Valdar eased himself into the chair, which was too soft. “Fine, but if you think you’re getting a five-star review from me, think again.”
Peterson made a note on the yellow legal pad. “Humor. Good. Tell me more. Tell me what you’re really thinking.”
“I’m staring at you, thinking you’re a procedurally generated person on a planet that’s not Earth, even though you think its Earth,” Valdar said, tired of this conversation.
“Ah, you’re projecting your frustration. Understandable.”
“Frustration? Let me tell you about frustration. Before I got stuck here, I was the captain of my own ship—”
Doctor Peterson nodded sagely. “Invictus by William Earnest Henley. ‘It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.’ One of my favorites.”
Valdar stared. “I am Admiral Valdar of the Terran Union Fleet. My flagship is the Breitenfeld that your people, the Ibarra Nation, unlawfully detained and stole.”
Peterson’s face went sour. He sat forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on the desk. “Please continue. This is interesting.”
“I don’t know why I bother talking to you. You were born from a tube, implanted with memories you think are real,” Valdar said.
“So I’m not real, but you are,” Peterson clarified.
“You’re real, grown in nine days and implanted with a lifetime of memories,” Valdar said.
“What about my advanced degrees?”
“Dumped into your subconscious with procedural-generation technology.”
“I see,” Peterson said, leaning back in his chair with the notepad and drawing a doodle that he pretended were actual notes. “This is entertaining, if not entirely beneficial to your recovery.”
“I don’t blame you, Doctor,” Valdar said. “They didn’t tell you about the Xaros Masters or Malal or the Toth overlords.”
“No, they didn’t,” Peterson responded dryly.
“You think I’m crazy.” Valdar studied the door. Making a break for it, no matter how pointless the attempt would be, felt like a better course of action. If the facility were really a true simulation of old technology and culture, he might have a chance to get free. Speaking with the shrink was devolving into comedy.
“I don’t deal in nonscientific stereotypes. The human mind is very complex.” Peterson droned on for several minutes.
Valdar planned his escape, evaluating his very slim chances.
“Are you listening?” Peterson asked.
Valdar exhaled slowly. “I was wishing I had a quantum-dot communicator to contact my crew.”
“Hmm.” Peterson scratched something on the legal pad then looked at his watch. “We’ll have to expound upon that in our next session. I’ve got to take a call. One moment.”
The door closed, leaving Valdar alone with the intimidating orderly. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?”
“Not without a lot of salt and red sauce,” the man said. “Don’t be surprised. I speak better English than I led Doctor Peterson to believe. My name is Medvedev.”
“So you are violating the doctor-patient confidentiality clause,” Valdar stated.
“It depends on how you look at it. I believe you,” Medvedev said.
“You’re one of the proper Ibarrans, aren’t you?” Valdar asked, standing and putting some distance between himself and the big man.
“That obvious? But I’m not the one that has to keep up appearances,” Medvedev said. “You should’ve played the game. What comes next will be unpleasant.”
“Serves me right for thinking Lady Ibarra would take her eyes off me,” Valdar said.
Doctor Peterson returned with a second orderly, who carried a straitjacket. Tossing his notebook on his desk, he pointed at Valdar. “He needs to be restrained for his own safety. Put him in room twelve.”
Medvedev and the smaller man, who was needlessly cruel, twisted his arms into the jacket and strapped him in tightly. The third time the small man swung his fist at Valdar’s groin, Medvedev caught the man’s wrist and squeezed. He gave him a look.
“Nobody cares about these crazies,” the nasty orderly whispered harshly.
Doctor Peterson was facing the other way, his cell phone pressed to his ear while he talked to somebody about dinner plans and looked out the window toward a scenic view of the city park.
“It is against regulations. No more punching or kicking,” Medvedev rumbled.
“You wouldn’t talk to me like that if you weren’t so big,” the mean and nasty orderly
hissed.
“Don’t worry about it. Maybe later, I will punch you in your head,” Medvedev said.
The man muttered under his breath and tried to stay as far away from Medvedev as possible, which resulted in him angrily frog-marching Valdar out of the office in the straitjacket.
Valdar counted the number of left and right turns and tried to estimate the distance he traveled to his new home. The small man shoved him, but not with enough force to get him into the room. Another hand—Medvedev, undoubtedly—pushed, launching Valdar onto his face.
Luckily for Valdar, the floor was just as padded as the walls and ceiling.
****
The surface of the Scipio flickered as it emerged from the wormhole, changing colors in the blink of an eye. Marc Ibarra grabbed Hoffman’s attention, directing it to the screen. “The Scipio’s an impressive little ship, don’t you think?”
Hoffman studied the small Crucible gate and the representation of the Scipio moving through it. The ship was now red and white, as if it belonged in the Ibarran fleet. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He wished he knew more about the system, but he was at the mercy of the crew and Marc Ibarra. The captain of the ship ignored them.
“The space station is built into the dark side of the moon over Liberty. We set up the microcosms to use nothing but tight-beam IR communication with the Crucible,” Marc said. “We don’t want the colony to detect any of our transmissions, which is easier when you built their infrastructure from the ground up.”
“You say that like you still have a vested interest in this place,” Hoffman observed.
“Well, my dear Lieutenant Hoffman, it is one of my more promising creations. We didn’t make Liberty and all the microcosms to produce killing machines. We did it to start over. How can that be a bad thing?”
“Why these microcosms, Ibarra?” Hoffman asked. “Don’t tell me your Nation set these up overnight. Something like this must have taken years of planning and effort. The procedurals—”
“The code set to produce humans that think they’re in America during the early 21st century wasn’t easy, no,” Ibarra said. “Took painstaking effort to get the culture and setting just right. Thank God the Internet never forgets anything.”