Citadel: The Concordant Sequence

by Matthew S. Cox

  Anton drew a breath past his teeth. “I am a businessman at heart, so I will offer you one of two choices. Since you are a child and may yet see reason, the first option is that you will live in a secure suite instead of a prison cell. Your”―he chuckled―“parents and those Second Dawn fools will remain in detention, unharmed. Attempt to run away or disobey, they will die.”

  Kiera glared at him.

  “Option two. Despite the threat you pose to the entire planet, I am loathe to consider killing a little girl. You will find a pill waiting for you in your holding cell upon your return. If you swallow it, you will fall asleep and die peacefully. After, I will release those tribals.”

  Another wave of nausea twisted her gut into knots.

  “I will give you forty-eight hours to think. If you refuse the pill, you will be moved to nicer accommodations and treated well. The others will remain in secure custody as a guarantee of your compliance.”

  She bit her lip, scrunching her feet together. “For how long?”

  He smiled a broad smile, free of regret or guilt. “Until one of us dies. I don’t care if you want to destroy the world after I’m gone.”

  Kiera glared, snarling.

  “Oh, no.” Anton’s eyebrows rose together. “The prisoner has become agitated. Whatever shall I do?”

  She kept staring at him.

  “Anyway. You do not need to make a decision right away.” He poked the keyboard and leaned down, raising his voice at the terminal. “We are done here.”

  The door opened and the two cops walked in.

  “Can I have―” Her lip quivered, but she refused to cry more. “P-Pet’s remains?”

  Anton blinked. “It’s a simple companion bot. They’re a dime a dozen. If you’re still with us in forty-eight hours, I’ll make sure you are brought a new one.”

  “But it’s not Pet! You killed Pet!”

  Anton rolled his eyes as the cops took hold of her arms.

  “Come on, kid,” muttered the man.

  “No! Please let me keep her. She’s my friend!” She tried to kick and squirm, but they dragged her backward out of the room despite her protests, heels dragging. “Pet! No! Please let me have her back!”

  A few steps down the hall, when she could no longer see any of the shattered pieces on the floor, she sagged limp and let them carry her away.

  42

  Option Three

  The officers set her on her feet inside her cell. Above the toilet/sink combo, the shelf held a small plastic cup with a green pill in it next to a glass of water. She held her hands up behind her, hopeful. The female cop grabbed the chain between her wrists as if to unlock them, but hesitated, sighed, and let go. Kiera’s hands fell against her butt as the door snapped closed.

  Kiera bowed her head. Stumbling, she turned to face the door, red-faced, and screamed, “How am I supposed to eat like this?! Or use the toilet?”

  Silence.

  “Please,” she said in a small voice. “It’s really cruel to leave me in handcuffs.”

  She bounced on her toes, fighting and kicking at the chains until she tripped herself and fell sitting. “You’re so mean! Take them off!”

  A shadow by the door hinted that someone hovered outside.

  Kiera growled and struggled for a few seconds before gazing at the ‘kill pill’ way up on a shelf. She yelled, “How am I supposed to even take that stupid pill with my hands stuck behind my back?”

  The shadow at the door glided off.

  “Crap.” She bowed her head.

  For a while, she slouched on the floor, stunned into an emotional wasteland at Pet’s death and that horrible video coming within minutes of each other. She’d expected her bio parents to be dead, but seeing them killed triggered a cascade of brief camera-flash memories. Smiling Mom. Smiling Dad. Birthday party here, mall trip there, laughter muted by breathing masks… and long hours home alone.

  She stepped on the cuff around her left ankle, pushing and squirming at it, but her efforts only made a red mark. With a grumbling sigh, she scooted over to the cot and pushed herself up onto it. Flat on her back with her feet still on the floor, she glared at the plain metal ceiling. After a while, she wriggled into a sitting position, leaning against the wall. She spent some time throwing hateful glares up at the suicide pill before another wave of sadness came on, and her gaze fell to her sock-covered feet.

  Kiera flexed her toes. “Good thing they took my shoes. I might have hurt myself.”

  In the stillness of an isolation cell, the video of her parents’ death played on repeat in her head. Every so often, the crack of Pet exploding on impact with the wall interrupted the thrum of laser pistols.

  He’s going to keep Mom and Dad locked up forever in rooms like this. She glanced again at the pill. Could she accept being responsible for that? He showed me that video to make me sad. He wants me to take that pill.

  Kiera fidgeted at the metal pinning her wrists behind her. “Not like I could get to it if I wanted to.” She swished her feet back and forth, tapping her big toes together. “I don’t want to take it.”

  Barely being able to move made her want to run in circles. She absentmindedly chafed at the cuffs for a while, more out of irritation than any sincere effort to get loose.

  “Legacy died for this. I’m not going to give up.” Sorrow morphed to anger. Every time she pictured Anton’s smug smile, she wanted to kick him straight in the teeth.

  She rolled onto her stomach, folded her legs up behind her back, and grabbed the metal around her right ankle. Twisting and pulling failed to break it off. She squirmed and screamed in rage, spending another few minutes working up a sweat in a futile battle to force her arms around her rear end.

  Out of breath, she collapsed on the cot, panting. Her wrists ached, as did her shoulders.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “Please take these off me. It hurts.”

  That woman sounded sad when she said I was abducted, not arrested. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for me. She sat up, faced the door, and shouted, “Help me! Please! Don’t let him do this!”

  Silence hung heavy for a while before she lost hope and curled up on her side. The pill haunted the edge of her vision. The more she tried not to look at it, the more she found herself staring at it. Could she live with knowing her mom and dad would be locked up for years? They wanted more kids, but they couldn’t have that in jail. If she swallowed that pill, they could be happy again. In only two months, she’d come to love them as much or even more than she had loved her bio parents, and they in turn had become loving and protective. If she took that pill, they’d be devastated. Kiera sniffled and cried at the idea her parents might never be happy again.

  She closed her eyes, thinking of Pet scattered across the floor. Her friend had promised she’d never be alone again.

  Stuck in a tiny cell, Kiera had never felt so alone.

  43

  Mouse in the Wall

  Sadness and apathy waltzed together in Kiera’s mind. She lacked the will to move. In her current mood, if she had to pee, she’d have let go without even getting up. Not like she could use the toilet the way the cops had left her shackled. If she hadn’t been the one locked up, the idea of a grown man being so frightened of an eleven-year-old girl that he’d ordered her not only jailed, but kept in chains would have been hilarious.

  What did anything matter anymore? Every option stank. She couldn’t even trust that he’d actually let her parents go free if she died. A butthead who would smash Pet just because she screamed at him would probably kill them anyway. Face mushed against the cot, she stared at the door, wondering if they would force her to eat like a dog from a bowl, or at least free her hands long enough to have a meal.

  Grr. What’s wrong with these people! I’m a kid. Why are they so mean!

  Anger got her sitting upright, fuming. She hopped to her feet and shuffled over to the back corner, glaring up at the pill in its little plastic cup. The shelf at the height of a grown man’s head would’ve been d
ifficult to reach even with her hands free. What would Legacy say if he hadn’t died to help her? She huffed, slouching.

  “He’d say something like he is going to help and he is looking out for me. I shouldn’t lose hope and stuff.”

  Grumbling, she paced around her cell in three-inch steps, looking for anything she might use to fiddle with the locks on the cuffs. The cleanliness of the place astounded and saddened her. What had happened that clean and modern surroundings made her long for her pathetic little overheating bedroom that perpetually smelled of wet wood? Again, she sat on the side of the cot and fidgeted at the chains.

  “Why did they lock me up so tight? What are they afraid of? I’m just a kid.” She sighed. “Not like I can kill anyone with my bare hands and stuff. I’m not gonna grab a knife and go crazy.” Her head sagged. “They’re seriously being buttheads.”

  The complete silence, the lack of the familiar faint whirring noise circling around her, made her sad all over again for Pet. Trying not to think about the video of her parents’ murder proved impossible. On the screen, her tank still appeared frozen, but that had been over two years ago. I hadn’t been thawed yet. Of course, it made sense… her parents had brought her to the Citadel Corporation’s main headquarters. Thread Alpha would have had access to everything―the pods, as well as the virtual reality suburban paradise in which she’d repeated the same year ten times. It probably thawed me out and started training me as soon as Anton left… after he killed Mom and Dad. Reading Mom’s last email proved that her parents had loved her. They’d only worked so much because they had to save the whole planet.

  “I hate him.” She bounced in time with repeating, “I hate him,” over and over.

  As much as she wanted to wipe the tears off her face, the steel around her wrists refused to let her.

  “Argh!” she screamed. “Please let me out of these cuffs!”

  Her voice echoed around the cell, but no one answered. She struggled trying to squeeze her right hand out of the metal ring for a little while more before sagging, out of breath and defeated. She daydreamed of Teryn or Mala kicking in the door and rescuing her, but they also sat in a similar cell somewhere with no chance to escape. Well… they had one chance to escape. If she killed herself, they’d go free.

  “No,” she muttered. “I’m not gonna let him win. I don’t care how long it takes me. I’ll never stop trying to escape. And then I’m gonna kick him right in his stupid, perfect teeth.”

  Click.

  Kiera wiped her tears on her knee and looked up toward the door. Nothing appeared different. She shifted her gaze left. The reinforced vent grille along the cell’s narrow inner wall had drifted open half an inch, enough to cast a shadow on the floor.

  “What the heck?”

  She got to her feet and hopped over to it. “Who puts a vent like that in a jail cell? This is a bad video game.”

  Robots did build this place….

  She wobbled down to her knees and examined the opening. A small, square shaft went a little ways in before bending to the right. It looked like a tight squeeze, but she might be able to make it.

  “Okay. Maybe it’s not that stupid.” She glanced over her shoulder at the door. “They didn’t plan on putting kids in jail.”

  Kiera rolled back to sit and hooked her toes over the armored vent cover. A little tugging pulled it aside on hinged metal struts. She nodded hard to the side to fling her hair behind her, then flopped on her chest. Like an inchworm, she squirmed into the tunnel and wriggled around the turn. The hatch closed behind her on its own with a soft squeak.

  Eep.

  The shaft didn’t have enough room for her to turn around. The walls touched her shoulders and hips on both sides. She lifted her butt to scoot her knees up, then pushed with her knees to thrust her chest forward. Over and over, she repeated the motion, slithering the length of a sixty-foot shaft. Every ten feet on the right, an offshoot led to other empty cells. When she reached a right corner at the end of the long strut, she rolled onto her side and got past it with a series of short jerky hops.

  Another long passage stretched into the distance with squares of light along the left at regular intervals, lined up with more cells. She puffed to get hair out of her eyes and resumed her caterpillar creep.

  Voices muttered from the third passage leading right. Familiar voices.

  “…so worried about her. They won’t tell us anything,” said Mala.

  “Mom!” yelled Kiera.

  The conversation stopped. Grunting and gasping, Kiera wriggled into the offshoot the voices came from and scooted up to the vent plate.

  Her parents, still in their tribal clothes, crouched inside a cell no larger than the one she’d been in. Kiera felt a little better that they’d been allowed to remain together, if a tiny bit jealous that neither of them were handcuffed. Mala burst into tears.

  Teryn stuck his fingers between the slats. “Take my hand.”

  “I can’t.” Kiera sniveled, rattling the chain behind her back. “I’m still cuffed.”

  “What?” Mala growled. “How dare they! She’s a child!”

  Teryn looked furious, but contained it. “Forgive me, Kiera. I wasn’t able to protect you.”

  “It’s not your fault. So many robots. I’m sorry for running.”

  “You had to.” Mala stuck her fingers in the vent at well. “I do not like this place.”

  Kiera scooted closer until her parents could touch her cheek. Inch-thick square bars kept her from being with them, but as soon as fingertips met her skin, she cried. “I love you guys so much.”

  “I love you too, child.” Mala tried to rub her cheek.

  “They will not hold us here. I will die before I let them harm you.” Teryn’s calloused fingertip brushed her chin.

  All three of them wept, Mala sniffling, Teryn shedding tears in stone-faced silence, and Kiera emitting a weak nasal whine.

  “This is not even human how they are treating her,” said Teryn.

  “They gave us medical care.” Mala wiped her eyes with her other hand, refusing to pull back from the grille. “Your father’s leg is mended… and…” She looked down. “You’re going to have a sibling.”

  Teryn’s expression mixed rage with elation.

  “You’re having a baby?” Kiera growled, trying again to snap the handcuffs. “Ow.”

  “Yes.” Teryn nodded. “What happened to you after we were taken?”

  Kiera rushed an explanation, shocking her parents that she’d dared to attempt to sneak into the Citadel… much less done it. She slowed down when she told them what Anton wanted, and about the pill.

  “No,” said Teryn. “You are not to harm yourself no matter what happens.”

  “Yes.” Mala pressed her fingers tight to her cheek. “I forbid it. It does not matter. This place is small and cold, but clean, and they are giving us real food. We would rather be here and know you are safe than lose you.”

  Kiera cried from guilt. “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t take the pill.”

  “That’s my girl.” Her father smiled. “What are you doing in there?”

  “The vent opened on its own.” She blinked. “Second Dawn… maybe they’re helping me?”

  Mala looked back and forth between her and Teryn. “What? No… do as the Administrator asks. Perhaps he can be persuaded to put us together.”

  “I doubt this man is reasonable.” Teryn stroked her chin again. “A reasonable man would not give a child two poor choices.”

  Kiera narrowed her eyes, letting her anger build. “I’m picking option three.”

  “What’s that?” asked both parents at the same time.

  “Me stuck in a vent shaft.” She huffed, trying to blow hair off her face. “I don’t really know where this is going, but it’s not option one or two. Someone let me out of the cell and… I gotta try. I can’t just sit there.”

  Mala stared at her.

  “There is courage in you. I see it in your eyes and in your heart.” T
eryn nodded once. “May the Sky Spirits guide you. Do not let them use us to hurt you.”

  Kiera spent a few seconds adoring the caress of their fingers upon her cheeks. She steeled herself and squirmed backward. Mala struggled to keep touching her face, turning away to weep onto Teryn’s shoulder as soon as she could no longer reach. Her father held eye contact, proud and confident.

  As soon as I can’t see him anymore, he’s going to cry.

  Tears made it hard to see―a significant problem, as she had no way to reach her face to wipe them clear. She thought about how much she hated Anton, holding that anger up as a shield. Rapid blinking got rid of the blurriness in her vision. She wriggled into the longer duct, straightened out, and resumed her inchworm routine.

  After long minutes of fighting to crawl, Kiera rasped for breath, sweating despite the cool air in the vent. A little bit at a time, she advanced, pulling her knees up, slipping forward, and so on. Doubt as to who had opened the vent for her circled her head like a buzzard.

  How far do they think I’m going to get in cuffs?

  Kiera grunted and wriggled to the end of the duct. After passing under a vertical shaft that blew cool air straight down on her back, she rounded short right bend that ended at a vent grille, but rather than a prison cell, it looked out into a room with two rows of lockers against the walls and a steel bench in the middle. The far side of the storage area had an open archway with a view across a corridor into another room with cabinets and a table―holding her satchel and sneakers.

  My stuff! A brief daydream of using her laser pistol to melt the chain between her ankles gave her hope. At least if she could run, she might have a chance to get back to Tessa.

  She inched up and examined the grille, a square of inch-thick steel with slots cut in it to form bars, like all the others. A plate that might laugh off a missile.

  “Okay… is this where I’m supposed to go?”

  She tapped her foot on air, clicking chain.

  Someone walked by in the hall, but didn’t go into the locker room or the other one. Seconds later, the vent plate in front of her face squeaked and popped open a little on its own. Kiera squirmed forward, pushing the grille aside with her head as she crawled out into the room.