“Concorde told us you’d be cooperative,” Fassbender says.
Every human being has something called a fight-or-flight instinct. It’s a primal impulse that impels a person facing a serious threat to survive by any means necessary, whether it’s to go on the attack or to run like hell and hope the other guy isn’t faster. For super-heroes in particular, this is a very important instinct.
However, the urge is so powerful and deep-rooted, it’s extremely easy for reason and rational thought to become overwhelmed. Right now I am channeling every ounce of will into pummeling my fight-or-flight instinct into submission, because neither option would end well for me. These are federal agents; whether I blast them or take to the sky, I’d only be piling the crap-heap so high it’d need a flashing red light to warn off low-flying airplanes.
“I’m not going to fight you,” I say in a hoarse whisper, my throat tight and dry. “I’m surrendering, okay?”
The agents’ hands stay near their sidearms. I’m sure they’ve heard that line before. The big agent moves in cautiously. I try not to flinch in surprise as he slips something around my neck. The thing beeps, and suddenly I feel five hundred pounds heavier. The big agent catches me under the arms before I sag to the sidewalk.
“Suppression collar is active,” he says as he escorts me toward the back of the car, reciting the Miranda rights as we go. Everything below my neck is moving in slow-motion. It’s like I’m trying to walk through peanut butter.
Biggie folds me into the back seat and slides in next to me. Fassbender takes out her cell phone as she and the other guy climb into the front.
“Byrne control, this is Agent Fassbender with Homeland Security,” she says, adding on her badge number. “We are en route with one in custody.”
That’s when it really hits me, and the only thing keeping me from puking my guts out in white-hot terror is this suppression collar thing.
I’m a prisoner in federal custody. I’m going to prison.
I’m going to Byrne.
TWENTY-FOUR
It scares me how quickly I lose track of time sitting in my cell, a windowless white box maybe ten feet square, equipped with nothing more than a cot and a weird sink/toilet combination.
(Oh, yeah, and a small black sphere in the corner above the cell door, which I’m fairly certain is a camera — which is the main reason I haven’t dared to use the sink-slash-toilet, even though I have to pee so bad it’s starting to hurt.)
Is this what it’s like for the prisoners here? Sealed into a colorless coffin, the minutes and hours and days slipping by unnoticed, having to sleep and do your business while some guard watches you on a video screen? I know this is a prison. I know the people in here did something so terrible they deserved to be locked up. I know it’s not supposed to be a vacation wonderland, but my God...
The cell door slides open with a soft pop and a hiss of changing air pressure — the first sounds I’ve heard in...well, however long I’ve been in here. A guard in head-to-toe black appears in the doorway. A second guard looms behind him, cradling an automatic rifle.
“Come with me,” he says.
The guards escort me down a hallway and to a small room that, best guess, is a local monitoring room and control station for this section of the prison. A man in standard Byrne black sits at a station ringed with monitors. The guards exchange a few word with him, he pokes at a keyboard, and a doorway on the other side of the room opens. The guards bring me through, down a short hall, and to an elevator. We get on, go up a few floors, get off, go down another hall (I think; all the hallways here look exactly the same), and end in a small interview room. There’s a table in the center, a chair on one side, two more on the other, and everything is bolted to the floor.
The guards tell me to take a seat, then they seal me in. I do as ordered like a good little inmate.
I sit there for who knows how long, occasionally glancing up at the little camera-globe in the corner of the room. When the door opens again, Mindforce enters and frowns at the sight of me in my prison jumpsuit and suppression collar (which, for the record, is crazy itchy). Concorde follows, and behind him is a tall man in a charcoal business suit.
“Carrie,” Mindforce says. He sits across from me, as does the man in the suit. Concorde, predictably, remains standing so he can better glower at me. “This is Sullivan Crenshaw. He’s the Protectorate’s legal advisor.”
“You’re bringing in your own prosecutor just for me?” I say. “I feel like such a special little snowflake.”
“I’m not a prosecutor, Miss Hauser, I’m the team’s legal adviser,” Crenshaw says, “and, because you’re an adjunct member of the Protectorate, I’m here to advise you on our next course of action.”
“Sullivan thinks he can get the charges against you dropped,” Mindforce says, his optimism sounding false and forced.
“Your age, your record of service with the Protectorate, your previous good standing with the team — these factors will all help,” Crenshaw says, “but what will make or break your case is the specific circumstances of your violation. I need to know, in precise detail, why you went up in defiance of Concorde’s —”
“I didn’t go up,” I say. “I tried to tell that to the agents who arrested me.”
“Stafford Air National Guard Base scrambled their jets at 1:28 PM in response to radar contact on an unregistered flyer over Kingsport,” Concorde says. He leans in to hover over me. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that wasn’t you?”
I glare up at him. “If you won’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Mr. Rose.”
“Mr. Rose?” Crenshaw says.
“My web design teacher. If he’s not good enough, maybe you’ll believe my boyfriend,” I say, my voice rising to a shout, “or any of the other twenty kids in my web design class, which is where I was at 1:28 this afternoon because I’M IN SCHOOL UNTIL TWO EVERY DAY! Which you would have known if you’d taken two minutes to CALL ME!” I scream in Concorde’s face.
Crenshaw gawps at me. “Concorde,” he says with strained patience, “please tell me you confirmed Carrie was actually the one who committed the violation before you called it in to Homeland Security.”
Concorde’s answer is a resounding nothing.
“Oh my God, Concorde,” Mindforce groans, “are you serious?”
“Who else could it have been?” Concorde says. “A flyer shows up over Kingsport, Carrie’s a flyer, she lives in Kingsport —”
“And she’s not lying. It wasn’t her.”
Crenshaw curses at length. “This is great. This is outstanding. Get out of my way,” he says, shoving Concorde aside as he stands. I like this guy better already. “I need to make a phone call. Guard!” he shouts at the camera globe, and a second later, a guard opens the door to let Crenshaw out.
Mindforce twists in his seat to face Concorde. Concorde throws his arms in the air, a What do you want from me? gesture. Mindforce angrily jabs a finger at him. Concorde spreads his hands, assuming a contrite posture. Mindforce slams a hand down on the table. I hate mindspeak when I’m not in on the conversation.
“Carrie, I am so sorry this happened,” Mindforce says, “and I promise you, I swear to you, we will do everything in our power to make this right.”
“Today’s my birthday,” I say. My throat tightens, my eyes burn, but I will myself not to cry. That is not going to happen. “I’m supposed to be at a Bruins game with my dad. Make that right.”
Mindforce slumps back into his chair and curses under his breath, and that’s the last thing anyone says until Crenshaw returns several minutes later.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he says.
Mindforce and Crenshaw, backed by a pair of guards as a matter of protocol, escort me to the processing area. Crenshaw assures me that in light of the new information provided to Homeland Security, all charges against me will be dropped, the record of my arrest will be expunged, and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. You know, except for the part
where it totally did.
The guards remove my suppression collar, and for several minutes afterward I feel like someone’s replaced my blood with helium. They give me back my clothes and my backpack and leave me to my business. I take care of certain bladder-related matters, change out of my prison couture, and check myself out in a mirror to see how life in the big house has affected me. Eh, not bad. Nothing a hairbrush and some concealer and a time machine can’t fix.
Crenshaw, no doubt fearing that I have a lawsuit on my mind, stays on me as we’re escorted out. No charges, he says, no arrest record, he says, I will be cleared of all wrongdoing in the eyes of Homeland Security and the FAA and Colonel Coffin at Stafford, he says, and look, there’s Warden Pearce, who has been informed this has all been a terrible mistake, he says.
Since I’m obviously in a prime position to make demands, “I want my headset back,” I say, “and I want my transponder reactivated. Like, yesterday.”
“That may take some doing,” Crenshaw says.
“It’ll take you telling Concorde to give me my damn headset back because he had no right to take it in the first place.”
“As a representative of the US Department of Homeland Security, Concorde has every legal right to approve and deny flight clearance for superhumans in the New England region.”
“Except he didn’t revoke my clearance due to a punishable infraction of FAA regulations on my part, or because I was convicted of a felony crime, or because I was charged with a criminal offense that would justify a temporary suspension of my flight privileges,” I say. “He revoked my clearance to use the threat of arrest as leverage to keep my team out of action.”
Hell yeah, legally indefensible.
Crenshaw looks to Mindforce for confirmation. Mindforce nods. Crenshaw grimaces and pulls at his thinning hair.
“I swear, Concorde is going to send me to an early grave,” he mutters. “Where did he go? I need to yell at him some more.”
“Concorde flew on ahead to HQ,” Mindforce says.
“I’ll call him ASAP,” Crenshaw assures me.
“When you do, you might want to remind him that the Hero Squad isn’t an official extension of the Protectorate, which means he’s neither legally liable for us, nor does he have any official authority to dictate our activity,” I say. “MacMurray v. Guardian Brotherhood, 1991.”
Crenshaw does a double-take. “How do you know —?”
“I did some reading over the weekend. Law Library of Congress website. LexisNexis. Cornell University Legal Information Institute. Wikipedia. Can I go now?”
“Come on, I’ll give you a lift home,” Mindforce says.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I say, marching off. I have no clue how to get off the grounds, or how I’ll get home after that, but I’m not about to let that stop my dramatic exit. I’m trying to make a point here.
“Miss Hauser, you can’t walk home,” Crenshaw says.
“Watch me.”
“It’s more than a hundred and fifty miles to Kingsport.”
“Then I’ll fly home. Oh, wait,” I say, turning around. “I CAN’T!”
“Carrie, please,” Mindforce says. “I understand you want nothing to do with us, but you can’t walk across the entire state of Massachusetts, alone, at night. Please, let me take you home.”
I come very close to telling him to piss off, but I have no reason to be mad at Mindforce. He didn’t falsely accuse me of violating US airspace. He didn’t report me to Homeland Security. He’s been on my side the whole time.
And yet, it still burns me to accept the offer.
Mindforce doesn’t attempt conversation again until we’re halfway home. “It’s really your birthday?” he says.
“Sweet sixteen,” I say, and the uncomfortable silence between us settles back in.
It’s a few minutes after nine when we land. The Bruins game’s probably well into the third period by now, Mom and Dad are no doubt crapping bricks over my unexplained disappearance, and no lie in the world is going to save my butt. God, this night is never going to end, is it?
I reach for the passenger bay door. Someone opens it from the outside.
“Have you called your father yet?” Edison says. Oh, good, he’s out of costume. That’ll make it easier for me to punch him in his stupid face.
“What do you care?” I say.
“You should call him, let him know you’re on your way home.”
I hate to give the man an inch at this point, but he’s right. I dig out my cell phone, wince at the display (eleven missed calls over the past four hours), and pull up Dad’s number. He picks up on the first ring.
“Carrie!” he says. “Where are you? We’ve been worried sick about you!”
“Daddy, I’m sorry,” I say, but before I can offer up an apology or a lie or a feeble excuse, Edison snatches the phone from my hand.
“Hello, Mr. Hauser? This is Edison Bose. I wanted to — yes, Mr. Hauser, that Edison Bose.”
“What are you doing?” I hiss. Edison waves at me to be quiet.
“Mr. Hauser, I want to apologize to you. It’s my fault Carrie missed your birthday date,” Edison says. “She’s been considering an internship at my company, I asked her to come by for a follow-up interview, and we had a little incident at one of our labs. I assure you, your daughter was never in any danger, but — well, I’d really rather explain it to you face-to-face, I owe you at least that. All right, Mr. Hauser, I’ll have her home in a few minutes. See you soon.”
Edison hands the phone back to me. “I’m not letting you give me a ride home,” I tell him.
“Then I’ll let you explain why I showed up on your doorstep without you,” he says.
“God, you’re an ass.”
He grunts — Yeah, yeah, I know — and starts to walk away. “Come on,” he says.
Mindforce, in his silence, had the common decency to look remorseful. Edison does not. Not one tiny bit.
We drive to my place with an oldies station playing on the radio, and at one point, when Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” comes on, I catch Edison moving his lips the way people do when they want to sing along but don’t want people to see them doing it. Under different circumstances, I’d find it humanizing, maybe even endearing. Under these circumstances, it’s dumping gasoline on the fiery rage blazing inside me. So glad that having me thrown in Byrne for no good reason hasn’t impeded your ability to rock out to the King, you callous jerk.
We arrive at my house. Edison gets out and walks ahead of me to my front door. That’s right: He doesn’t follow me, he doesn’t wait for me, he walks right up to my house and rings the doorbell. It’s like I’m not even here.
Mom flings open the door, her expression changing from one of anxiety and relief to confusion when she sees Edison standing on the porch instead of me.
“Ms. Hauser, hello. I’m Edison Bose,” Edison says, extending a hand. “I am so sorry about tonight.”
Mom shakes his hand, still unsure of what’s going on, then spots me trudging up the walkway. She blows past Edison and charges me, hitting me with a tackle hug that’d make Farley proud. She lets go of me and I find myself immediately swept up in my father’s arms, and he repeats, verbatim, Mom’s mantra of “Oh thank God we were so worried we didn’t know what happened to you at least you’re safe what the hell happened?”
Verbatim. I kid you not.
Mom and Dad whisk me inside. Edison follows, introduces himself to my father and says, with a smile flavored with a touch of chagrin, “I suppose you’re wondering what this is all about.”
What happened, he explains, is that he called me to Bose Industries this afternoon for what he’d hoped would be a final meeting to discuss a coveted intern position at his company. He had a few solid candidates for the opening, but he’d been especially impressed by me throughout the interview process. However, I’d been hesitant to take the job since the technology field was not quite my cup of tea, and he wanted to make a final sales pitch to c
onvince me I’d fit in very well at Bose.
Near the end of our little chat, a Code Black alert went off. Code Reds signify an accident in one of the complex’s many production and R&D buildings, but a Code Black meant something had happened at the facility where they manufacture the nuclear micro-cells. As a matter of protocol, a Code Black initiates a complete and total lockdown of the entire complex, and that lockdown includes a communications blackout. In the event of a major emergency, employees’ first impulse is to try to call 911 or their families — or to post something on Twitter or Facebook, because some people have trouble prioritizing — and the last thing anyone needs is for the lines of communication to get gummed up. Only specified personnel are allowed to call out during a Code Black, and only to the appropriate first responders, so that’s why my parents never heard from me during this crisis.
“No, no, that’s perfectly understandable,” Dad says. The tension begins to drain out of him, then flares back up to full intensity. “Are you saying my daughter was present during a nuclear accident?”
Edison puts on a pained expression. “See, Mr. Hauser, that’s the part I find particularly embarrassing,” he says. “There was no accident at all. It was a false alarm – one of several we’ve experienced lately. We recently overhauled our security system, installed new software that was supposed to be a huge improvement over the old operating system, but the thing is buggy as hell. The thing’s been nothing but a huge headache — and a huge waste of my money.”
“So Carrie was never in any danger?” Mom says.
“No...which, I suppose, is a good thing, but it somehow makes me feel worse that she missed out on her birthday celebration with you, Mr. Hauser, over a non-issue.”
Dad breathes a sigh of relief that goes on for several seconds. “As long as my girl is okay,” he says, smiling at me. “That’s all I care about.”
I’d like to note for the record that Edison rattled off his entire story off the top of his head, without hesitating to think about where it was going, without tripping over his tongue, without contradicting himself or exposing any plot holes. What’s more, he was absolutely convincing. His demeanor never seemed forced or anything less than one hundred percent sincere. Edison Bose is a master liar.
Action Figures - Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect Page 22