Rule of Capture

by Christopher Brown

  Like most people, Donny was sure he couldn’t get away with it. That such a craven disregard of the popular will would be a bridge too far.

  The problem was, it was legal.

  They were talking about it on the TV as Donny waited for his escort in the courtroom security pod. A panel of pundits on Eagle News, strafing each other with bullet points on one of the screens behind Officer Wright as she filled out the morning’s intake forms. The other monitors were tuned to closed-circuit feeds from the holding cells. Donny glanced at one, saw a naked ghost curled in the corner of a concrete cube, and decided to stick with the news.

  The camera was on host Kathy Byrne, who had been the President’s press secretary during the first two years of the administration. In the background played clips of people marching outside the Capitol the day before.

  “They’re not protesters,” she said, in that voice that always seemed like someone had just cranked up the volume. “They’re traitors.”

  “They’re voters,” said another one of the panelists, a guy Donny didn’t recognize. “And they want their voices to be heard.”

  As they bickered, the camera switched to a much older guy. Charlie Graves, a veteran reporter who had looked old when Donny was a kid and the guy was always reporting from the White House. Old Charlie kind of smiled, turned his head, and spoke, like some animatronic oracle earning the nickel that just dropped into his box.

  “They can raise their voices and protest all they want, but the lawyers are in charge now.”

  And Donny thought he was half right. Certain lawyers were in charge, the lawyers who served power as their real client, at the expense of principle. The lawyers who write the memos that make it legal to end the rule of law.

  Donny had been one of those lawyers, for the money, until they kicked him out for his politics, after they had already demoted him for following the law. They kept him down here in the basement of institutional reality, to keep up appearances, for themselves and for the system. That was the idea.

  While wise media grandpa mused over the squawk box about what it was like to watch the kickoff of the big crackdown, the gathering of human wood that preceded the bonfire of civil society, on the next screen over you could see the grainy motion of what the memos that said they were lawful called an “interrogation enhancement.” This one involved wall slamming.

  That’s when Donny talked back to the TV, as if by doing so you could complain to the gods on strike.

  “Tell Aeschylus: Athena has left the building.”

  Wright looked up, first at the screen, and then at Donny. “Don’t you mean Elvis?”

  “He left a long time ago.”

  She gave Donny the look of someone trying to remember the last time they saw Elvis.

  Then Turner came out, jangling keys and humming the melody to “Blue Christmas,” even though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet.

  “Come on, Kimoe,” he said. “Your new client is ready to chat.”

  As he followed Turner back into the jail, Donny imagined him and the rest of the guards in a Technicolor musical comedy version of a Greek tragedy, with Elvis as angry teen Orestes rocking the cellblock in the part where Athena traps the spirits of human vengeance inside the temple of justice, only in this version the Furies have shackled her for a session of enhanced interrogation that will never end.

  The buzzer that blasted when the last door opened scared you every time, even when you knew it was coming.

  3

  The woman sitting there in the interview room did not look like an insurgent. They rarely did. They usually looked like kids, the kind of kids who in another time and place would be experimenting with mind-expanding drugs or speaker-busting music instead of world-changing politics.

  The room was small and cold. Bare concrete walls painted a plasmal shade of white, with a faint odor of bleach, a fainter odor of whatever nastiness they had cleaned up from whoever came before, and something like a steel picnic table bolted to the floor. The last time Donny had met a client in there, he found the guy hiding under the table. Xelina Rocafuerte was not like that.

  “Nice suit,” she said, sizing him up with untrusting eyes.

  “Thanks,” said Donny, knowing it was a put-down. “Don’t look too closely or you might see the holes.”

  “I guess selling out justice to the owners and their pet police doesn’t pay so good.”

  Donny smiled in grudging agreement and sat down across from her. He’d made less money every successive year since he left the firm, and now these court appointments were his only reliable source of income. Enough to pay his rent and service the loans that had paid for his law degree, without much left over for the increasingly expensive extracurricular activities that helped him manage the stress.

  “Not enough to buy my independence,” he said, wondering if even he really believed that anymore.

  “How much does that cost?” she asked.

  “A lot more than they’re paying me.”

  “You’re supposed to say it’s not for sale.”

  Everything is for sale, he thought. “I’ll let you be the judge of that,” he said.

  It looked like she had already made up her mind.

  Before he could even get his files out, Donny felt the buzz in his pocket, and pulled it out to see if it was the call he was waiting for.

  “Is that a flip phone?” said Xelina.

  “Yeah,” said Donny. He held it up where she could see it but the surveillance camera could not. “My ‘second line.’ We’re not supposed to have phones in here, but I sneak this one in sometimes. Like today, when I have to keep an eye out for an important call.”

  Then he looked at the number, and was surprised to see who it was. Joyce.

  “Jesus,” said Xelina. “You can’t even pay attention for two fucking minutes. Why can’t I get Miles Powell, like I was supposed to? He represented the Refugio Five.”

  “Sorry,” said Donny, trying to banish the thought of Joyce from his mind. “You’re right. Miles is the best. Not just the Refugio Five, but now he’s representing the Mayor for her defiance of the Governor’s decree. And he’s not going to be back here in time for your hearing. Which means we’re stuck with each other, unless you want to go talk to the judge again without me. Since that worked so well this morning.”

  She looked at him like you’d look at the dorky assistant principal of your shitty public high school.

  “I want you to walk out of here tomorrow,” he continued. “It’s my job. My sworn ethical duty. Hand on the holy book and the whole deal.”

  She looked away, folded her arms, and shivered.

  “Plus,” he said, “I brought donuts.”

  She looked back at him without turning her head.

  “And coffee.”

  Donny grabbed the cardboard caddy and pushed it across to Xelina. Then he pulled out his notepad and file.

  “Go ahead,” he said, watching Xelina warily eye the coffee as he got organized. “I figured you might be hungry. I’ll have one myself, so you know it’s not poisoned. And since it looks like I will be missing lunch again.”

  When she finally reached out to take one of the coffees and warm her hands, you could see the abrasions on her wrists.

  “Hang on,” said Donny. He reached back into his litigation bag, pulled out the old cardigan, and gave it to her. She accepted it, and as she pulled it on, Donny could see the tattoos on her upper arms. One side had images of animals that no longer roamed the plains, the other the flag of a country that did not yet exist, a flag with branching rivers instead of stripes.

  “You can give that back to me when you’re free,” said Donny, setting unrealistic expectations in the hope of eliciting candor.

  “Is this how I’m supposed to know you’re the nice kind of white guy from the government here to help me, as long as I cooperate?”

  “I think that was all cleared up in front of Judge Broyles,” said Donny. “As you made our job about a hundred times harder,
Xelina.”

  She kept her eyes on him while she sipped the coffee.

  “Am I saying it right?”

  “Shh,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “No. That’s how you say it.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Thanks.”

  She reached for the bag of donuts, pulled out the bear claw, and took a big bite.

  “So while you’re enjoying that, let me let you in on a couple of things. First,” he said, pointing up, “they are watching us. Purportedly for my safety.”

  She looked at the camera eye in the ceiling and kept chewing.

  “They are not listening,” said Donny. “You probably won’t take my word for it, but I know it’s true. It’s what their manuals say, and even in times like this, the bureaucrats stay inside their flow charts.”

  There was a CPR poster on the wall showing emergency resuscitation techniques for cardiac responses to interrogation. Next to it was a sign reminding prisoners of their rights, in bold black text spattered with old ink or maybe old blood.

  “The other thing is, even though they can’t eavesdrop on our conversation, they have the right to review my notes after I leave.”

  “So you really aren’t my lawyer,” she said.

  “I am, but they treat everything you tell me as classified information until I convince them otherwise.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I know. It’s a bogus system. That’s why I do it all on paper, offline and unplugged. And that’s why I won’t write anything down I don’t want them to read, and the things I do write down are written in a way that I understand, but they won’t. So your secrets are not their secrets. And they’re safe with me.”

  She shrugged. “If you think I’m going to give you that access code, it’s going to take more than a donut.”

  “What access code?”

  “To my phone.”

  “I saw that on the property sheet. A bunch of other devices, too.” He looked at the file. “Laptop, two cameras, storage drives. All taken when they searched your place, I guess.”

  She nodded. “They think the phone code unlocks those, too.”

  “You can be pretty sure they already unlocked all those. They have your biometrics on file.”

  She shook her head.

  “You know that’s a felony by itself, not updating your passport or national ID.”

  “I burned my passport. We all did.” She looked up at the camera, and talked right at it as if she were sure it had a mic, or could at least read her lips. “Fuck this country. Because fuck the whole idea of countries. I belong to the Earth.”

  “You sound a lot like a Rover,” said Donny, hoping he really was right that they didn’t listen in, and worried that she may have said similar things to her interrogators.

  “What do you even think that means, Donald?” The way she said his name made it sound like a cartoon character.

  “I think it depends on who you ask. The government says it’s another word for eco-terrorist. Others say it means people who put Earth ahead of country. To me it usually means people who reject the idea of borders. Which I can almost buy if you’re talking about nations, but not so much if you’re talking about the fence around my house. Not that I have one.”

  She shook her head.

  “I know for some people it means a way of trying to live free. Going wherever you want. Roaming instead of working. Which is cool with me as long as you’re not another one who wants me to convince the judge trespassing is not a crime.”

  She smiled at that.

  “I also know there are those who do more than just trespass. Who take a wrench with them. Or a bomb. And call it a prank.”

  Xelina looked like she was enjoying the bear claw. “Mostly wrong, but not bad,” she said.

  “I thought you said you’re a journalist.”

  “I am.”

  “You just exclusively cover the Rovers.”

  “No. Most of what I do is just nature films. Or stuff about the destruction of nature.”

  “So that’s how you can work without an ID.”

  “Don’t need one. I’m independent.”

  “So I gather. You know they can just contact BellNet to get access to your devices, at least the ones that are on-network? I used to do that, back when I was on the other side. Now they don’t even need a subpoena.”

  She made a face that suggested otherwise.

  “Did you crack it?” asked Donny. “If you blocked their back door, that’s another felony.”

  “It’s my private business,” she said.

  “If it’s so private,” said Donny, “why are you uploading so much content onto these sites?” He pulled the sheet from the file and set it out so she could see.

  “What is this?” she said.

  “It’s a list,” said Donny. “Of every video you’ve posted in the past year.”

  “So what? Most of those are sites everybody uses. I’m just sharing my work. Letting people see what’s going on around here. What they’ve been doing since the storms. Sometimes when you go looking for the wild things, you find other things.”

  “Gotcha. But they don’t see it that way. First of all, you posted most of these from anonymous accounts. Which is illegal under Burn Barnes.”

  “I heard they threw that out.”

  “They did, and then Congress fixed it, and made it even worse. By adding the provisions about media content they consider seditious. ‘Incitements to rebellion.’ Like everything on this list.”

  You could see her confidence drain out like air from a ruptured tire, as the fear grabbed hold.

  “All of which they are trying to keep me from seeing. So if you have any other copies, it would sure help me convince them these are all as innocuous as you say. Because you will be amazed how good these government lawyers are at making your free speech look like revolution, when they feel like it.”

  She shook her head. She was starting to look a little freaked out. “All I did was film other people protesting,” she said. “Shared it on these channels hardly anyone even looks at.”

  “You got them on crazy Mort Hanauer’s show,” said Donny, pointing back at the sheet. “A lot of people watch that, when he’s not blocked.”

  “He’s not crazy. The truths he tells are crazy.”

  “I hear you,” said Donny. Mort Hanauer was a charismatic but eccentric conspiracy theorist with a show on the public access channel, best known for his obsession with trying to disprove the President’s war hero stories—when he wasn’t talking about the aliens from the future who are manipulating our present. Joyce used to watch it when they were still together, mostly for laughs. “He puts out interesting stuff.”

  “I guess you prefer the news with artificial blondes reading corporate scripts,” said Xelina.

  “Honestly, I prefer to read,” said Donny. “But I’d like to see your work.”

  “So would they.”

  “They already have it. They just want that access code so they can get into your contacts and communications as well, and then talk to all your friends.”

  “After ripping them out of their homes in the middle of the night, like they did to us.”

  “Is that what they did? The red car treatment?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I get a lot of these cases. They want names, Xelina. They think they are oncologists, fighting a cancer that’s eating the society. And each one of you and your friends is a cell.”

  You could see she got the metaphor.

  “I guess the so-called Bill of Rights only applies to certain people,” she said.

  “Pretty much,” Donny agreed. “Especially in times of so-called rebellion.”

  “Clint’s right,” she said.

  “Who’s Clint?”

  “A friend. He says we need to take it to the next level.”

  “Which level is that?”

  “Actual rebellion, instead of ineffective protest, or just opting out.”


  “Please don’t talk like that. Actual rebellion is what they kill people for. Let’s stick with the ‘I’m just a journalist.’”

  “I am. Doesn’t mean I can’t have opinions.”

  “What do you want to see happen?”

  “I want us to take this continent back. Kick out the invaders, and bring back the wild.”

  Donny looked at her. This tiny young woman, so convinced of the possibility of her own idea of utopia, of justice, of something better, that you couldn’t help but be momentarily infected, even as you were wrapping your head around the insanity of what she was suggesting. She still had the cardigan on, but with the sleeves pulled up now, both arms on the table as if guarding the remains of the bear claw, flashing those tattoos in a way that made them come to life, as authentic visualizations of the future she was trying to summon into the now.

  “Can I stay?” asked Donny, only half-joking.

  She shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Donny, “what they are talking about is sending you off this continent. Do you understand that?”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “They disagree. They made it the law, that crimes of rebellion constitute revocation of citizenship. It kind of always was the law, but they sharpened the edge.”

  “I’ve heard the stories,” she said. “I didn’t believe them.”

  “I know, it seems crazy, but it’s real. It started earlier this year, at least that’s when we first started seeing the cases. And they don’t even tell us the whole deal, even though we’re supposedly cleared for classified information. So we hear the stories, too, and they’re all different. But what we know for sure is that once they take your citizenship away, they won’t have any other country that will take you, either. So they are keeping people someplace.”

  “In the resettlement camps?”

  “A lot worse than those places, as bad as they are. The kind of detention facility where they put people who have no rights, and who the government deems the most dangerous threats to its existence. A halfway house to hell.”