Vow

by Annelie Wendeberg

  Soft clicking is wrapped in the feathery brush of reindeer feet on deep snow. I’ve never figured out why or even how reindeer click when they move. The animals have flat, cloven hooves that are designed like snowshoes, and when you see them walk, you think they float. There’s something serene about them.

  It’s this soft clicking of their legs that’s the only noise defined enough for me to keep track of the number of sleds around me. I’m on one, and there’s another behind me. A third took a different route soon after we left Alta. But the swooshing of the sled I’m strapped to and the stinky bag Mike yanked over my head muffle the sounds around me.

  I tried to measure the distance we were travelling by counting to one thousand. At each thousand, I’d curl a finger into my hand. At ten thousand and one, I bit one cheek hoping that we wouldn’t get much further than two cheeks, because I don’t have more than two and can’t curl in or tuck up any other body part to keep count.

  Turns out, I was worrying about the wrong things. I had to stop counting somewhere around twenty-six thousand when I lost feeling in my fingers. So now I’m listening to reindeer clicks for no other reason than to keep my mind busy and awake enough to know when we add company or split up again.

  And to keep panic at bay.

  The direction we’re heading is a complete mystery to me. I gave up tracking left and right turns, the uphills and downhills. Now it’s just me, the foul air in my bag coating my tongue, and the soft sounds of reindeer in snow.

  The men who took me don’t exchange a word.

  With a crash, the world turns upside down. Fuck, I’ve slept. My heart seizes as I land belly down in the snow. Half frozen, with hands and feet tied and something heavy on top of me, all I can do is wriggle like a maggot. The thick fabric of the bag is wet with my condensed breath, and it’s smashed tight against my face by deep snow.

  ‘Can’t…breathe!’ I wheeze. My ears begin to screech. My ribcage contracts and my throat burns. Air is scarce in my lungs. My brain can’t be tricked into needing only traces of oxygen. Turning my head is agony. Something sharp presses into my neck. Not like this! Not like this! my mind hollers. What a pathetic way to die.

  The weight on my back shifts, and scrapes a hole into my skin as it’s lifted off me.

  Someone grabs me and flips me on my back. I’m so done, I can’t move a finger. The fucking bag still sticks to my face and sucking through the layers of fabric and mush and frozen condensation is like trying to breathe underwater. My mouth is filled with acid. Not sure if it’s bile or the taste of suffocation.

  Fingers close around my throat. My body bucks without consulting my brain. Some asshole hits me over the head, but I can’t stop seizing.

  At last, the bag is yanked off.

  I suck in sweet air. Blondie is standing above me. I’m so glad to see him, I cry snot bubbles.

  ‘We can’t keep her like this,’ I hear Mike grumble.

  I want to hug them both. Rolling my eyes, I try to bring Mike into focus as he moves away. He gets something from the other sled. Yes! Dry furs, a bite to eat, and a hot drink would be fucking glorious.

  He comes back with a sweater.

  My idiotic smile (which I blame solely on oxygen deprivation) dies when he pulls the sweater over my head and leaves it there to blindfold me.

  We keep on driving. Might be twenty kilometres, or a hundred, or five hundred from Alta. With my brain back to near-normal Micka-functionality, I think of my old SatPad sitting in a melting snow cave on Bear Island. Two million books humanity will never get to read if Katvar doesn’t recover or I don’t make it back there. My body feels forlorn without him. My heart is a hole in my chest.

  I wish I knew if he…

  No. I can’t think of that.

  Two million books. Erik must have made several copies of that library. And I’m hundred percent sure he’s the only one with access to them. Knowledge is power, that’s what he drilled into me over and over again. I wonder where he found the files, or…did he take them from the Sequencers?

  I make a mental note to find out whether the Sequencers are keeping valuable knowledge from the people they’ve vowed to protect.

  A snort bursts from my mouth. Mike barks at me to shut it.

  Sometimes, my naiveté surprises me. The Sequencers have kept from everyone who and what they really are. Only the Sequencers knew about satellite technology. They could have easily used it to help point people to arable and uncontaminated land, or warn them about the storms and floods that are always moving in. But no. What did they use the global satellite network for?

  Warfare.

  When I was growing up, Sequencers were like…like legends made flesh. Everyone knew they were protecting us. Cacho, the Sequencer who came by once or twice a year, always carrying his MIT FireScope, would analyse our water and soil for cholera germs. I probably should say: he pretended to. Knowing what I know now, he might even have done those tests, but it couldn’t have made much sense to search for cholera high up in the mountains in a remote settlement.

  My throat clenches. It’s still raw from trying to breathe. Could it be that Cacho was only coming by to check on me? He was Erik’s mentor. Both were satellite specialists, working not far from where I lived.

  No one but the Sequencers knew about that satellite control centre. Until Erik switched sides and transferred all that knowledge to the BSA. Although… I wonder how much Erik actually tells his men.

  Knowledge is power. He would give them only as much power as they needed to complete a job he gave them.

  My thoughts come to a halt when the sled stops. Pricking my ears, I try to identify the location and time of day. Maybe we’re making camp. Maybe we’re meeting someone.

  For a long time, nothing interesting happens. Both men fumble with their clothes. The sounds of piss hitting snow. A few grunts as they have a snack.

  The reindeer are getting nervous. Stomping their feet and huffing. A faint but sharp zzzing rising from afar steals my last hope that I’ll ever know where I’m being brought. Quickly, the noise grows louder, and a few moments later, a train screeches to a stop. The reindeer tug on the sled and Blondie is shouting. Someone grabs me and tries to make me stand. I tip sideways, bumping into Mike’s or Blondie’s chest. My legs are frozen stiff. No idea what these guys were expecting.

  ‘Walk,’ Blondie barks and thumps my back.

  My face hits the snow. At least my landing is soft. ‘Can’t feel my legs,’ I croak.

  ‘No talking!’ He grabs my anorak and yanks me up, and half carries, half drags me forward. Something sharp hits my shins. That I feel.

  ‘Climb!’ he barks.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘I said no talking!’ He clouts me over the head. Again I fall forward, but this time my landing isn’t soft. I grab at something to pull myself away from him. Not fast enough, though. Blondie slaps my arse, then puts his fucking hands on my waist, and gives me a shove. He enjoys this. I start to doubt he and Mike are Sequencers. That thought alone… The possibility they might be BSA tips me over the edge of this tiny precipice of sanity I’ve been clawing to these past hours. Panic seizes me and everything else fades. My breath and my heartbeat are a staccato. I think I’m shrieking, or the world is, I’m not sure. It’s not even important. Every fibre of my body screams, I have to get out of here!

  And out I get, as something hard hits my temple.

  I come to in the semi-darkness of a…room? Cell? The gentle rattling and swaying tell me we’re in a train. Clinking comes from my wrists and ankles. Ah, they’ve chained me. I guess that clarifies any questions I might have concerning the pecking order here.

  A pair of boots is the next thing my eyes focus on. A guy — not Blondie or Mike — sits on a chair and observes me. His face reveals nothing. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing.

  My gaze shifts around the small compartment. A window with nothing behind it but blackness. It must be night. I’ve been on a twelve-hour journey. Minimum. The floor
is grated metal. The walls are an aged plastic imitation of cut wood.

  My tongue weasels around in my mouth in the search of saliva. ‘Who are you? Where am I?’ My questions are a waste of time. I see that in the guy’s unmoving expression.

  ‘My organisation values truth above all else,’ he begins. ‘If you answer my questions truthfully, you’ll be released. If you don’t answer, or you bend the facts…’ He shrugs, letting the statement hang there for a while, hoping to impress me. We stare at each other. Someone outside the room is chewing noisily. The scent of pancakes drifts through a barred hole in the door. My stomach yowls.

  The guy smirks. ‘Hungry?’ Again, he shrugs. ‘You are a terrorist. Your life means nothing to us.’

  So here’s the thing: Erik taught me a shitload about interrogation and torture. Mostly through “practical training.” Most interrogators get it backwards, which might not be precisely what Erik intended to teach me.

  An interrogator’s main goal is to get information from a detainee. But very few understand that what they really want is communication. For that to happen, they need to listen. But guys like Ice Face here have no clue how to do that because their mind is stuck at, “I know what you did, you fucking terrorist.”

  Ice Face looks like a run-of-the-mill ready-to-kill-ya interrogator. Maybe that’s why he got the job. He believes I’m a terrorist. He walked into this room knowing I’m a terrorist. He’s soaked to the bone with this belief. He’ll be blind and deaf to the truth because it won’t fit his mindset. Men like him don’t want to hear the facts. They just want to destroy people.

  I try to look defeated. It’s not difficult, as exhausted as I am. ‘Can’t… Can’t think straight. Am starving.’

  ‘When did Erik Vandemeer first contact you?’

  Slowly, I sit up and lean my back against the wall. The chain connecting my ankles to my wrists drags over the grated floor. My fingers tremble harder. I open my mouth and shut it, blink, and let my eyes roll back briefly. ‘M’sorry what did you say?’ Not all of this is an act. I am starving. Did I mention, parched?

  ‘I can destroy your life. I can keep you prisoner until your bones rot. When did Vandemeer decide to destroy our satellite network?’

  ‘He said the Espionage Unit knew,’ I lie.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Water.’

  Ice Face balls a fist. His lids lower a fraction. ‘Answer my question!’

  I slump forward. Drooling would be a nice effect now, might even convince him I’m nearly unconscious, but my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with sand. Not sure when the last time was I drank anything.

  Ice Face lunges and slaps me. ‘No sleep for you! No answers, no sleep, no food, no water!’ He kicks his chair out of the way, and exits the room, leaving me shackled, hands to feet. Someone keeps banging on the grille. Whenever I drift off, the asshole shouts, ‘No sleep for you!’

  Fourteen

  Cavity searches were invented to humiliate, not to actually find anything. I’ve had three so far. They call it “processing.” I call it rape and told them so. They laughed. Told me I don’t even know what rape is. And that I’m a terrorist and can’t expect to be treated like a person.

  It suits them just fine to ignore that I’ve been a BSA prisoner for two years, that I know rape and torture first hand.

  I’m not even sure who “they” are. Either they are wearing some stupid knitted hats pulled down all the way to their chins, with holes for eyes and mouth, or a fucking bag is covering my head. Except for one time when I wore a dirty bucket because I’d puked into the bag when someone kicked my stomach.

  Today must be the second or third day on the train, but I’m not sure. They’ve tried to keep me awake, tried to starve me, never checking or worried if I’d survive this. I blacked out on day one, and woke up to my first cavity search. They got a bit more careful then, what with my bones razoring under my skin. They started feeding me, even offered sweetened tea. It’s like in the fairy tale. Can’t remember its title, but there was a witch that fattened up two children, planning to butcher and eat them later. I’m not sure if someone came to save them, or if they ended up in the larder.

  No one is coming to save me. Katvar doesn’t know where I am. Fuck, I don’t even know where I am, or where I’m going. And I don’t know if Katvar is…

  I squeeze my eyes shut and bite my tongue, hard. I will not think about the possibility of the only person who matters in my life not being anything but alive and well.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys?’ I ask Ice Face, who entered my compartment after my empty food bowl was taken away.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be one of us?’

  ‘Who’s us?’

  He cocks an eyebrow.

  I cock mine back at him. ‘You are such a clown.’

  His pupils narrow to pinpricks, which makes me think of Silas, my second husband. Murderer of my newborn daughter.

  I dig my fingers into my thigh to distract from the rising panic. Silas is dead. I ripped out his voice box, watched arterial blood arc away from his body. I gutted him. Made sure he stayed dead.

  And yet…

  My monster is stirring under my skin. It was born at BSA headquarters, and it dug its claws through the little softness I’d foolishly kept in my heart and mind. It helped me pull through, but asked for a hundred times the terror and rage and savagery I thought I could tolerate. It wasn’t a conscious decision to let it come to life. When the only alternative to the loss of your life is the loss of your sanity, you instinctively go for the latter, telling yourself that sanity will come back some sunny day.

  Like it’s that easy.

  If it hadn’t been for Katvar, I’d still be a hollow, furious shell of a woman.

  Ice Face pulls back his shoulders and rolls his neck. Not in a threatening way. Just like someone stretching his limbs to get started on a job. Like baking bread, ploughing fields, chopping off fingers, or removing eyeballs with a spoon.

  ‘Let us begin very simple. Confirm our information and you’ll get a blanket.’

  Yep, I’m sleeping on naked metal. Shackled. No blanket, no furs. They took my anorak.

  ‘And the shackles go.’ I know he won’t do that for me, but I don’t want to give the impression I’m easy to bait. A blanket would be awesome, though…

  ‘That’s not in my power,’ he says.

  Aw, poor thing. Not in his power. I nod like the obedient prisoner I am. ‘Okay. Two questions. Two answers. One nice, thick blanket.’

  ‘Five questions. Five truthful answers.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut and suck in a breath. It looks like I’m super excited about a meagre blanket — I am! — but I’m doing this mostly to not blurt, “See, that’s how you get a sociopathic interrogator to communicate with you!”

  ‘Okay, shoot.’

  ‘When did Erik Vandermeer first contact you?’

  ‘About two, two and a half years ago, when we were stationed on Taiwan.’

  Ice Face stands and leaves the compartment. Just before he shuts the door, he says, ‘We try again tomorrow. Until then: no food.’

  Aw shit. Facts don’t work on Ice Face. I’ll have to keep reminding myself of that. And I really wanted that blanket. ‘No problem! I was planning to go on hunger strike anyway what with that “no bed” situation.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he says and shuts the door.

  I don’t like the tone he used. And sure enough, a few moments later, the door opens and two masked guys walk in. One with a funnel and a hose, the other with a bucket. ‘You on hunger strike?’

  Eying their equipment, I wonder what the hell they intend to do with it. ‘I want a blanket. I’m freezing my ass off.’

  ‘You get a blanket when you answer our questions.’

  ‘Not my fault that Ice Face walked out on me.’

  One guy turns to the other and says, ‘You remember how deep it’s supposed to go in?’

  ‘What’s supposed to go in?’
I ask. The hose looks very suspicious right now. And the funnel. ‘What’s the hose for?’

  ‘Never seen a stomach tube?’ the other guy says, then turns back to the first guy. ‘Doc said to be careful not to push it into a lung.’

  The fuck? I scoot as far away from them as the small compartment allows. My shoulder blades poke the hard wall behind me.

  ‘I say we give it a try,’ guy number one says to number two with a shrug.

  I clench my jaw. They’ll never get that thing into my mouth. Never.

  They are taking slows steps toward me, enjoying the look of terror on my face. I curl up, teeth clamped shut, head buried between my arms and wrist-to-ankle chains.

  The bastards laugh, slap my head, and walk out, calling back to me, ‘Now you know what’s gonna happen if you don’t eat when we tell you to.’

  I’m trapped in my skin of rage and helplessness. I want my rifle, my knife, my pistol, and a large box of ammo.

  Fuck it, I want explosives.

  Fifteen

  I’m a continual source of entertainment for my guards. Especially now that my journey seems to have ended. That was yesterday, but I can’t be sure. I don’t remember when I last saw daylight. A bulb is screwed to the wall by the door, flickering.

  When they kicked me into my cell, I made the mistake of taking the bag off my head as fast as I could. I wanted to breathe. I felt like I hadn’t filled my lungs in ages.

  I found myself in an empty concrete box with a drain in the floor and a butcher hook in the ceiling.

  They laughed when I pissed my pants.

  Most of the time, I try to keep my eyes closed and my arm draped over my face to shut out the spasmodic light. But the hook and the drain are burned into my mind. You really don’t need to put any effort into torturing your detainee with an interior design as subtle as this one. Every sane person with a speck of imagination will paint their own fate in a thousand bloody colours, every hour of the day, every day of the week.