Vow

by Annelie Wendeberg

  I stink of old piss.

  I’m fed three times a day. Someone will bang on the door and bark at me to face the wall. It’s the only thing they say to me, “Face the wall!”

  As soon as I have my back to the door, it will open, and a small, wet splash of mashed oats or mashed potatoes or mashed whatever will hit the floor. Then the door slams shut.

  I eat like a dog, I’m chained like dog, sleep like a dog.

  Ice Face hasn’t visited yet. He’ll probably wait until I stink like a garbage heap, thinking I’m ready to do anything for a bucket of clean water and a sliver of soap. Which brings me to the bucket…

  There’s a bucket in my cell. The water stinks, but it’s the only water I have, so I’ve been scooping it up in my palms and drinking it.

  I use the drain as a toilet, but with my ankles chained to my wrists, it’s hard to hit the target. I’m glad I don’t have to take a dump yet.

  Sixteen

  I’m the only prisoner here. All I ever hear are the guards, the gurgling of the drain, and the buzzing of the light bulb.

  I miss the howling of the wind. The snow. The white expanse.

  But most of all I miss…

  No, I can’t.

  I...can’t.

  Seventeen

  Darkness is relative.

  Eighteen

  Shivering, I listen to the water that drips off the walls, the ceiling, and my clothes. I’ve just had the pleasure of taking a shower. Two masked guards hosed off my cell and me. There’d been complaints about the smell, they said. I didn’t reply. I was too busy trying not to slip in the wet messes I’ve made and hit my head on the floor.

  Now I’m as cold as this concrete box. And I’m tired of waiting.

  I am so fucking tired.

  Nineteen

  ‘Face the wall!’

  It’s not feeding time yet. I wonder what they want from me. I hope it’s not another shower. The door creaks open, but the splash of food doesn’t come. Instead, someone places something hard on the floor.

  ‘You can turn around now.’ That’s Ice Face’s voice.

  I shuffle my back to the wall and sit on my haunches. The chains clink against the floor.

  He sits on a chair, cradling a steaming mug in his hands. Scents of barley coffee tickle my nostrils.

  ‘Feels a bit cold in here,’ he says.

  ‘What do you want?’ I hear myself say. I’m so furious, I could explode. If the asshole offers me a blanket in exchange for five answers, I’m going to kill him. He thinks he’s invincible. Why else would he come in here, unaccompanied and unarmed?

  ‘You know what I want.’ Noisily, he sips at his hot coffee.

  ‘I don’t even know who the fuck you are. You told me you’re Sequencers, but you behave like the BSA.’

  He shrugs. ‘Torture is legal under martial law.’

  ‘The BSA have lots of great excuses, too.’

  ‘We’re trying to save humanity, not extinguish it.’

  ‘Bullshit. The difference between you and the BSA is so small, I don’t even see it. And I’m trying real hard because the last thing I want is to be back at BSA headquarters.’

  ‘Tell me about their headquarters.’

  ‘I want warm clothes, clean water, and a toilet.’

  ‘That’s a lot you are asking.’ He eyes me over the rim of his mug. And that’s when I snap. My body explodes into motion. The chains slap in his face, shattering his mug.

  But he doesn’t scream for a guard. His irises flare with excitement. He kicks at my legs and barely misses as I jump aside, and round on him to yank my chains around his neck. We both believe we have the advantage over the other. He’s bigger, unchained, well fed. I’m faster, and have more drive because I have very little to lose.

  Before I can get a good grip on his throat, the door slams open and a guard nails me on the back of my head.

  Twenty

  This doesn’t feel real. A soft mattress, a soft blanket. Warmth. Scents of fresh laundry and disinfectant. It’s quiet here. No buzzing of half-broken light bulbs, no shouting, no slamming of doors. In the stillness, I can hear my own heart.

  I whisper, ‘Heartbeat,’ and emptiness spreads on my tongue.

  I put the loss of my word flavours aside as if they mean nothing. Self-pity is what gets you killed, I keep telling myself. But my heart won’t listen. It yearns for Katvar. It needs to know that he’s alive, that he’s well and not in pain. It needs to know that he remembers who he is. And who I am.

  Someone has to remember who I am because I will forget. I know that my resolve will crumble and my monster will take control. I know that as surely as I know that my wounds bleed.

  I try to sit up, but a tug at my arm stops me. My wrists and ankles are shackled to the bed. Unable to hide my face in the crook of my arm, I turn my head to the wall and groan with frustration.

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  The shackles clink as I startle. I didn’t know anyone was in the room with me. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Call if you need anything,’ he says, and shuts the door.

  Shuts it, doesn’t slam it. That and his friendly reply are disconcerting. Where the hell did I end up? I doubt I’m far from my cell, because I can’t recall a transport. Maybe I’ve been unconscious for days? I hate not knowing.

  I rotate my joints as far as the shackles allow. My ribs hurt. My stomach, too. Dimly, I remember kicks to my abdomen. Ice Face was pretty pissed. Or excited, depending how you look at it.

  My neck feels stiff, and my head hurts when I move it. Diffuse light from the ceiling stabs at my brain. Concussion is my guess. Maybe a broken rib or two.

  They’ll stuff me back into my box in no time.

  I scan the room. It’s three or four times the size of my cell and bare except for my bed and a stand with two IV bottles whose labels I can’t read, then a shelf to my right and the door to my left. Next to the door is a sink with a mirror. If I can get my shackles off, I can smash the mirror and use its shards as weapons.

  There’s no window.

  My fingers probe the shackles on my wrists. There’s a small hole where a key would go. If I could get my IV out of my arm, I could use the needle to… No, wait. They probably used one of those flexible things I had at Alta’s hospital. I turn my arm and stretch my neck to catch a glimpse of the material. What sticks out of my skin doesn’t look like metal. Shit. Huffing, I sink back on the pillow and wonder where those flexible needle things are made and if they are expensive.

  Whatever. I can’t use them to pick a lock, and that’s that.

  My eyes scan the room again, trying to find anything nearby that’s pointy or sharp. I need a lockpick and a weapon. There’s a pair of scissors on the shelf, next to a few rolls of bandages, and a tray with small bottles and a syringe. All of it more than a meter out of my reach.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe.

  A quiet knock. The door opens. A man with black skin, short curly black hair, black eyes and a white coat enters. His pants are white, too.

  ‘You are staring,’ he says. That same voice.

  Of course I’m staring! I only ever read about people with black skin. Plus, he’s the only guy aside from Ice Face who’s not wearing a mask. ‘Never guessed I’d meet someone with skin as ugly as mine.’

  ‘Charming. But at least you didn’t ask if I’d let you rub it.’ He approaches and pulls a small squeeze light from his pocket.

  ‘The skin or the hair?’

  ‘Either. May I examine your pupillary reaction?’

  ‘How’s that any different from me asking you if I may rub your skin?’

  ‘It’s the difference between a physician and a racist asshole.’

  ‘You sure you aren’t both?’ Do I need to point out I’d never asked to rub his skin?

  He takes my retort as an invitation to examine me, and sticks his face close to mine. His nose is dented as if it had a few too many fist massages, and there’s a scar running through one of h
is thick eyebrows. The tight black curls on his skull are pretty fascinating.

  He tells me to open my eyes wide, then shines his squeeze light into them. ‘How does the head feel?’

  ‘Like a head.’

  ‘The ribs?’

  ‘Like ribs.’

  He sighs. ‘I get it. I’m one of the bad guys.’

  ‘Yep. So when’s the next cavity search coming up?’

  ‘Aren’t you being a bit prejudiced?’ He turns to the shelf and fumbles with a bottle and a syringe.

  ‘Your people torture me. Your people treat me worse than I would treat a dog. Your people keep me prisoner without a trial or even legal counsel.’ I rattle my shackles for emphasis. ‘What’s in that syringe?’

  ‘Vitamins, minerals, amino acids. You need them; you’re wasting away.’ He slips the needle into the tube that feeds into my arm.

  ‘And what’s in the bottles?’

  ‘Liquids, electrolytes, glucose. I’m trying to get you physiologically stable. Have you experienced seizures?

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Syncopes?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you passed out frequently?’ He draws liquid from another bottle and pumps that into my IV as well.

  ‘Isn’t that what normally happens when someone knocks you on the head?’

  ‘Between the knocks on the head, I mean.’

  ‘Can’t remember. Maybe.’

  He nods once, leans closer, and says, ‘I think you’ve been passing out four or five times a day.’

  ‘If there’s a camera installed in my cell, you haven’t been paying attention.’

  He flicks his gaze to door, then back at me, and whispers so quietly I can barely understand him, ‘No camera in your cell, but here. And a mic. I’ll write in my report that you drifted in and out of consciousness while I was examining you, and that you’ve been suffering from regular syncopes for a while. Better pretend to be unresponsive now and then, and also confirm what’s in my report to Colonel Johansson.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Your interrogator.’

  Remembering the unresponsiveness, I make my body go limp and speak through my teeth, ‘You mean Ice Face?’

  ‘Huh. I guess,’ he says, and turns to put the syringe away.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  I twirl my fingers at the fancy room and my IV bottles before going back to my pseudo-syncope.

  His smile is bitter. ‘He’ll get you killed if he keeps going at you like that.’

  ‘And a dead terrorist is of no use to you.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Well, at least I know where I stand with this guy. It would have been too nice to be seen as a human being for once. ‘Are you…from Africa?’ I whisper.

  He claps a hand over his face and groans.

  ‘Or was it Australia? I’m sorry, I’ve never listened in school, and never met a…’ I trail off when he stares at me, slack-jawed. ‘What?’ I hiss through a corner of my mouth.

  ‘I’m waiting for the n-word.’

  What n-word? Puzzled, I squint at him. ‘Like…nurse?’

  His eyes grow glassy, and he doubles over wheezing with laughter.

  ‘Fuck you, too,’ I mumble. ‘Don’t give the terrorist any information. I get it.’

  Panting, with a palm pressed to his stomach, he’s trying to pull it together. After a few deep breaths, he waves a hand at me and says, ‘No, no! That’s not what that was about, I just… Forget it. Ask me anything you like.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ I blurt out before thinking about more strategic questions like, where the fuck I am and how I can get my hands on guns and explosives.

  ‘I’m Dr. Johansson.’

  Johansson? Really? I hike up an eyebrow. I had my first encounter with gay men years ago, but until then I had no idea that such a thing was even possible. ‘You are shitting me. You and Ice Face are married?’

  The doctor’s eyes are about to bug out when he coughs like his lungs are in shreds. But he manages to croak, ‘Brother. He’s my brother. My parents adopted him.’

  He seems to regret that last bit of information.

  ‘Aw. Cute. I’m sure you had a splendid childhood together.’

  Immediately, he switches from easy-going to stony. ‘We sure did.’ He checks my pulse without so much as a glance, then walks out and shuts the door.

  Twenty-One

  Doc told me I’m on a four-week vacation. He asked for six, but Ice Face agreed to only four, despite Doc throwing around a bunch of angry medical terms like hypokalaemia, hypophosphataemia, arrhythmia, bradycardia, syncope. I understood barely half of them when I read his report. I’m sure the other half was made up to make Ice Face feel guilty, although I doubt the man feels anything but boredom, contempt, and rage.

  But for four glorious weeks, he’s not going to be my problem. Which doesn’t mean security has slackened. I’m fettered at all times, can’t use the toilet without two guards searching it before I enter and after.

  No cavity searches yet. Yay.

  Yesterday, I got three warm meals (in a bowl, still warm), a shower (in a shower stall, also warm), and two twenty-minute walks through the corridor (not half as exciting as my meals and the shower). Doc says that’s what I’ll get every day now. They won’t let me go outside, but I caught a glimpse into a lab when someone opened the door as I passed. There was a window, and behind it, barracks and tall razor wire fences, patches of melting snow on the ground, a clump of firs or spruces in the distance. Looks like a military complex in the woods, maybe smack in the rear end of Earth. Which could be in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish or even Russian territory for all I know. On the three-day train ride, they could have taken me as far as the Black Sea. But I doubt there’s snow on the ground that far south.

  I keep scanning labels on bottles, shelves, books, packages of bandages and syringes and other medical supplies, canisters of chemicals, and whatever gadgets my armed and masked guards or Doc has on them, whenever I manage to catch a glimpse in passing. All of it is in English, except for a sticker on a radio a guard was carrying on his hip. It was in Cyrillic.

  In other words: I don’t have the slightest where I am.

  Ice Face walks into my room without knocking. Aw, shit. And here I was, thinking he was going to give me a break. He doesn’t even smirk. Just looks like he owns the place, and me.

  He probably does.

  ‘No guards?’ I ask.

  He twitches a shoulder. ‘It’s more fun without them, isn’t it?’

  I sit up in my bed as far as the chains allow. Which isn’t far. My bladder begs for a toilet break. What shit timing.

  He pulls up a chair and sits. Crosses his arms over his chest as he leans back. He shuts his eyes and murmurs, ‘I suggest you talk. I’m the good guy here.’

  A mad giggle rolls up my chest. ‘Really?’

  A corner of his mouth tweaks a little. He’s such an arse biscuit. He zeroes his gaze in on me as someone knocks on the door.

  ‘Enter,’ he says.

  Three people stride into the room. Two men in combat boots and pants that look brand new and completely untouched by combat of any sort. And a woman in a skirt, of all things. She even holds a notepad and pen in her hands. Her eyes ogle me over silver-rimmed glasses.

  The guys I can deal with, but she throws me off. She’s artificial in every way.

  ‘Mickaela Capra, you are accused of treason,’ she says to her notepad, not me.

  The men keep their gazes trained on a point above my head.

  The woman doesn’t wait for my reply. She draws a quick squiggle on her notepad, and rattles on, ‘You are working for Erik Vandemeer — your father and head of the BSA. Together, you laid a trap for your team and the troops that came to your aid. None of them made it out alive. Furthermore, you helped the BSA cause the meltdown of a nuclear power plant, leading to massive radioactive contamination of South Taiwan. You, Vandemeer, and two of his men subsequent
ly fled that island. In the ensuing two years, you helped destroy several Sequencer bases, and got hundreds of our people killed.’ Here, she finally looks up. ‘And you destroyed our global satellite network. Our greatest asset. Our means of reconnaissance and communication. Gone in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘Maura,’ one of the guys presses through his teeth. Does he think she gave away some tidbit of secret intel? You’d have to be a complete douchewaffle to not know that Earth’s satellite network was a great asset.

  She cuts him an annoyed glance, which tells me they are definitely not BSA, no matter how they treat me. Because if they were, Maura would not be saying a peep without a male telling her to, would never dare show a male disrespect, because they’d mop the floor with her if she so much as tried to roll her eyes at them.

  I should be relieved, but I’m not. Sequencers are supposed to be fighting the BSA, not torturing ex-prisoners of the Bull Shit Army. Thoroughly pissed by this circus, I say, ‘Twelve days.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Not in the blink of an eye. It took seventeen satellites equipped with particle-beam guns and nine swarms of autonomous parasitic nanosatellites two hundred ninety-four hours to destroy more than five thousand satellites. It took twelve days, not the blink of an eye.’

  She stares at me. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘I’d like to know if you guys always take torture lessons from the BSA, or if Ice Face is the only intern you sent to them.’

  Her perfect eyebrows form two crooked lines. ‘In times of war, our methods are justified. We serve the greater good.’

  ‘And at which point is the price for the greater good too high?’

  ‘There is no price too high,’ she says primly.

  I want to slap her stupid glasses off her face and paint her trimmed eyebrows with a fat charcoal stick. It’s childish, but who cares. ‘If that’s true, the world will be full of assholes once you and the BSA are done with it.’