by K. Makansi
Chan-Yu punches in the code and the door opens. We’re in the outer chamber of the holding room where several chairs sit on one side of a long table facing a large, darkened one-way mirror. I quickly review the readouts on the glass pane—systolic blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and, in smaller print, a complex biochemical profile of each of the prisoners. The readouts are designed to analyze the hostages’ micro-expressions over a period of time and give a preliminary psychological profile. Under the words SOREN SKAARSGARD, the blue lines read, “Subject’s Current Status: Defiant, angry, physically exhausted, likely asleep.” Remy’s reads: “Confused, angry, tense, physically exhausted.” I’ve waited three years for this moment, but now I’m not sure I’m ready. I’m not sure I’m ready to face her. There are so many questions I want to ask, but I can’t. Not while I know Aulion will be watching.
“Sir, would you like me to clear the window so you can see the hostages before you enter?”
“Yes, please.” Chan-Yu toggles a switch on the wall and the darkened window transforms from opaque to clear. I clench my fists as I take in the sight of Remy and Soren slumped on the floor, tied back-to-back to a pole in the center of the room. Soren has obviously been beaten; his face is bruised and gashed in several places. Remy appears to have been spared that treatment, but she’s hardly in peak condition. Both of them look haggard. Soren’s head is hanging limply, and I can tell from the regular rise and fall of his shoulders that he’s asleep. Remy’s head is resting against the pole, but at least she’s sitting upright, leaning against Soren’s shoulder for support.
“Chan-Yu, have they … have they been held in this room since they were brought in?”
“Yes, sir. On General Aulion’s orders. They’ve been allowed to leave twice, once for the medical checkup and again to use the toilets.”
“Have they been given food or water?”
“They’ve been given water.” I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Food. Have they been fed?”
“No, sir. General Aulion instructed that they were not to be given anything to eat until they cooperated.” Chan-Yu pauses. “And he said that if you were to object, I was to inform him.”
Bastard. “Well, then, we’d better get this over with, so they can eat something. I’m not having anyone starving on my watch.”
“Yes, sir. However, General Aulion also gave orders that they are only to be fed if they provide the information we require,” Chan-Yu says. His calm, matter-of-fact tone unnerves me.
We’re not going to starve them. I don’t care what Aulion says. But I don’t say that aloud. Not here. Everything we say in this room is recorded. And I don’t want to challenge Aulion’s authority any more than I imagine Chan-Yu—or anyone else in the Sector—does. But still, starving or torturing prisoners won’t get us anywhere, and it certainly won’t get us good information. That much I did learn from my history classes.
I see Remy wince and try to move. She’s awake and obviously in pain. Angry now, I roll up on the balls of my feet. A surge of adrenalin charges through my body, and I take advantage of that to overcome my hesitation and fear. I barge into the room, hoping that at least one of them will cooperate so I can feed them. Remy needs to heal, and to heal, she needs to eat.
Soren pulls his head up when he hears the door open. When he recognizes me, his eyes shine, and he bares his teeth in a kind of feral grin. Remy looks up at me, but I try not to meet her eyes.
“Remy Alexander and Soren Skaarsgard,” I begin, “I am authorized to inform you that you have been taken hostage and imprisoned because of your connection with and work for the so-called Resistance movement, which has perpetrated numerous attacks on government facilities and officials. You have information on the Resistance’s operations and movements that we need, and in exchange for that information, we will release you to serve sentences in a labor camp as opposed to charging you with treason, conspiracy, and murder.” The death of the soldier who fell from the roof during the raid has been added to the list of the Resistance team’s crimes.
“Valerian Orleán,” Soren says, with a smirk painted across his face. “I am authorized to inform you that you are an asshole.”
Remy’s dark amber eyes flash as I accidentally catch her glare. She’s regarding me warily, but there’s no judgment in her expression, no anger, no hate. Just exhaustion and uncertainty. I hold her gaze and let her eyes burn a hole through my brain.
I take a deep breath and continue. “Our demands are this: We want to know the location of each and every Resistance base on the North American continent. The identity of the Resistance leader you call the Director. The location of Dr. James Thatcher Rhinehouse. The location of Dr. Brinn Alexander and her husband, Gabriel Alexander. Information on Resistance goals and objectives. We want to know what your biotech and IT capabilities are, what your aviation—”
“My, my, you are a demanding bunch,” Soren cuts in, and I can’t help it, I let him interrupt me. “Here are our demands: a hot shower, an untainted meal, and a soft bed. They shouldn’t be hard for you to meet. In fact, Remy and I are willing to save space. We can share—the shower and the bed. We won’t mind, will we, darling?” He says with a charming smile directed at her.
I stiffen, and can’t stop from glancing at Remy who is staring at me with an unreadable look.
“I’m afraid your demands don’t matter much right now. If you give us the information we want, I’ll make sure you get some hot food and—”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and count me in for the ’treason, conspiracy, and murder’ stuff, and let me get back to my nap? I don’t know anything about the Resistance, or about this Director guy, or this Thatcher person. So just let me go back to sleep and then, after I get a little shut-eye, you can drop me out in the No-Go Zone of your choice, because I’d rather be dumped in the middle of an irradiated wasteland than spend any more time here in the same room with you.” He straightens up, leans back against the pole and closes his eyes.
I stare at the two of them. Remy is still looking at me, her expression as inscrutable as Chan-Yu’s.
“Look. This can be hard, or this can be easy. We’re not going to torture you, but—”
“Oh, yeah?” Soren says without opening his eyes. “This black eye and split lip just magically appeared. And I suppose you were thinking of my well-being when your goons—oh, I mean friends—decided that it was a good idea to have a boxing match with a man with his arms tied behind his back.”
What? What did they do to him?
“But you’ll either talk willingly or you’ll talk under the influence of drugs, and the only difference is that with the first option, you don’t come out with a conviction for treason.”
The room is silent. Soren ignores me. I can feel Chan-Yu at my elbow, quiet, unmoving, watching my performance.
“Vale, why are you doing this?” Remy unexpectedly croaks out. Her voice is shot to hell, and I have no idea why. The report said she’d been given appropriate medications for her injuries; maybe something they gave her affected her voice? Or was she hoarse because she’d been “uncooperative”? The medic on the Huron said she’d been tranquilized because she was “none too happy” about being held. The idea of her fighting back simultaneously pains me and, for some ridiculous reason I refuse to examine, makes me proud.
“Remy,” I start to speak, to defend myself, but the words get caught in my throat. And then I remember what we’re—what I’m—fighting for, and I think why the hell should I have to defend myself? They’re the ones who left. She’s the one who turned her back on me, on everything that might have been. I can’t let seeing her and Soren in this condition affect me. I can’t let them manipulate me, play on my emotions, or prevent me from doing the job I’m here to do. I stare down at her and three years of anger and disappointment wash over me.
“Why am I doing this? This is not about me, Remy. You’ve pitted yourselves against everything we’ve worked for over a hundred years. The
Resistance threatens to destroy everything we want to preserve of this new world we’ve created—a world you used to believe in, a world your family helped build. Now you want to destroy all that? People will starve and you’ll be responsible. Your organization wants to send us spiraling back into a world where resources are scarce, disease is rampant, and war is everyone’s default. It’s about you. It’s about why you left … it’s about everything we used to talk about, everything I thought we shared….”
Remy is staring at me, her mouth half-open in surprise, but Soren just laughs. He twists his shoulders and tries to sit up, as if to get a better view of me.
“You really don’t know, do you?” He turns to Remy, leaning into her. “Lover boy here doesn’t have a fucking clue! Can you believe it? This is amazing. Almost worth the price of admission.”
“Soren,” Remy rasps.
“Seriously, think about it,” he continues. “The poster-boy of the whole damn Sector, and he’s dumber than dirt, doesn’t have any idea what his parents are up to. I guess they still think he’s too young and naïve to know what’s really going on.” He turns back to me now, suddenly all serious, but with a comic, exaggerated manner to his speech, like he’s talking to a five-year old.
“Valerian, I’ll tell you exactly why we left. To get away from your parents. To get as far away as possible from the OAC and all the people who are genetically modifying all that glorious food you grow and feed to your people to turn them into your slaves. Ever been to a Farm, Vale? Sure you have, but always on official business. Always with an escort. Always with Mummy or Daddy. What about on your own? Ever been out there on your own? Ever had a thought of your own? Ever wonder why most of the workers on the Farms are giants? Why their testosterone stats are off the charts? The OAC is feeding them food designed to suppress their critical thinking skills, make them bigger and stronger for manual labor, and get them to reproduce as quickly as possible. Let them breed like rabbits, live until they’re forty, maybe forty-five if they’re particularly good workers, and die off—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Oh, it’s a glorious, brave new world! Planned obsolescence of the worker class. You get a constant supply of drones slaving their lives away while you and your friends dine on lavish meals juiced with customized cocktails designed to amp up your cognitive abilities so you can laugh and philosophize about art and culture and science and take over the reins of government and perpetuate the whole damn cycle!”
I want to charge forward and kick the bastard in the ribs, but I can feel Remy watching me. “You’ve had your say, now—”
“Perfect, beautiful, brilliant people living perfect, beautiful, brilliant lives.” Soren is holding my eye contact as though his life depends on it, and I don’t dare break for fear of looking like a coward. “But guess what, Vale. Some of us don’t want to be perfect if it all comes from a Dietician’s beaker or a petri dish. Is any of this sinking in? We don’t want to be slaves—even if we’re the slaves holding the whip. That’s why we left.”
The muscles in my jaw clench and unclench as I stare down at him, fighting an overwhelming desire to kick his teeth in. Soren’s always hated me, and now he just keeps laughing at me. I don’t even know what to say, how to respond.
“Look at him, Remy,” Soren says, elbowing her. “Struck speechless by the miracle of it all. Hey, Vale, you still got my knife on you? You manage to keep yourself from stabbing anyone in the back since yesterday? I know going a full day is asking a lot of you, but hey—”
“Soren!” Remy says, her eyes fixed on me, a look of hesitant appraisal on her face. “He didn’t have anything to do with this. It wasn’t his decision to beat you or to not feed us.”
“Are you kidding me? He had everything to do with this! He’s the ‘Director of the Seed Bank Protection Project.’ He’s the one who orchestrated this whole goddamn mission, and he’s obviously the one responsible for our luxurious accommodations. Or wait, maybe, Remy, dear, you’re right. Maybe Vale doesn’t really have any power at all. Just a pretty face for the people to latch on to. Just another synthetically produced tool used to control the masses.”
“I didn’t … I wasn’t—” I can’t seem to get my thoughts in order.
“You weren’t what, Vale?”
“Stop it, Soren!” Remy hisses.
Soren just shakes his head and stares at me. “You still think you’re the good guys?”
“I—what?” I mumble, not knowing what else to say. Suddenly, though, Soren’s eyes are not on me, but past me, behind me. His clear blue eyes grow wide, and he straightens up, leaning back against the pole, against Remy, as if recoiling as much as possible from—what? I follow his gaze and turn around. General Aulion has walked through the door behind me.
“No,” Soren whispers. “Not you … you’re dead….”
I played Soren in countless soccer games, I sat next to him in hundreds of classes, and I’ve even had a couple of shoving matches with him, but I’ve never seen him like this. Remy cranes her neck around to look at Soren and then back at Aulion, but it’s clear she doesn’t recognize the General.
Aulion pushes past me, flanked by two OAC Security Guards, and walks over to stand above Remy and Soren. He looks down at them for a moment, shakes his head in disgust, and then squats beside them and leans in toward Soren. He speaks softly, like a parent speaking to a small child. “That was a nice little speech, Soren. Impressive. Now you will answer our questions. If you choose not to, we will drug you, and you will give us the information anyway.” Aulion’s stoic, calm glare is fixed on Soren. “Make your decision carefully, Soren, or you will meet the same end as your ‘mummy and daddy’.”
Remy is straining to look over her shoulder at Soren whose face is twisted up in a hateful, terrified grimace. I half expect him to start frothing at the mouth. Remy presses her back against him, as if to hold him back—or comfort him, I wonder, and a flash of jealousy clouds my vision—and then she turns her attention past Aulion, up toward me, training her golden brown eyes on mine like a hawk tracking a field mouse.
“They killed Tai,” she says, almost gently. Tai? What is she talking about? Tai died in a terrorist attack. “It wasn’t an Outsi—”
Aulion’s hand flies out and smacks Remy across the cheek. I start forward, but Chan-Yu grabs my arm. I turn on him and his look stops me cold, but it’s a warning, not a threat. His eyes seem to say, Don’t let Aulion catch you defending her. I look back to Remy. Eyes closed, she tilts her head gingerly back against the pole as tears track down and over the blood-red mark on her cheek. She opens her eyes and looks at me again.
“Vale, it was the OAC. It was your—”
“Guards!” Aulion barks.
“No, Remy, stop, Aulion—” Soren leans forward and struggles against his bonds as four more guards rush past me into the room, blocking my view. Then Soren goes quiet.
Remy’s voice rises to a raspy shout. “A man in black, he killed Tai and tried to kill Eli because—” One of the guards claps her hand over Remy’s mouth, and Chan-Yu squeezes my arm like a vise, his thumb digging into a pressure point so hard my knees threaten to buckle beneath me.
“Shut her up!” Aulion yells, but I’ve heard enough. One of the guards rips open her shirt and pulls it down to expose her shoulder as the other plunges a needle in. She starts panting, her eyes roll back and she goes limp. I can’t breathe. What was in that needle?
“And get him out of here!” Aulion roars. Chan-Yu whispers something in my ear, and I try to push him away, try to get to Remy who is slumped against Soren, his head lolling sideways like it’s barely attached at the neck. But Chan-Yu is at my side, one arm around my shoulders, the other gripping my elbow, guiding me out of the room and down the hall.
I’m hearing from every corner of my brain, No, no, it’s not possible, Tai’s death was from an Outsider attack, the OAC had nothing to do with it, but that doesn’t explain anything, really, and it
certainly doesn’t explain why a brilliant, respected scientist and the Sector’s poet laureate abruptly disappeared and took their fifteen-year-old daughter with them.
“Sir, sir!” Chan-Yu’s face swims vaguely before me, but I wrench away and start back toward the holding room. It’s obvious now Chan-Yu’s just another one of Aulion’s tools.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I growl. But he grabs me and pushes me up against the wall with a force that nearly knocks me off my feet. He pins my shoulders and stares me in the face.
“Vale, listen to me carefully. Two things: do not go back in there. And listen to her.”
He lets me go, and I nearly crumple to the floor. Listen to her? I can feel him watch from a distance as I stumble through the hallways, dizzy, sick. Colors shift and blur and the walls close in on me. Listen to her? I find a deserted room and slam the door behind me.
I sink down to the floor, back against the door, panting. “Demeter….” In my ear I hear her say quietly, “Yes, Vale.”
“What do I do?” I whisper, lost.
“Find the truth.”
15 - REMY
Fall 90, Sector Annum 105, 11h15
Gregorian Calendar: December 19
“Remy,” I hear Soren whisper, and my eyes flutter open. I can’t make out clear lines, only indistinct grey shapes like a dream. Am I dreaming? I can’t hold my head up. How long ago was it that Vale was in here? Ten minutes? I try to think of what’s transpired since then but my mind seems drenched in fog. Ten hours? Why was he here? Who was the old man with the scars?
I close my eyes and a shape swims to the surface of the blackness. The sunflower. The DNA structure we’ve been staring at, trying to interpret, to understand. It swirls around and seems to take on color, golden yellow petals with a black, piercing center. I feel as though I can see each of the little base pairs that make up the enormous, complex structure, just like those old pointillist paintings we talked about in art class. Millions of individual dots that make up a beautiful picture.