by Zoe Cannon
He was leaving in two weeks.
Leaving for the reeducation center.
It was close enough to drive.
Suddenly her loneliness didn’t matter anymore.
Hope burst into her all at once. She hadn’t known the difference its absence had made until it was back. The world bloomed with color; the whites and creams of Micah’s apartment might as well have been a garden bursting with life.
He was leaving for the reeducation center.
He was driving there.
She could follow him.
If she knew when he was leaving. If she could be there to see him off.
She would only have one chance. But the chance was real, one locked door suddenly standing open.
Even if she could do it, even if she could find the reeducation center, it might not amount to anything. She didn’t have any resources, didn’t have a plan…
But she had a chance. A possibility. And that was more than she’d had since the others had died.
He was watching her, waiting for a response. His body had gone still with tension.
If she didn’t say the right things, she would lose him—and with him, any chance of stopping the reeducation center. Any chance of saving Kara.
“I… when you came to my apartment last Sunday… you know what was there between us then. You felt it too. And I can’t just walk away from that.” The words felt clumsy and unfamiliar. She didn’t know how to do this. Relationship negotiation was its own special form of interrogation, and she wasn’t trained in it. “Everything you’re saying makes sense. But if we can only have two weeks, I’ll take it, because it’s better than nothing.” She spoke the words in a rush, all at once. Then she looked away, waiting for him to reject her, waiting to hear the click as the door closed on her hope once again.
He studied her like a rare gem he didn’t trust himself to pick up. “If we give ourselves that much, we’re only going to want more.”
He was considering it. He hadn’t turned her away. Two separate feelings of relief mingled inside her like conflicting currents. On one side, the part of her that wanted Micah. On the other, the part of her that wanted to stop the reeducation program, to do something meaningful, to keep her promise.
But she hadn’t convinced him yet.
“We’ll know from the beginning that those two weeks are all we get.” Two separate feelings of fear, muddying the waters. What if she couldn’t convince him? “Wouldn’t it be better to have that time than not to have anything? You’ll be gone at the end either way, but this way you’d at least have two weeks’ worth of good memories to take with you.”
He almost stepped forward. Almost stepped back. Stood perfectly still, his eyes never leaving her face, for a moment that stretched as long as the future she didn’t want, the safe and pointless future she would have if he said no.
“In two weeks I’ll look back and wonder what I was thinking.” Micah met her eyes. “But I can’t tell you to leave. I can’t do it.”
He crossed the distance to her all at once, like a flood, as if the dam holding him back had finally broken. But she was the one who wrapped her arms around him as their lips came together, like he was the only solid thing left in the world. He held all her hope, that tiny flickering flame, and with every kiss she tried to draw it into herself. She let her hands drift over his body gently, carefully, as if anything but the lightest touch would cause the flame to gutter out.
Micah pulled back just enough to speak. “We’re going to regret this.”
“I know.” She already did. She was Jake, she was the betrayal that had haunted her for so long, she was taking this potential between them and twisting it for her own purposes.
But some things were more important than regret.
They didn’t speak after that. Words were dangerous. Words could reveal too much. But this connection between them felt more dangerous than words. And yet there were no accusations, no sudden realizations. Maybe, like her mother, Micah only saw what he wanted to see.
They shared everything, and nothing at all. And amid a hundred locked doors, one cracked open a little further, just enough for a sliver of light to show.
Chapter Eleven
At work the next morning, Becca stared at the video in front of her without seeing it. There was no room inside her for this dissident, for this confession. Her mind was a war between the comforting flatness of despair and the giggly secret of hope.
Both of which died a sudden death when the man in the crisp black Investigation uniform strode up to her desk.
“Rebecca Dalcourt?” His voice gave nothing away. He stood between her and the cubicle door, a six-foot wall of muscle.
She nodded numbly as the hope drained from her. Every muscle in her body had frozen at once, except for her heart, which drowned out every other sound in the room with its drumming. She should have known better. She should have known it was only a matter of time.
But…
Investigation.
Not Enforcement.
Internal sent Enforcement for dissidents. Always.
So what was going on?
The man crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’ve been ordered to escort you to Investigation 212.”
Her voice, as always, didn’t betray her. “Is something wrong?”
“Please come with me.” He took a step closer, almost touching, like he was ready to haul her out of her chair if she didn’t stand up.
She stood.
He didn’t say another word as he led her out of the office. Everyone’s eyes followed them as they left. The stares, the unspoken questions, seared her skin; she turned her face away. Was Micah watching? What was he thinking as he watched an investigator take her away?
Investigation. Not Enforcement.
They didn’t know the truth. Couldn’t know the truth. Not if this was who they had sent.
They stepped into the elevator. Becca tensed, her gaze dropping to the buttons that would take them to the underground levels. But the investigator pressed the button for the ground floor, then stood like a mountain between her and the elevator doors.
“Can you tell me—” Becca began.
He didn’t move. “No.” He stared straight ahead as the elevator descended. The message was clear. No more questions.
They left the elevator and stepped out the front door, and Becca breathed a silent sigh of relief at being that much further from the underground levels. The investigator didn’t lead her to one of the vans used to transport dissidents. The car waiting at the front of the parking lot was just an ordinary car, small and black and boxy. He opened the passenger-side door for her before getting into the driver’s seat. She hesitated. He wouldn’t let her sit beside him if he thought she was a dissident, would he? He wouldn’t let a dissident ride unrestrained.
Her heart didn’t slow down.
Internal hadn’t sent Enforcement. But they knew something. They had to.
The parking lot, and the trees beyond, stretched out in front of her. She couldn’t hope to overpower the investigator, but if she ran fast enough, then maybe…
No. If she ran, she would give herself away. Right now she still didn’t know what they wanted with her. Right now keeping her mask up had to be her priority. That was what Jameson would have said.
Not that his advice counted for anything anymore. If he had known so much about how not to get caught, why had he ended up where he did?
But she got into the car.
The drive to Investigation 212 took less than ten minutes. Too long and not long enough. Investigation 212 wasn’t set apart like 117, surrounded by nothing but trees; instead it was closer to downtown, near a grocery store and the old high school. They turned down a long driveway, and the building rose up in front of them—a squat brick building rather than the concrete box that was 117, with a row of yellow flowers out front.
This was it. Her last chance to run.
She followed the investigator into the building.
Where 117 was cold concrete, Investigation 212 was all windows and light and walls painted in crisp cream tones. They walked through bright hallways where the occasional uniformed investigator would spare her escort a preoccupied wave. Nobody gave Becca a second glance. Nobody gave her a hint as to why she was here.
It had to be about the resistance. But she wasn’t handcuffed, wasn’t flanked by Enforcers. Wasn’t locked away in a cell in 117 awaiting interrogation.
This wasn’t the threat she knew, the threat she had prepared for. This was something else.
Her escort stopped at a door at the end of the hallway, a nameplate marking it the office of an Anya Riverstone. He rapped on the door to announce their presence before opening it. “I’ve brought Rebecca Dalcourt for you,” he said as he motioned Becca inside.
The small office was pleasantly cluttered, paper files sharing space with potted plants and a couple of family photos. Light poured in from a window opposite the door. A wooden desk filled half the room; unlike the rest of the space, the desk held nothing but a computer monitor and a sheet of paper placed neatly to one side.
A chair waited on the other side of the desk. Metal rather than wooden, it didn’t match the rest of the room, didn’t quite belong. Like it had been put there just for her.
The woman at the desk wore the same Investigation uniform as the man behind her, but on her it didn’t look quite so severe. She brushed a lock of graying hair out of her eyes as she smiled at Becca. “Becca Dalcourt. I’m glad you could join me. My name is Anya Riverstone—you can call me Anya.” She gestured to the chair in front of her. “Please sit.”
Becca crossed the room and sat. Her escort gently closed the door and disappeared.
Anya slid the sheet of paper across the desk to her, along with a pen. “I’m going to need you to sign this before we get started. It’s a standard nondisclosure form.” Her voice took on a more formal tone, as if she were reciting from a script. “Understand that we are here for the purpose of investigating a suspected dissident, and that if you share anything we discuss today outside this room it will be considered dissident activity.”
Becca started to read the form. Anya cleared her throat. Hastily, Becca picked up the pen and signed. It wasn’t as though she had the option of walking away.
“Now.” Anya rested her clasped hands atop her desk. “I have some questions for you about your mother.”
* * *
“It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it is,” Anya said for what felt like the hundredth time. “I need you to tell me anything you can think of about your mother’s dissident sympathies.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” Becca answered again. “My mother isn’t a dissident.” She studied the woman’s face for any sign of deception. This was some sort of trick, some sort of trap. It had to be. Raleigh Dalcourt was the last person anyone would suspect of dissident activity.
But what were they trying to do? What did they want from her?
“There’s no reason to be afraid. It isn’t as if you’re in 117.” Anya smiled like she had told a joke. “No one is accusing you of anything. But we need to know what your mother has been doing. If there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all—”
“There’s nothing.” This made no sense, it made no sense… “I don’t understand. She’s Raleigh Dalcourt! I can’t think of anyone less likely to be a dissident than her.”
“I understand that you want to protect your mother.” Anya reached across the desk to take Becca’s hand. “But you remember what they taught you in Citizenship class, don’t you? Country comes before family.”
Becca didn’t know whether it was okay to pull her hand away. She left it where it was. “I’m not trying to protect her. I’m only telling you the truth. My mother is a loyal citizen. Anyone could tell you that.”
“You aren’t being very cooperative in this investigation.” Anya’s hand tightened around hers.
What did they want? Did they want her to lie? But… why? Why would anyone want her on record making blatantly false accusations against Raleigh Dalcourt, of all people? “I’m telling you the only thing I can. My mother is loyal. She always has been.”
“It’s starting to look like you don’t want this investigation to succeed.” The kindness in Anya’s eyes began to fade into something harder. “That’s what I’m going to have to put in my report unless you start giving me something useful.”
Becca’s hand, trapped beneath Anya’s grip, went cold. “You said I wasn’t being accused of anything.”
“Why don’t we talk about your history with Internal?” Anya pulled her hand back to type something out on her keyboard. “Your file is certainly interesting. In fact, you’re a much more likely candidate for dissident involvement than your mother, despite what certain elements would like me to believe. I want to give you a chance here, Becca, but you’re not making it easy.”
Becca’s heart, which had never slowed down since the man had shown up at work to bring her here, fluttered faster, a hummingbird caged inside her chest. Cold spread from her limbs toward the center of her body. “I’m trying, I really am, but I don’t have anything to give you. She’s Raleigh Dalcourt.”
For a moment, Anya didn’t say anything. Then she nodded to herself, as if coming to a decision. “You know about the local dissident group that we discovered last week, I’m sure.”
Her chest clenched. Give nothing away. “I saw it on the news.”
“We arrested one member of that group. Raleigh Dalcourt interrogated him, but failed to recover any useful information. An hour after she stopped the initial interrogation, her keycard was used to enter the cell. Her override code was used to shut off the cell’s camera. The camera remained off for the next half hour, at which point her keycard was used again. Five minutes later, she contacted security and told them she had found the dissident dead in his cell.”
Oh.
Oh.
The hummingbird fluttering stopped. Her heart went completely silent before lurching back to life. It beat out a new rhythm against her chest. You did this. You. You.
All the time she had spent thinking about what she had done, and she had never even considered the consequences of using her mother’s keycard, her mother’s code.
She hadn’t implicated herself after all. She had implicated her mother.
“But you haven’t arrested her yet.” The words came out as a whisper. “Why?”
“If it were anyone else, she would have been arrested immediately, especially considering the other evidence against her. But in light of everything Raleigh Dalcourt has done for Internal, and the fact that a lot of her past actions simply make no sense if she’s been working with the dissidents all along, we want to examine the situation thoroughly before we take that step. There are inconsistencies to consider, as well—for one thing, if she had wanted to keep the dissident from revealing certain information, it would have made considerably more sense for her to kill him during the interrogation and write it off as an accident.” She smiled again, but this time her smile was hard and tight. There was no kindness in her eyes anymore. “Besides… there are alternate factors that need to be considered. Such as a daughter with a history of—”
The door burst open.
Becca half-expected to see her mother, here to rescue her, here to undo what Becca had done. Instead, Milo Miyamoto stood framed in the doorway, arms crossed, face stormy. His voice, though low, carried easily through the office. “What do you think you’re doing?”
If Anya was at all disturbed by the intrusion, she didn’t show it. “I’m doing my job.”
“The girl in that chair looks suspiciously like Becca Dalcourt.”
“We’ve been discussing her mother.” She turned back to her computer and began typing again, a silent dismissal.
Milo scowled. “I took over this case last week, as you well know. You have no business talking to this girl or anyone else about Raleigh Dalcourt.”
>
Anya stopped, hands poised above her keyboard. “I haven’t authorized that yet. The case is still mine.”
“It doesn’t need your authorization. I went over your head. The directors were in agreement.”
She was seated and he was standing, but somehow she managed to look down on him. “You don’t have the necessary experience for something this delicate.”
“The directors disagree. I discovered a thriving dissident group you thought you had eliminated five years ago. Apparently they consider that to be experience enough.” He took two long strides into the office. “I’ll talk to Becca Dalcourt when I deem it necessary. As of last week, you have no business talking to her at all. Send her home.”
“I doubt you would be able to interview her with the necessary… objectivity, considering her situation.” There was a definite sneer to her voice now, and a subtext Becca couldn’t read. “Don’t think I don’t know who’s been blocking any suggestion of her potential involvement.”
Milo’s face darkened still further. “Your recommendation for her arrest was premature. I wasn’t the only one who thought so.”
Anya raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Find me someone else who agreed with you.”
“Send her home,” Milo ordered. “Send me any information you may have held back about this case, and delete all copies from your system. And if you resort to personal attacks again, I’ll be forced to look closer at your failure to eliminate that dissident group, and determine whether it was simple incompetence or dissident activity.”
Anya pursed her lips. The air was thick with restrained anger. “Well then,” she finally said, addressing Becca this time. “It looks as if you’re no longer needed here.”
Becca got up before they could change their minds. She escaped out of the room, leaving them to their battle, guilt settling thick around her as the impact of what the woman had told her began to sink in.
Maybe she wouldn’t end up in one of those cells underneath 117 just yet.
But maybe her mother would.