by Linda Nagata
And hope like hell this conversation doesn’t show up on episode four.
We reach the basement. The doors open.
“Dead zone,” Specialist Vitali reports. “The relay must be out again.”
It’s an ongoing problem. There are supposed to be network nodes throughout the building, but in this corridor the nodes aren’t working at least half the time we come through—and post–Coma Day, no one expects replacement parts anytime soon. A working network would let Omer and Vitali get an all clear from their handlers. Instead, they have to confirm the safety of the corridor on their own.
So I stay in the elevator while Vitali steps out to survey the corridor. This requires more than a quick glance. The space is poorly designed from a security perspective. Square support pillars protrude into the corridor, breaking up the monotony of the walls but providing cover for possible assailants. Omer holds the elevator while Vitali confirms that the staff door to the parking garage is locked, before walking the corridor. We listen to his footsteps recede. After several seconds he calls back to us, “Contact established. All clear.”
I look to Omer. She nods permission to proceed and we follow Vitali into the corridor, passing the staff door and, farther on, the prisoner-intake door. Just beyond that is the first set of gray steel doors that secure the jail. Bolts cycle as we approach. An alert buzzes, the doors swing open, and we walk inside to a secure foyer, and wait. The doors behind us close and lock, and then a second set opens in front of us. On the other side are offices, consultation rooms, and a control room. I’ve been told a side passage leads to a bunk room and a kitchen for the guards. We walk on, to a junction at the end of the corridor where there are three more doors, each opening onto a parallel cellblock.
Generally, only prisoners actually undergoing trial are housed overnight at the courthouse, and given the current state of emergency, most trial proceedings have been postponed. So the inmate population is low, which made it possible for the army to lease cellblock B, the current home of the Apocalypse Squad. The center door buzzes open and we step through into a corridor with glass-fronted cells, six on one side, five on the other. My cell is the first on the right. We stop in front of it. Vitali opens the door.
Across from my cell is the shower, and next to the shower is an empty cell. Sergeant Nolan is housed in the cell next to mine, but the sidewalls are concrete, so I can’t see him—not from inside my cell, and not from where I’m standing. I can’t see any of my squad. Tuttle and Moon should be in the middle of the cellblock, with the women at the end, but I have no way to tell if they’re actually there or not. I’d do a roll call, but sound suppression prevents us from talking to one another. We can converse with someone outside the cell only if they are standing directly in front of the glass wall.
“Sir,” Omer says. “Please face the cell door.”
I don’t move. “Is everybody here?” I ask her.
“All present, sir.”
In the oppressive silence, where every faint squeak and groan of the MPs’ exoskeletons calls attention to itself, it’s easy to believe the opposite. I know that if I don’t confirm for myself the presence of my squad, doubt will eat at me all evening. “May I walk the cellblock, Sergeant?”
Omer consults her handler. Then she tells me, “You are not allowed to speak to or otherwise interact with the prisoners, sir.”
“Understood.”
“You may walk to the end of the cellblock and return.”
With my hands still cuffed in front of me, I move past my own cell. Two steps until I can see into the next one. Nolan is there, just like he’s supposed to be. He’s down on the floor doing push-ups. He looks up, watching me with a tense gaze as I pass. Tuttle is in the next cell, asleep. Directly across the corridor from Tuttle is Moon’s cell. He’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, reading a paper book. When he notices me, he looks up with a startled expression. The next cells on either side are empty. Then I reach Jaynie. She sees me and gets up from where she is sitting on the bed, stepping right up to the glass partition. I want to tell her we start on Monday, but I can’t betray my promise to Omer. Flynn comes to the partition too, and so does Harvey. Harvey tells me, “Nobody changed their mind, sir.”
I nod, turn around, and return to my keepers, presenting my wrists to Omer so she can remove the handcuffs. “Sergeant, would you make sure all the prisoners know that the court-martial is scheduled to start on Monday.”
“I will do that, sir.”
The cuffs come off and I step into my cell. Vitali closes the door behind me. I turn, watching through the glass partition as Omer moves out of sight down the cellblock to deliver my message. When she comes back, she stops in front of my cell and, facing me, she salutes. I return the courtesy and then she and Vitali leave. The steel door closes behind them, and I am alone.
I can see no one, hear no one.
It’s going to be one hell of a long weekend.
• • • •
The cell is six by eight feet, with three walls of solid concrete and one of glass. It’s furnished with a narrow bed and an aluminum toilet/sink combo in the back corner. Meals are brought to us, and we eat alone. There is no exercise yard, no library, because this is a courthouse jail, meant for stays of a few hours to a few days. We have been here for five months. The MPs do what they can, bringing paper books if we ask for them, and we exercise in our cells.
I have my own unique routine.
An air-conditioning vent is embedded in the center of the concrete ceiling. It’s eighteen inches square, a tempered steel honeycomb bolted into place. I imagine the prisoners housed here before me, lying in bed, staring up at that vent and wondering at the possibility of escape through the air ducts. Hell, I’ve wondered about it myself, but when I jump up and hook my fingers in the steel mesh, I’m not trying to escape.
It hurts like hell to hold on with just my fingertips, so as quickly as I can, I swing my robot feet up to the grille and latch on. The prosthetics hurt too—that’s how I know they’re there—but the skullnet helps me regulate the level of pain, and keep it at a minimum.
My titanium toes curl in a secure grip around the steel grille. My fingers slip free and, slowly, I let my body uncurl until I’m hanging upside down like a bat, gazing out the glass door at the empty shower facility on the other side of the corridor. Weaving my fingers behind my head, I curl my body up again until my nose almost touches my trouser legs in the vicinity of my mechanical knees. And then, slowly, I let my body uncurl again. Down and up, down and up, in a regimen of suspended sit-ups, followed by work to both sides and to the back.
As always, I’m getting a headache, so I kick loose, execute a half somersault, and land with a thump against the concrete floor. Aerobic sets come next: intense bursts of stationary running, jacks, and push-ups, until I can’t do any more, and then I move on to tai chi or yoga, anything I can think of to keep my body—what’s left of it—from degenerating. I’ve issued orders to the squad to work out at least sixty minutes a day, so that’s how long I keep going.
I lead by example, even if no one can see me. It’s boring as hell, but the skullnet helps me stay focused.
Tomorrow I’ll get to take a shower.
At 1900, Vitali brings dinner: a microwaved pasta thing with vegetables on the side. Honestly, it’s not bad. It’s one of a series of contractor-supplied meals, the same that we consumed at Fort Dassari and at C-FHEIT. A little bit of home.
During my idle time in prison I’ve worked to improve my cyber-integration. FaceValue is part of the software package for a new overlay I had installed right before First Light. Since then, using the app to get an unbiased read on the emotional state of people around me has become second nature. When there are no people around me, when I’m alone in my cell, I work with my skullnet, training it to better integrate with my overlay.
I use a trained response now, focusing on the wo
rd encyclopedia. The skullnet picks up the command and signals my overlay to launch the program, faster than I could trigger it with my gaze. I read for a while, all nonfiction.
I tried reading a novel a couple of months ago, but I crashed on the romantic relationship—just not something I can handle right now—and in a flash of temper I deleted all the fiction I had stored.
It’s hard not to snap sometimes. But my skullnet makes it mostly bearable, and when it gets too hard I just lie down in my bunk and think, Sleep—and my skullnet makes it happen.
I sleep maybe twelve hours a day—an article in the encyclopedia says that’s bad for your health—but what the fuck, it’s better than banging my head against the concrete wall until I’m bloody.
• • • •
Sunday comes. Visitors’ day. We’re allowed one visitor each, but I’m usually the only one who gets escorted to a consultation room. My dad lives in Manhattan. Restoring train service between New York and Washington, DC, was a priority after Coma Day, so he’s able to ride in Sunday morning and take a cab to the courthouse. He’s well off, so it’s not a burden for him to handle the post-Coma inflated fares.
It’s different for the rest of the squad. Both Jaynie and Flynn are estranged from their families, while Nolan, Tuttle, and Moon are all from the west, their families too far away to stop in for a weekend visit. Harvey’s mom has come in twice from Pittsburgh, but today I’m the only one who gets to leave the cellblock.
The senior MP on shift, Sergeant Colton Haffey, presents himself at the glass door of my cell and right away I get a bad feeling. He’s not carrying a sidearm and he’s not rigged in a dead sister. He doesn’t even have a helmet on, just an audio loop. Behind him is Private Dominic Pasco, similarly unrigged.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask Haffey.
“Special circumstances, sir.” My overlay confirms the nervous tension I see in his face. He doesn’t like what’s going on. He’s worried. “Please step to the front of the cell, sir.”
I do it. Haffey unlocks the door. “Present your wrists, sir.”
I do that too, and he cuffs me. “What special circumstances?” I ask, imagining an assassination squad outside the cellblock.
Why not just shoot me inside the cell?
Maybe they want it to look like I went berserk and tried to escape.
“You have a visitor, sir.”
“Not my dad?”
“No, sir.”
The steel door to the cellblock buzzes open. On the other side are two men in dark business suits, opaque farsights hiding their eyes. Another man and a woman, similarly dressed, are stationed farther along the corridor, outside the first consultation room.
“Advance,” Haffey tells me.
One of the suits intervenes. “We search him first.”
Haffey looks at me, apology in his gaze, but he steps away. The shorter suit tells me, “Turn around, Lieutenant. Put your hands against the wall.”
I do it and he frisks me, finding nothing, of course. The other one runs a scanner over me. It picks up my skullnet, my tattooed antenna, my embedded audio buds, the ID chip at my wrist, and my titanium legs.
“Why isn’t he shackled?” the shorter one asks.
Haffey says, “It’s not procedure, and the lieutenant is fully cooperative at all times.”
“Unacceptable. I want shackles on those cyborg legs, or I want the legs off.”
“No, sir!” Haffey snaps. “I will not allow you to abuse the dignity of an army officer.”
“Cuff me to the fucking chair,” I say.
The suit nods, and I am escorted to the consultation room. The table has been removed. There is only one chair, and it’s been placed near a corner, away from the door. “Sit,” the suit tells me.
They make Haffey cuff my ankles to the chair legs, worried, maybe, that if they do it, I’ll try to kick their faces in. Haffey finishes the task, then stands beside me, facing the door. One of the suits takes up a post beside the door; the other positions himself halfway across the room.
We wait in silence for almost three minutes, during which I go over the possibilities in my head. When the door opens to admit the president, I’m not even surprised.
The door closes behind him as he comes a few steps into the room.
Like most successful politicians, he’s a tall man, six three. He’s trim and good looking in a dark business suit, but there’s a lot more silver in his thick, wavy hair than on the day he was elected two and a half years ago.
I met him once before, on the night we were evacuated from Black Cross.
His expression is stern as he stands there, studying me with his dark Hispanic eyes. When he speaks, it’s with the steady, reassuring tone of his signature voice, the one comedians always try to imitate but never get quite right: “I’m told everything you see, everything you hear, is recorded, Lieutenant Shelley.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
His chin drops as quiet fury enters his voice. “Then let this be recorded for posterity. If it were up to me, I would have you hanged. Tonight, Lieutenant Shelley. Your heroism at Black Cross cannot excuse what you’ve done. During a state of emergency like no other this country has ever known, you chose to strike at the heart of our citizens’ faith in government, undermining the effort of countless dedicated individuals who are striving every day to reclaim our future. I would have you hanged, Lieutenant. But I swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I respect our American system of justice, and I trust that system to find you guilty, as it must. As it will.”
His outrage is so cold and so real it shocks me. In that moment I know, I absolutely know, that the conspiracy to protect Thelma Sheridan goes all the way to the top. I want to tell him I know he’s part of it, that I’m looking forward to seeing him fall, but Colonel Kendrick’s ghost is in my head, warning me to keep my smartass mouth in check. So I say nothing.
It doesn’t matter though, because the show is over. The president gestures at the suit standing in the middle of the room, and my overlay shuts down. The half-seen icons that float on the periphery of my vision wink out, leaving only a pinpoint red light in the lower left corner to indicate that the overlay exists at all.
From this moment forward, no one outside will ever know what happens in here.
My gaze shifts from that tiny red light to the door. I am sure it will open, admitting the black-ops soldiers who constitute the president’s personal army. I wonder if they’ll kill Haffey too, and I decide that they will. They’ll probably blame him for murdering me. I wait for death, one second and then another, but the door stays shut.
I look again at the president, beginning to understand he plays a more complex game than I’m used to. “Sergeant Haffey,” he says.
“Yes, sir!”
“Will you please leave the room?”
I can almost hear Haffey sweat. “Sir, my orders are to stay with the prisoner at all times.”
“I am overriding your orders, Sergeant. Get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
I keep my gaze fixed on the president as Haffey crosses the room. Someone in the corridor opens the door for him. When it closes again, the president speaks. “You have been misled, Lieutenant Shelley. You have been misinformed. I understand you believed you were serving some abstract justice when you helped to kidnap an American citizen. But you did not have all the facts and you do not understand the repercussions. For the good of the country, I want you to stand down.”
“That’s not possible, sir. This is a capital case. Even if I wanted to, I’m not allowed to enter a guilty plea.”
“I am aware of that,” he growls, letting me know he’s not an idiot. “I am asking you to stand down, to mount no defense. Make your statement if you must—I don’t begrudge you that—tell us how you felt compelled to do what you did
, and then tell us you were mistaken! Fall on your sword. Accept the charges against you without expanding the scope of the evidence, and when you are found guilty and sentenced, I will issue a pardon—and the country can begin to heal.”
Colonel Kendrick once called him a performance artist. It must be true, because I believe him. I believe he’s speaking from his heart, that for everything he’s done, he’s had the best interests of the country in mind, and if I do as he asks, he will keep his word.
“I’m not the only one on trial, sir,” I remind him.
His eyes narrow. “Your squad will do what you tell them.”
He’s more confident of that than I am.
It doesn’t matter.
“I cannot accept your offer, sir.”
I don’t want to die. Jaynie thinks that, deep down, I’d put a bullet through my own brain if I could. That’s not what I want, and I don’t want to be a martyr to anyone’s cause—but I’m not going to back down either. Matt Ransom died to see justice done, to see Thelma Sheridan called to account for her involvement in the Coma Day insurrection. Steven Kendrick died for the same thing. And it isn’t over.
“We did what we did, sir, because the republic has been hijacked, because justice is for sale—”
“Don’t play your patriot games with me, Shelley. You and I know it’s a complex world, and eighteenth-century philosophies don’t work anymore.”
“Who is it you serve, sir?”
“Watch yourself, Lieutenant. I am your commander in chief. I hold your life in my hands. Your life, and the lives of your companions. As you were so quick to remind me, this is a capital case. You need to consider very carefully what you’re willing to die for.”
I’ve already spent a lot of time thinking about that. “I’m all in, sir. No way out but forward. How about you?”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me for half a minute or more. Then he turns and walks to the door. It opens for him and he steps out without another word. The two suits follow him.
I’m still shackled to the chair. My overlay is still switched off. After a couple of minutes Haffey comes back in, looking scared. “You fucking pissed him off,” he whispers.