by Linda Nagata
• • • •
My dad is there in the first row, as he’s been every day. Sitting beside him is Harvey’s mom from Pittsburgh. We file around the defendants’ table and take our seats, only to rise again as the judge comes in, and then the panel of officers charged with bringing in a verdict in our case.
I study their faces as they file into the jury box. I see ambivalence, resentment, a lingering anger. They won’t look at one another or at us.
We are allowed to sit, and then Judge Monteiro addresses the officers. “Have the court members reached findings on each charge and specification before them?”
A major, seated in the corner of the jury box closest to the judge, stands up. “We have, Your Honor.”
“Are you ready to read your findings to the court?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I am.”
“Accused and counsel, please rise.”
There is a shuffling sound as we all stand. Otherwise the courtroom is eerily quiet, despite the number of people present.
The major reads from a tablet that he holds in his hands:
“We find that Lieutenant James Shelley did, on November eighteenth through November twentieth, participate in a conspiracy to kidnap Thelma Sheridan, and that this conspiracy was illegal.”
A strange, startled chorus of soft exclamations ignites behind me. Some of the voices are triumphant, others are pitched in clichéd despair. All of them annoy me. There is no cause for outcry or surprise. My dad knows this. He remains utterly quiet as the major hammers the nails in:
“The facts of the case having been stipulated by the defendant, we therefore find Lieutenant Shelley guilty under Article Eighty-One, conspiracy; and guilty under Article One oh Eight, destruction of military property; and guilty of four counts of murder under Article One Eighteen, Part Three, an act inherently dangerous to another; and guilty under Article One Twenty-Two of robbery in the presence of the victim, with force or violence, in an amount exceeding two hundred twenty million dollars; and guilty under Article One Twenty-Eight of twelve counts of aggravated assault; and guilty under Article One Thirty-Four, general article, of the kidnapping of Thelma Sheridan and Ilima LaSalle, and of abusing the good order and discipline of the armed forces.”
The major pauses. A sheen of sweat glistens on his cheeks. He swallows a few times and then, without lifting his gaze from the tablet in his hands, he continues:
“We find that Sergeant Jayne Vasquez did, on November eighteenth through November twentieth, participate in a conspiracy to kidnap Thelma Sheridan, and that this conspiracy was illegal. . . .”
He goes on to read the same charges, the same findings that he already read for me, leaving out only the destruction of military property. Sergeant Nolan’s verdict is read out next, and then Harvey, Tuttle, Moon, descending through the ranks. Flynn is last. I look at her where she stands across the L of the table from me. She’s calm, but her eyes are unfocused. I think she’s already checked out.
The major finishes. He finally looks up, but not at us. He looks at the judge. Monteiro gives him a sympathetic nod. “Thank you, Major. Was the verdict unanimous?”
“No, ma’am. It was not.”
Another murmur of surprise ignites among the spectators. The judge does not look pleased.
“On your findings of conspiracy, did the court members unanimously agree that the conspiracy was illegal?”
“No, ma’am, that was not the case.”
Monteiro gives the panel of officers a dark scowl. “Referring again to your findings of conspiracy, did at least three-quarters of the court members agree that the conspiracy was illegal?”
“Yes, ma’am. That was the case.”
“Thank you for your verdict. The defendants may be seated. This court-martial will reconvene Monday morning at ten hundred to consider sentencing. All spectators are asked to remain in their seats until the bailiff dismisses you. Court is now in recess.”
“All rise!”
Judge Monteiro abandons the bench, her judicial robes billowing around her legs as she exits the courtroom with an angry stride.
I turn around. My dad is standing behind me. His face is gaunt: He’s become an old, exhausted man. Saying nothing, he reaches over the bar with both hands and we embrace.
Then it’s time to go.
• • • •
Chudhuri and her squad of MPs are not there to meet us as we exit. They’ve been replaced by strangers: four men and two women, all with dark suits, farsights, and unreadable faces. They form a gauntlet, with the door of Judge Monteiro’s office on the other end. We pile up in a confused knot of prisoners and attorneys as the two closest to us display gold badges, identifying themselves as special agents in the Secret Service.
I wasn’t expecting this at all, and I’m not in a mood for surprises. My temper spikes, and I shoulder past Nolan, getting ready for I don’t know what. Jaynie comes with me, her fingers a light touch on my arm, though whether she means to caution me or to let me know she’ll back me up, I can’t tell and there’s no chance to find out because Major Ogawa takes over.
“What the hell is going on?” he demands, pushing past me.
The door to Monteiro’s office opens; a woman wearing a major’s uniform steps out. Her name tag identifies her as Major Perkins. She pushes the door wide. “I want all of you in here now.”
“What is this about?” Ogawa insists.
“Attorneys may be present,” she allows. “Now get in here and sit down.”
What’s the alternative? Go back to our cells for the weekend? I decide not to pass on another opportunity to be threatened by the president, so I step past Ogawa and enter the office with Jaynie right behind me.
There are paintings on the walls: startlingly beautiful depictions of flowers and leaves. There are shelves too, probably built to contain books, but holding knickknacks and potted plants. Just inside the door is an oval conference table stained to look like rosewood, and straight ahead a large matching desk at a right angle to the window, so that Monteiro should have a view of the Capitol Building when the blinds are open. They’re closed now. Afternoon sunlight seeps through the pinholes where the strings pass, and glows around the edges. Monteiro is hanging up her robes in a closet behind the desk. She slaps the closet doors closed with a bang and turns to face us.
Her guest is not the president.
In the little sitting area facing the desk, standing beside a wall-mounted monitor, is the secretary of defense. He’s a man of moderate height, lean and well dressed, his gray hair trimmed short and his heavy eyebrows knit in a disapproving scowl as he watches us enter. “Sit down,” he orders. Major Perkins gestures at us to take seats around the table.
I go to the far end, where I can see the monitor. It’s a feed from the White House briefing room. Bloggers and mediots are assembling, but the podium is empty.
I sit down, with Jaynie beside me. My uncle squeezes my shoulder, then takes the seat on my other side, while Judge Monteiro picks up a sheaf of papers from the desk. Actual paper. The secretary of defense looks on in silence as Monteiro says, “Time is of the essence. We have at most ten minutes. So listen carefully, and do not make me repeat anything.”
She crosses the room. Major Perkins meets her halfway and takes the papers.
“The president will grant all of you an immediate pardon, contingent on your acceptance of the terms in the agreements Major Perkins is now distributing.”
Shock and hope collide, producing silence. There is only the rustle of paper as Perkins lays a two-page document on the table in front of me. My uncle picks it up before I can read even the first line. The next one goes to Jaynie. More copies are set in front of Nolan, Tuttle, and Harvey. Major Ogawa hijacks Moon’s document. Flynn gets the last copy. She’s across the table from me, and looks like she doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, but she picks up
the papers, frowns, and starts reading.
The secretary of defense steps forward. “Let it be emphasized,” he says in syllables chiseled by anger, “that the president is not granting this pardon for your benefit, and in no way does it imply his approval of what you did. He is acting solely for the good of the country. Read the documents and sign them. As is. There will be no negotiation of terms.” He directs a curt nod at Monteiro—“Colonel”—and departs.
Monteiro watches him go with an irritated grimace. When the door closes behind him, she turns back to us. “The president is acting for the good of the country.” She points a small remote control at the windows, triggering the blinds to rise with a smooth electric hum. I stand up to look outside. On the sidewalks along Constitution Avenue and beyond, filling Third Street and spilling over to the lawns fronting the reflecting pool, are tens of thousands of people. I can’t see farther down the Mall, but I don’t doubt I’m seeing only the edge of a far greater gathering. Monteiro confirms it.
“Seven hundred thousand people. Most of them avid supporters of your cause, demonstrating for your release. Crowd biometrics foresees a high potential for violence when your guilty verdict is announced. Should a riot break out, there is a chance that hundreds, maybe thousands, will die. It is your duty to prevent that.”
She triggers the blinds to close again. Jaynie nudges my arm and nods at my chair, reminding me to sit down again.
Monteiro continues, “The spectators who attended the proceedings today are presently being held in the courtroom to prevent word of your convictions going public, pending the outcome of this conference. As soon as your signatures are on the agreements, the president will announce the guilty verdict along with the pardon, which should satisfy your supporters. You have seven minutes remaining.”
My uncle speaks without looking up from the paperwork. “Are all these documents the same?”
“They are all the same excepting names and ranks of individuals, and Paragraph Nine pertaining to army property, which differs for Mr. Shelley.”
Mr. Shelley.
That would be me. Not an officer anymore. I knew it was coming, but it still feels like reality has been casually kicked to the curb . . . and like I’ve been casually kicked in the gut. I look up, to find Flynn staring at me from across the table, fear in her wide green eyes. “It’ll be okay,” I whisper. She nods, looking again at the document in front of her. My uncle slides the first page toward me as he goes on to read page two.
That’s when suspicion kicks in and I hear Monteiro again in my head: Paragraph Nine pertaining to army property. That has to refer to my legs. They will take my legs.
My gaze skims to the bottom of page one, but Paragraph Nine isn’t there. I lean in on my uncle and whisper, “What does it say?”
His head tilts slightly. “A lot, but nothing unfair. Let me finish reading.”
“Are they going to take my legs?” I insist.
His mouth curves in a slight, wolfish smile. “That would be bad PR, Jimmy.” He’s not whispering, not trying to hide anything. “This document is about controlling damage. The president is not interested in making you more of a martyr than you already are.”
“He’s also not interested in looking weak,” Major Ogawa says from the opposite end of the table. He shuffles the order of the pages he’s holding. “Here are the terms in summary.”
Everyone looks at him to translate what they’ve already read.
“Upon signing, you will be immediately separated from the army. Your records will show an honorable discharge. You will be required to attend a debriefing session here in the courthouse, to inform you of the classified status of information you are party to. When that session is done, you will be required to attend a twenty-minute press conference, no doubt to prove to the world that you are still alive and that the government has not caused you to disappear. You will be docked all back pay since November eighteenth. You will be allowed to keep your skullcaps, which have been designated as therapeutic medical devices—”
“And you,” my uncle interrupts, looking at me, “will get to keep any device presently on or part of your person.”
I’m relieved, sure, but it’s like I’m in combat. My brain just clicks over to the next issue. “The army’s going to give up their access to my overlay?”
He nods. “They will be out of your head forever.”
Lissa would have been happy about that.
“And this covers my original offense?” He knows what I mean: my induction contract archived a conviction for an illegal video recording.
“Everything past,” he assures me.
“Three minutes,” Colonel Monteiro notes.
Unperturbed, Ogawa passes the document he’s holding to Moon. “I advise you to sign it.”
I skim the first page of my contract while pens start scratching. I go on, pretending to read page two. After all, I’ve been publicly castigated for not reading documents—but the words don’t make any sense to me. It’s too bad I don’t have my handler Delphi’s crisp voice in my head, to read the order aloud.
My uncle holds out a pen. “Sign it, Jimmy.”
“Do it, Shelley,” Jaynie says. “All you’re giving up is the chance to be a martyr.”
I think Jaynie and I will have to settle a few issues, preferably in a session of hand-to-hand combat.
I take the pen.
Across the table, Flynn is biting her lip as she concentrates to make her signature—she probably hasn’t signed anything since the day she was inducted.
Everyone else is done. They’re all watching me.
I sign my name.
My career in the US Army is over.
INTERIM
* * *
FALLOUT
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT of the United States.”
The voice issues from the monitor mounted on the wall of Judge Monteiro’s sitting area.
I’m a civilian now, with no charges pending against me, so I don’t need to ask permission. I just get up and, before the applause dies out, I’m standing in front of the monitor. The squad follows my example and gathers behind me, except for Harvey, who decides it’s okay to sit in one of the upholstered chairs.
He’s a young president, but he still manages to look stern and fatherly behind the podium, framed by the bright red, white, and blue of two American flags. His dark gaze quiets the crowd.
“A guilty verdict has been returned in the case of the Apocalypse Squad—”
There is a gasp from the press audience, a rush of murmuring. The president keeps speaking in his bold voice:
“—but it is the privilege of the president to offer pardons and today I have granted a pardon to all seven members of the Apocalypse Squad, in consideration of their exemplary service at Black Cross, and in acknowledgment of their patriotism. I do not—I cannot—condone the so-called First Light mission, but in extraordinary times, extraordinary measures must sometimes be taken, and that is what I have done today.”
He turns and walks out. The startled press pool jumps to their feet, shouting questions at his retreating back. He does not return.
Out on the Mall, cheering erupts, a thunderous sound carried in vibration through the thick glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Someone must have grabbed the remote control, because the blinds go up and we get to look at a scene of joy—fists pumping the air, and people hugging, many of them masked.
It’s supposed to be about us, but we’re just a symbol. It goes deeper. It’s about the will of the people; the will of these people to take back some small part of the power that is rightfully theirs, and demand change.
• • • •
Major Perkins tries to hurry things along.
“You are no longer permitted to wear your uniforms,” she tells us. “Civilian clothes have been provided for you.”
Sh
e clutters the table with a collection of white dress shirts and dark slacks, a set for everyone.
“Fuck this,” Harvey says unbuttoning her uniform jacket. “I’ll walk out in my T-shirt, but I’m not wearing this shit.”
With a grim expression, Jaynie picks up the shirt tagged with her name, holding it at a distance like it’s unstable explosive ordnance.
“Leave it, Jaynie.” I turn to Perkins. “Keep this stuff. We’ve signed your contract. Now I want our possessions returned, including the clothes we were wearing when we turned ourselves in for arrest.”
Perkins looks at Monteiro, but she finds no sympathy there. “Major Perkins, do not turn your doe eyes on me. You are legally obligated to return all personal possessions seized upon arrest.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She steps away. Using her farsights, she holds a low-voiced conference with someone, and then informs us, “It will be a few minutes.”
Monteiro returns to the desk and drops into the chair. “Make yourselves at home,” she says. “This isn’t my office anyway. It belonged to a Judge Kohn, who had the misfortune to be across the river in Alexandria on Coma Day.”
She’s a colonel. That meant a lot more to me just a few minutes ago. Not anymore. I walk up to the desk and I ask her, “If we’d met back in that courtroom on Monday, you would have sentenced us to life, wouldn’t you?”
She studies me for several seconds, then acknowledges this with a nod. “I wouldn’t have had a choice, Mr. Shelley.”
“When the verdict came back, you didn’t like that it wasn’t unanimous.”
“Two members would not vote to convict, despite my instructions. They were wrong. You did not have a legal basis for what you did. They were responding with emotion, and without regard to the law. That was Ogawa’s strategy—to appeal to emotion, to raw patriotism.” She raises her voice. “Isn’t that right, Major?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he calls from where he’s standing at the window.
“And it came way too close to working.” She drums her fingers on the desktop. “People are fed up, but we need to be able to trust our officers. It should have been a unanimous conviction—and that would have given more meaning to the president’s pardon.”