The Salvation State

by Marcus Damanda

  If they could do that to her, they could do it to Rebecca.

  Paula was certain she was still in possession of her mind. She made a choice. She didn’t want the medicine taken from her. She didn’t want to be tortured anymore.

  She focused on the image.

  “What you’re seeing right now,” said the cop, “is Rebecca. She’s the little red moving thing, almost like a stick figure. As soon as we first pinpointed her location, we had her unique heat signature. As long as we don’t turn the tracker off, we can determine exactly where she is—for the rest of her life, if we really felt like it. After you’ve received your sentence, we’ll do this to you. It’s not even expensive.”

  The image showed Rebecca feeling her way through the woods as if she were blind. The trees looked silver on the screen. Other animals, some birds, appeared in varying shades of yellow. She was making her way down, miles from DTR, on the Masada side of New Sinai. She tripped, slammed her hand on the ground in frustration, and got back up.

  The image retracted, showing a larger view. Rebecca was reduced to a blinking red circle as the cop thumbed the grid to another point that showed a large gathering of residents from both DTR and Prodigal Sons. “That group is the one Rebecca will likely encounter if she actually finishes her little hike. We have them positioned at all points. She can’t escape. It’s a mathematical impossibility.” He thumbed the image to a second group of kids, a second likely point of exit. A third. A fourth.

  Paula found her voice. It traveled past her broken lips, slurry and slow. “Not sure what you need me for, then.”

  “We don’t,” the cop agreed, placing a hand on her knee and squeezing it, like a father—

  …or a pervert…

  —might do. “We don’t need you in the slightest. But you need her.”

  Paula shook her head, confused.

  “There’s an opening for cafeteria work at Angel Island. Twenty years of conscripted service in a place with clean air and among the God-fearing. Beats thirty to forty in prison smoke stacks and chemical refineries.”

  Paula had to admit it probably did.

  The cop switched off the grid display and nodded to the woman, who returned to her camera. “On the other hand, if Rebecca doesn’t make a good show of her surrender—if we have to take her, in the end…”

  Paula lowered her head.

  “…I may just send your rebellious little soul to Hell myself.”

  I’d prefer that. I’m not going to Hell. Wouldn’t surprise me if you did, though. “You won’t kill me. You’d have done it by now. What am I supposed to say, anyway?”

  The cop nodded. “Only the truth,” he answered. “You’re uncommonly good at that.”

  ****

  They could not get her before the timer ticked over to a full day. Putting all the pieces in place took time. The did have a second air-ski very near to her, piloted by a marksman with a tranquilizer rifle—just in case she should wander off toward someplace, or something, dangerous—but it remained unlit and invisible and was never called into real action.

  ****

  Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

  DC watched the clock turn over through his front windshield, driving his cruiser to the interception point. His lip curled when it did. It didn’t matter. He would have his quarry.

  Well played. Oh, the counselors are going to love you.

  He parked and took out his shock coils. He waved to the forest ranger who was waiting for him and moved through the milling crowds: first the National Guard, then the media, and then—passing under the tape—through the crowd of kids.

  ****

  Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

  As for the kids, they watched it like most of the television audience did: wide-eyed and mute. It happened at a moment without song, without amplified prefect-led prayer. No one dared applaud, not with so much law enforcement present.

  But several of them were smiling—some even grinning broadly.

  And then a few of them did go to their knees, including Brian, and prayed.

  For real.

  ****

  Rebecca on the Run: 1:00:00.

  Ruth Black saw it on her computer monitor within her tent, all while sipping coffee and bidding Lester Tatum farewell for now. She had readily agreed that if they did not have Rebecca by three in the morning, she would step aside without fuss.

  Plenty of time.

  Caroline was in there, crying, flanked by two of the Masada cops.

  I saw you in the elevator, Ruth had told her. The first time with Rebecca. I don’t think Mrs. James did. But I don’t miss much.

  “You really should calm down,” she said now. “You’ll be with your friend again soon.”

  Your parents will be notified in the morning, she had told her. You’ve aided a runaway. There’s nothing they can do to help you.

  “In fact, you won’t be separated from her for a long, long time.”

  Best to pack up the darkness and the threats, for now, and let some light shine through. It was time for Ruth Black to begin the work she would later continue on the island.

  “Please…,” Caroline whispered.

  Ruth came to her, put her arm around her shoulder, and led her away from the police to the middle of her tent. Then she urged her to her knees and knelt next to her. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Bow your head.”

  Caroline obeyed.

  By the time they were done, her crying had stopped.

  ****

  Rebecca slid onto her behind, her back against a tree. For long moments she didn’t move, her arms dangling at her sides, her hands flat on the ground. She had been looking for a likely place to sleep. And if it weren’t for what she now saw ahead of her, she might have found one.

  Less than a mile away, she saw lights. She saw the cameras and the crowds. Faintly she could even hear them singing “Blessed Assurance,” one of her favorite hymns.

  And she laughed. She just couldn’t help it. Thankfully she was quiet about it, but there was just no resisting. She palmed away fresh tears, getting dirt in her eyes. This was too rich.

  In front of her, the ground dipped sharply. Not enough to kill her, nor even do her serious harm. Just enough to roll her right to her captors, if she should misstep.

  There were so many of them. Dozens—maybe a hundred. She was too far away to make any of them out. She wondered how many she knew.

  She saw the riot cops and was totally perplexed. One cop, she understood. This many—well, maybe they weren’t here for her. Something else must be going on. Something important.

  Beyond the people, the lights of Masada burned in a green fog glow. She’d done what she’d set out to do, it seemed. She had made it to the other side.

  The hymn ended. She saw the crowd take to its knees as a single body—or a puppet. Where was the puppet master?

  Her eyes started to close again in spite of herself, even as her fingers sleepily traced the muddied insignia on her prefect’s shirt. Damascus Teenage Retreat, the raised letters read. Where daughters come home to God.

  A noise behind her, a whizzing like an electrical current. She heard branches snap back. A quick crackle—right by her now.

  Her eyes snapped open as the shock coils whipped around the base of her tree like a professionally hurled bola with a heat tracker. They wrapped her at the ankles, yanking back and sending her onto her stomach. They coiled around her feet, automatic and taut, and emitted an arcing, paralyzing bridge of bright blue fire that traveled the path of her spine.

  She never made a sound. She lay there, flat on her face, and twitched, fully conscious. For at least ten seconds, she couldn’t even breathe. Quite apart from the pain, which would linger for hours, feeling her lungs squeeze shut brought her to a state of total panic so complete that she could not even make words in her mind.

  The power to move her arms and legs returned before her breath. She pitched and jerked. Finally, even as she heard the footsteps, her lungs unclenched and
air rushed in.

  The coils stayed on, but they didn’t shock her again.

  She knew they could, though.

  Totally busted.

  The cop cuffed her, rolled her onto her back, and patted her cheek. It was the asshole with the air-ski.

  Rebecca spit full in his face.

  He brushed the spittle off with one hand and reached out with the other. He took her by her undamaged ear, forcing her head back, her neck to arch. “You’re done, Rebecca. Ask yourself, ‘What’s it going to be like for me if I insist on being a little bitch about this?’”

  “I win,” Rebecca said, her breath forced and uneven and somehow animal. “I—win.” She saw the confusion in his face and grinned at him.

  He returned the look with a frown. “Time to listen to Miss Paula again,” he said, reaching into his vest. He withdrew a palm cam and turned it on. “And time for you to be reunited with Caroline.”

  She felt her grin melt away.

  “Seems she aided and abetted you. You don’t want to go to the island alone, do you? Because I can assure you, she sure as hell doesn’t.”

  Rebecca kicked, banged the back of her head against the hard ground. Wordlessly, into the impassive night sky, she wailed.

  Then Miss Paula appeared on screen.

  ****

  Rebecca, it’s over. I’m sorry.

  Everything I told you was true, and so is this: they won’t just let you go. They’ll never let you go.

  They’re everywhere. There’s no getting away. I’m sorry. I should never have put you up to this. I’ve only made you suffer.

  I’ll pay for it, though. I’ll be right there with you. I’ll be there even longer than you will. Much longer, I think.

  We can’t escape. I’m sorry.

  And Rebecca saw her as she really was, with no special effects. She saw the white bandages on her hands and fingers, gone pink and red from spreading blood. She saw her bruised face, her ruined lips.

  If you’re watching this, they already have you. They’ll take you no matter what now. If you don’t do it the way they say, they’ll make it worse for me. Worse for you.

  And, after a pause.

  Worse for Caroline.

  More dead air.

  Rebecca, please.

  The screen went dark.

  ****

  Rebecca on the Run: 1:01:13.

  Applause preceded her actual emergence from the woods by a full ten minutes. They saw her on the screen before they saw her in person with their own eyes. No one stopped them from applauding her. Ruth certainly made no move to prevent it.

  It was a moment for rejoicing. They could all agree on that. Rebecca was safe at last.

  Ruth had also arranged it so Rebecca would meet Caroline first. It was best that way. She might completely break down in front of the cameras, and that could only be a good thing. But I will not be far behind. It’s time we got to really know each other, Rebecca. This is only just beginning.

  And, finally, she appeared.

  She was a wreck. What was left of her clothes was a tattered ruin. She was caked in mud and blood. Her hair stuck out everywhere, like a lost dog’s. Her eyes were blank, like she’d fought a war and lost. Which, really, she had.

  But she was met like a hero.

  We love you, Rebecca! someone shouted.

  And then someone else did. And then another. And another.

  It wasn’t until they started chanting, though—

  …This is what the truth is…

  —that the riot police began shrinking their semicircle, squeezing in on the kids and silencing them.

  Caroline ran to her and put her arms around her. She cried too. But although Rebecca hugged her back hard, no tears escaped her eyes.

  Ruth approached, with the night blinking on and off behind the flashing of the cameras, with the eyes of the crowd following her progress toward Rebecca. The quiet expanded, then took on life, spreading like the wings of a dragon. The girls disengaged from each other and faced her.

  Ruth wanted a hug too. And she got it, to the collective gasp of the onlookers. They had expected something quite … different, it seemed. Ruth smiled benevolently, eyes turned up gratefully to her Lord and Savior. She let one of her own tears loose, a little trick she had been able to perform at will since earliest childhood.

  “Are you the one?” Rebecca whispered in her ear.

  Ruth held her, rubbing her back. Good heavens, this little creature is filthy. Smells too. “What? I’m not sure I understand.”

  Rebecca leaned in closer. “The one who murdered my mom and dad. Or did you have someone else do it?”

  Oh, this was going to be an adventure, all right.

  “I did no such thing,” she said in her most reassuring tones, pulling back from her. “You’re going to need to give us a chance, Rebecca. All will be clear in His time. You’ll see.”

  Rebecca let go and hung her head. But she stared at Ruth with upturned eyes. No one but the two of them heard what she next said.

  “I … win.”

  Ruth let it go. Let her go with her friend.

  Led by police, flanked by a shocked and disappointed crowd, they went to the back of DC’s idling police cruiser and allowed themselves to be ducked inside.

  Rebecca in Custody: 1:01:25.

  Part Three

  Rebecca and Daniel

  Continued

  Chapter Sixteen

  Becoming No One

  At the police station, Ruth briefly parted company with Rebecca and Caroline. While DC led the two of them through the lobby toward separate processing rooms, Ruth went directly and without guidance to the monitoring station. There she would be able to watch how things went by way of a full wall of closed-circuit television screens. She could even channel the audio of either room directly to her ear piece.

  But she paid the girls little mind. The coffeemaker was full, and its aroma instantly drew her. None of the officers present objected. She added cream and sugar, sat herself at a plain folding table with several empty chairs, and channeled regular television through her personal mobile device. She was just in time, even at this ungodly time of day, to catch the first airing of Deborah Fisher’s “Rags-Child Saga” segment.

  Rags-Child. Oh, that’s good.

  But just “Rags” was even better. The other kids would love it. Perfect.

  Through the magic of editing, News 4 had made Rebecca’s whisper in her ear audible. Naturally they had tweaked it just enough for her to say something considerably more worthy of consumption by the public at large than her actual words would have been. Being directly accused of murder, face to face, by an injured child simply would not do. Instead Rebecca said, “Are you the one? My new mom? I’ve sinned.”

  Process that, New America.

  Ruth muttered a quick grace and sipped her coffee. It wasn’t that good, but after being awake forty hours or so, it might have been delivered straight from Heaven. She closed her eyes, focusing on her senses of smell and taste, blanking everything else out, and waited.

  ****

  Rebecca could only watch as they separated Caroline from her, practically prying her off and marching her through a door labeled Interviews. Rebecca felt sorry for her, but she was also annoyed. Caroline had been crying nonstop for more than half an hour. Unreal.

  More than that, Rebecca felt the guilt. If she hadn’t talked Caroline into sneaking her out to see Brian in the middle of the night, then her friend would be going back home to her parents in six days. To her school. To her other friends, to her better friends.

  Caroline had been sent to DTR because independent testing had revealed she was performing six percentile points beneath her abilities in True Science and Religious Studies. She hadn’t even done anything particularly wrong; she just had a tendency to be a bit of a space cadet. And now she was being sent to Angel Island for three years. How could a person feel guilty enough for that?

  Nothing I ever do in my life will ever make up for i
t.

  The cop everyone called DC turned her over to a different cop. This one, a lady who looked to be about her mom’s age, took her arm and led her to a nearly empty room. Mirrors spanned two of the walls, and there was a table and two chairs. A camera looked down from one corner of the ceiling. And it was practically freezing, the AC audibly blaring.

  “Call me Officer Green,” she said, producing a scanner and switching it on.

  Rebecca stood passively as the scanner did its work. The cop had the decency to at least study it flat on the screen, without projecting the holographic image right in front of her. She wondered what mud, puke, and shit looked like on the scanner. Her hair itched so badly…

  She had a passing inclination to free her ponytail from its hair tie, then decided the effort would most likely be futile until she spent roughly three months under a hot shower. When would they let her do that? When would they give her a clean change of clothes? She didn’t expect them to bring her anything from home anytime soon, but—

  No. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t want to wear what they would give her.

  Officer Green reholstered the scanner. “Let me have your wallet, your watch, and your keys. You won’t need them anymore.”

  Apart from the ruined clothes, she possessed nothing else.

  She gave up her wallet and watch readily enough, setting them down on the table without fuss. Mrs. Green emptied the wallet: various IDs, a couple bucks, a school cafeteria charge card. Once she had everything separated and bagged, she opened a drawer and slid the bags inside.

  Rebecca lingered with her keys, staring at the picture of her with Mom and Dad at the beach. She’d kept her keys with her every day since her arrival at DTR, but she now felt as though she hadn’t looked at the picture enough. She studied it, imprinting the image in her mind, trying for every detail no matter how small—her father’s cowlick, their wedding bands, the abandoned beach ball in the background…