The Dark Intercept

by Julia Keller

  Violet rushed up to her father and embraced him.

  What had they done to him?

  And then she realized that her father’s state wasn’t the result of anything the Rebels had inflicted. Only one thing could make a person look like that: the Intercept. A memory selected by the Intercept and reinserted into his brain—and then repeated, until he did their bidding. They had used Ogden Crowley’s own mind against him.

  Violet led her father over to the medical team that waited in the street. She wanted to go back inside with Danny; she wanted to see this place where the Rebels had plotted against New Earth.

  “Where’s Callahan?” she asked him.

  “Still inside,” Danny answered. “She told me she was going after the leader.”

  And then they heard it—a strangled cry, a cry of shock and agony. They ran toward the sound.

  In the room at the very back, its corners lit by the police flares, stood Michelle Callahan. With one hand, she clutched the arm of the last Rebel left. With the other, she held the mask she’d just pulled off.

  She stared into the hard, dark face of her husband, Paul Stark.

  30

  After and Before

  It should have been excruciating.

  It should have been unbearable.

  It should have been tearing him to pieces—this reminder of all that he had lost. It should have been agonizing. He should have been howling and screaming.

  Instead, Paul Stark looked a little bored. He folded his hands on the small table. Then he unfolded them. Folded them again. He glanced up at the wall clock. Scratched his left cheek.

  Violet, watching from behind the glass partition, could see Stark’s Intercept feed on her console—she’d asked Reznik to patch her in—and that’s why she was so stunned by his nonchalance. It didn’t make sense.

  The Intercept was inundating his brain with a memory of what he had been. Not what he was now, trapped in a HoverUp, but the self he had been four years ago, just before a pulse from a slab gun had changed his life forever:

  Striding through the world on his own two feet. Bold. Strong. Resolute.

  Violet knew what he was supposed to be feeling as the image of this pivot-point in his destiny was thrust into his brain. He was supposed to be in the grip of an immense, razor-edged sadness as it jammed its way through his body, cutting him, slicing him, leaving him in emotional tatters. He was supposed to be bereft. Inconsolable.

  And yet he … wasn’t.

  It was just past six in the morning, an hour after the rescue of Ogden Crowley in the raid of Rebel headquarters. Violet had helped her father settle in at home, and then she had come right back to the station. Her curiosity wouldn’t let her stay away. She had to know: How did the Rebels resist the Intercept?

  She had stationed herself in the observation terrace that overlooked the interrogation room.

  Stark sat calmly in his chair. This was the largest and coldest and grimmest of the ten interrogation rooms in the Hawking police station. He winked at the cop who stood across the room. He smiled. Bring it on, his smile said, more eloquently than any words could have done.

  That cop was Allison Garrison.

  “Can you double-check his coordinates?” Garrison said into her console. “Nothing happening here.”

  “The coordinates are correct.” Reznik’s voice crackled through the speaker with its usual crisp arrogance. Violet recognized that tone. She’d heard it directed at herself many times. Of course the coordinates were right. He’d done them himself, and Steve Reznik didn’t make mistakes. “But I’ll check, sure. Whatever floats your boat.” That was another phrase Reznik had picked up during his readings of manuscripts from the twentieth century. He’d figured out its meaning from context. “Ready to go again?” Garrison said into her console.

  “Ready” came Reznik’s reply.

  Garrison looked over at Stark. The smile was still on his face; if anything, it had gotten bigger. More carefree. The faint whish-whoosh of his HoverUp had a jaunty sound to it now, not a mechanical one.

  Stark took a nonchalant look at the inside of his left elbow. He saw the tiny blue spark.

  * * *

  Four years ago:

  Once again, his mind is filled with the image of the second before a photon-pulse from a slab gun splinters his spine. He sees the scene, as if a film is being projected in front of his eyes: He falls to the pavement. The lower half of his body is a smear of dissolving skin and mutilated muscle.

  He’ll never walk again.

  He’ll never be able to stand up on his own.

  He laughed.

  “We’ll shut it down if you cooperate,” Garrison said. “Are you ready to talk?”

  “Ready to talk, Lieutenant? No, I don’t think so,” Stark said amiably. “But I’ll tell you what I am ready to do. I’m ready to have some breakfast. Any chance of getting a couple of eggs over easy and maybe some hash browns?”

  * * *

  Callahan, stiff-backed, blank-eyed, was seated behind the desk in her office down the hall from the interrogation rooms. The desk was a throwback, an old-fashioned wooden one, wide and chipped but solid, a souvenir from Old Earth. She had told Violet a few minutes ago that the desk made her feel grounded—which was an indispensable attribute right now, because her world had officially been shattered.

  Violet liked the desk, too. It was the kind of object she rarely saw on New Earth. It clearly had a history, a past. From her seat across from the chief, she leaned forward and ran her palm across the craggy surface.

  “We picked out this desk together, Paul and I,” Callahan continued. She didn’t look at Violet as she spoke. Instead her gaze was aimed at some distant point that, it seemed to Violet, no one but she could see. “Right after we were married. We brought it with us to New Earth. Wasn’t easy. Your father put a strict limit on physical possessions you could bring.” Her eyes had a faraway cast to them. “We had to leave behind so many things. I’m glad to have the desk—something from our old life.”

  Violet nodded. She didn’t know what to say.

  Callahan had asked her to be here, to keep her company while Garrison finished up the interrogations. She had finally given up on Stark—for the time being. She’d make another run at him later, Garrison said. Maybe another Rebel would crack first, spill some information, and they would have some leverage to use against Stark.

  Keep me company.

  That was the exact phrase the chief had used. Pretty strange, Violet thought, coming from a woman as tough and self-reliant as Michelle Callahan.

  But then again, not so strange when you realized the extent of her husband’s betrayal. Stark was a traitor. A conspirator.

  What’s it like, Violet asked herself, to suddenly realize that someone you love is a stranger?

  “We had a little slogan,” Callahan said. “A thing we shared.”

  “What was that?”

  “It was something we said to each other. ‘Once a cop, always a cop.’ Because we knew what we were. We had the same values. We had the same reactions. The same black-or-white, right-or-wrong way of viewing the world. And even though Paul didn’t wear his blue tunic anymore, I still thought he was—I would’ve sworn that he’d never abandon—” The chief faltered. “I was sure he was still a cop at heart.”

  Except that he’s not, Violet thought. He couldn’t be. He’s a person his own wife barely recognizes.

  As they were leading Stark out of the Rebel headquarters, he’d held his head high. Even though his hands were shackled behind his back, he moved with pride and purpose. His HoverUp made its familiar whish-whoosh sound. Violet had tried to catch his eye. Could this be the same man who’d eaten tomato basil soup across the table from her a few days ago?

  Stark ignored her. But he did pause before his wife.

  “Why are you doing this, Paul? Why?” she had asked him.

  “That’s not the question, Michelle. The question is—why aren’t you doing it, too?”

&nbs
p; Violet had had no idea what he meant by that. She still didn’t.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Chief? Sorry to bother you.”

  It was Garrison, and her face indicated she was not here to deliver good news. “I’ve finished the other interrogations. Time to go back to Stark. As you know, his Intercept feed had no impact.”

  “Not surprising,” Callahan said. “The Rebels have found a way to get around it.”

  “Yes. But I have an idea.”

  The chief shrugged. “You’ll have to run it past someone else. I’m not supervising this case. I can’t. Not with such a close personal tie to the prisoner.”

  “Understood. But you’re my mentor, Chief. Ever since I joined the force. I’m just asking for your opinion—not your approval.”

  Callahan nodded curtly. “Okay. Go on.”

  Garrison stepped into the office. She’d been hesitating on the threshold. She glanced dismissively at Violet before continuing. “Well,” she said, “from a quick preliminary assessment, it looks like the Rebels may only be able to resist the Intercept for short periods of time. They can stop its effects and do what they want to do. And then the shielding—or whatever it is—breaks down and they’re as susceptible as anybody else to the Intercept’s power.”

  “That may be the case, yes.”

  “So let’s wait a bit,” Garrison went on. “Leave Stark sitting there in the interrogation room. He’s been a cop. He knows how it usually works—we go in full strength, right away, and try to wear the suspect down. I bet he’s counting on that. But maybe that’s playing right into his hands. He’s expecting us to do that. And then—just when we’re ready to give up—that’s when he’ll actually be at his most vulnerable. When whatever method he’s using to keep the Intercept at bay is at its weakest.”

  “So we stop.”

  “For a period of time, yes.”

  “We do nothing.”

  “Right. We do nothing.”

  “Seems like a long shot.”

  Garrison’s tense expression relaxed just a bit. “With all due respect, Chief, I wouldn’t call it a long shot. I’d call it our only shot.”

  * * *

  Violet dipped a small corner of the cloth into the liquid. She had carried a bowl of cool water to her father’s chair. She used the cloth to dab at his forehead. Once, twice, on each temple. He flinched at each touch. He was not a man who enjoyed such visible proof of his frailties.

  He had refused to lie down on the couch, as Violet had advised. Instead he sat in his armchair.

  She would return to the station when Stark’s interrogation resumed, but for now, Violet needed to make sure her father was resting. Clearly the night’s turmoil had taken a toll on him. His skin was sallow and clammy, and he was so weak that he did not so much sit down in his armchair as stagger into it.

  “I wish you’d let me call a doctor, Dad,” Violet said. “Just for a quick check. You’ve been through hell.”

  Ogden shook his head emphatically. Violet had to wait until he’d finished before she could try another dab with the cloth.

  “Nonsense,” he declared.

  It was morning now, and the apartment’s glass walls let in the abundant light. In the streets below, another day on New Earth had begun. When Violet had returned home that morning she had found her father gazing out these windows, watching the sunlight awaken this bright dream of a world.

  After the longest night, there was always a next day. That’s what her father had taught her. Morning was the essence of New Earth. A new hope.

  Ogden took a deep breath. Violet saw him grip the armrests with his scarred hands, readjusting himself in his chair.

  “I’d been through interventions before, you know,” he said. “I felt it was only fair that I test the system. But those times, the Intercept retrieved more predictable moments, such as the deaths of my parents. The moment I was told that my leg was useless. Moments that you would expect it to fetch.

  “But to tell you the truth, Violet, it had never occurred to me—until last night—that the Intercept might select a happy moment. A moment so golden, so joyful, so perfect, that the fact it would never return could hurt me far worse than a horrific one.” He settled his hands on his lap. “The Intercept has moved a step ahead. It understands things I’ve only just come to realize. Happiness—happiness that has passed, never to return—can be as painful as sadness.”

  Violet was struck by an unsettling thought. The Intercept didn’t simply respond to what people like her and Rez told it to do anymore. It seemed to know more about human emotions than human beings did. It wasn’t just thinking.

  It was thinking ahead.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Violet’s console alerted her to a call. Reznik’s face materialized on her screen.

  “Glad to hear you’re okay,” he said. “And your dad, too.”

  “Thanks. Hey, I’ve got a lot to do, and so if that’s the only reason you called, then I need to—”

  “Wait. Wait, Violet. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s big,” he said. He was talking faster now. He sounded nervous. “I had to hang out here all night, in case they needed me, and I passed the time doing a retroactive analysis of weight distribution in portal fields and I found this anomaly that could only mean that—listen, I need to tell you in person. Can you come over to Protocol Hall? I can’t leave—I’m on call all day. For the cops.”

  Violet looked over at her father. He had fallen asleep. Deeply this time. Restfully. Which meant she could return to the police station to watch Garrison take another run at Stark.

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can,” she said. “No promises.”

  She could tell by his silence that Reznik wasn’t pleased at the delay. Reznik always seemed to want more from her than she could give.

  “Okay. Guess that’ll have to do,” he finally said. “Oh, and Violet—whatever you do—don’t bring Danny, okay?”

  “What’s this got to do with him?”

  “Just make sure you come by yourself.”

  31

  The Kiss

  Allison Garrison walked back into the interrogation room. She nodded toward the observational terrace. She wasn’t saying hello to Violet—like that would ever happen—but rather acknowledging Violet’s presence and offering the silent but unmistakable opinion that she was nothing but a nuisance.

  Got my eyes on you, girl. That was how Violet interpreted Garrison’s nod. And that green-eyed stare of hers.

  This time, Violet wasn’t alone in the small room. Callahan stood beside her.

  Why would Callahan want to be here? Violet asked herself.

  “Maybe this will help me understand,” Callahan murmured, as if Violet had spoken out loud. “How could Paul do this? How could he have undermined my work—which was his work, too, until his accident—by leading the Rebels?”

  Stark sat in the same seat he’d been sitting in before, yet he looked very different now. He was weary, Violet surmised, from a long day spent in a cold gray space. But it was more than that, too.

  His eyes had lost their glitter. They didn’t follow Garrison’s movements as she crossed the room to stand in front of him. They stayed fixed on a spot on the wall. There was a layer of sweat across his forehead. His hands trembled.

  “Are you ready to talk?” Garrison said.

  Stark didn’t answer. That, too, marked a change. Before, he’d been happy to reply with a joke or a wisecrack.

  “How do you withstand the Intercept?”

  Garrison had asked him the very same question many, many times, but that was before. Eight hours before. “How, Stark? You and your friends—how do you do it? You know we have to find out. We can’t allow a loophole like this to exist. So tell us. And we’ll make sure you end up in a nice warm prison instead of a cold, filthy one.”

  Stark licked his lips. Still no reply.

  “One last
chance,” Garrison said. “What’s the secret?”

  Stark was slumped in his seat. His skin looked haggard and yellow. Even the whish-whoosh of his HoverUp sounded fainter now, less sure of itself, as if the machine that held him up somehow echoed his unraveling.

  “Okay,” Garrison said. “You know the drill. I’m going to call for the Intercept.” She tapped her console. “Protocol Hall? Are you there?”

  Stark’s face suddenly contorted with anxiety. He still didn’t speak, but his body began to tremble.

  Garrison tapped her console again. “Let her rip.”

  Prodded by a series of keystrokes on a computer in a workstation in Protocol Hall, the Intercept jumped into action, plunging deep into Paul Stark’s file to choose his most profound memory. It was different from the one it had chosen for him earlier, because emotions were always changing, second by second, with some emotions growing more intense as others faded.

  The Intercept force-fed that memory back into his brain.

  This time, there was nothing to block the reception, nothing to stop the feeling from flooding his senses—and sending him headfirst into the most dangerous place of all:

  The past.

  * * *

  Violet hated to admit it, but it looked as if Garrison’s hunch had been right. Whatever Stark and the Rebels used to keep the Intercept from affecting them, it had a limited shelf life. It was wearing off. And leaving Stark vulnerable.

  Stark writhed and twisted in his seat. He jerked his head from side to side, trying to escape—but there was no escape from his own memory-induced emotions.

  “Please,” he called out. “Stop this. I’m begging you—I’ll do anything—I’ll do—”

  “Tell me how you beat the Intercept,” Garrison said, cutting him off.

  “I can’t. I can’t.” His voice rose into a sob. “We’ve worked too hard—people have died helping us—I can’t betray—”

  “Don’t go there, Stark. Don’t talk about betrayal. You and your friends are trying to destroy New Earth.”